It's a...

During our last doctor's visit, I learned something absolutely incredible. What, did I find out, you ask? Here it is-- Hollywood starlet Brittany Murphy lives in a beautiful mansion with her mother and that actress Illeana Douglas favors furniture from Restoration Hardware. It was all from In Style Home magazine which I--gasp!--found in our baby doc's waiting room. It was no ESPN the Magazine, but I was happy to turn the pages of anything not including the word "pregnancy" or "mother" in the title.

Well, maybe I should admit it wasn't the most amazing thing to become aware of. What did qualify as incredible was finding out the sex of our baby. The above photo shows our little one hanging out in mommy's tummy and it looks like she/he is having a nice time in there. At least he/she doesn't have to go to work or school.

My guess is you can't guess the sex from that pic. So, I'm about to reveal the gender. Now some of you do not want to know and in that case, do not click this link. For those that would like to know if we're opting for pink or blue, click here.

By the way, despite what the ultrasound photo looks like, we confirmed with the doctor that it's not an alien.

Wishful Thinking

Your eyes are affixed to a pic of our baby's nursery. Looks stimulating doesn't it? There are plenty of CDs to awaken the baby's senses. Hundreds of 'em and they're all Baby Einstein approved (ignore those "Explicit Lyrics: Parental Advisory" stickers please). There's a fascinating graffiti painting (it's says "ERNI" if you're wondering) and that's something to surely send our little one's sensitivities into outer realms that Dr. Spock would undoubtedly envy.

OK. Back to reality. The CDs have been whittled down to not that many--even though it may not look like it. Literally hundreds have gone the way of Ebay and a host of my hip-hop themed toys have just been placed up for grabs on the web. Click here now and place your bids!

As for my prized graffiti acrylic on canvas, I tried to convince my wife that the baby would love it, as it would awaken the senses. Plus, we'd have Bethesda's only baby staring a graffiti painting all day. Talk about bragging rights! Her answer was something to the effect of "You're nuts."

Down, but not out, I wasn't done yet. We had a couple friends over for dinner last night and I posed the question to another mommy-to-be (our pals are expecting almost the same time we are) and she chuckled a bit. "No," she replied with a bit of disbelief. She probably thought it was a joke, but in my vacuous brain, I actually thought someone might agree with me on this one. Traditional nursery fare it ain't, but it's like installing some of me in the baby. Although technically, there should be plenty of that already.

Looks like I need to take one for the team here. Sorry little gal/guy, you would have loved it.

Hormone Free?

As my wife and a couple friends sat in a Silver Spring ice cream store last night, I began thinking of a couple things. I know what you're thinking--and yes--I do this from time to time.

First, why are we are we eating ice cream when it's 34 degrees outside? (for the record, I had sorbet) The next thing that dashed through my mind was because of this shop's hormone-free, homemade ice cream. Hormones were bad, they say. What about my wife's hormones?

After we joked about how they were raging from time to time and how this was just the right ice cream to ingest during a pregnancy, it dawned on me that her hormones are not raging. Oh, they've raged before, but not so much since she's been pregnant. Maybe I've got it backwards. Maybe they're supposed to be cool and calm during these nine months. But instead of out of control mood swings, I'm getting treated to my wife's fatigue. She's regularly tired. Early bedtimes are the norm.

Since I'm much the same way (don't call me after 8:30pm), it's a treat for me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to take a nap.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

My Room?

Now comes setting up the baby's room. You know, the baby's room. No? Oh, you're not familiar with this room? Well, perhaps you'll recognize it as what it's currently known as--your music room. It's the extra room that you proclaimed as your own when you moved into your house. It's the room that you use to escape to when your wife was watching some bulls**t movie on the Lifetime network, usually starring Judith Light from TV's "Who's The Boss?" that deals with how horrible men are. Now that room, your sanctuary, is going to be covered top to bottom in fluffy bunnies and baby accessories.

--From "The Guy's Guide To Surviving Pregnancy, Childbirth and the first year of Fatherhood" by Michael Crider.


OK, it ain't that bad. And keep in mind, this book I just quoted--while completely hilarious--has a positive review from Jenny McCarthy slapped on the cover. Anyway, with a newborn coming into a condo, one thing that pops into my mind is space. My space. No, not MySpace, but space that is mine. I call it the office. It's that room filled with collectible toys, graffiti paintings, loads of hip-hop magazines and lord knows how many CDs.

I need to take one for the team, I thought. After surveying my kingdom, eh, the "office," I realized that I had a few too many CDs on the racks. So, I parted with 317 of them on e-bay, sold to a kind gentleman in Michigan. (Don't worry, you wouldn't have wanted any of these.)

Here's a portion of what left the condo:


This might be hard to believe, but I just uncovered about 100 more that should have been sold as well. Look for more goodies on e-bay soon. This probably sounds absurd, but I've been called worse. I consider this my ultimate act of humility and offer profuse apologies to the artists I had to part with including Snoop Doggy Dogg, Ice Cube and even--**sniff, sniff**--Nine Inch Nails. Sorry guys.

Advice: No's 1-3

Since pregnancy can be both a wonderful and nerve-racking experience, I'm guessing it's normal to be somewhat nervous about what lies ahead. Thankfully, it's easy to stay calm through a technique I've encouraged my wife to practice--simply take a look around when you are in public. Everyone you see is a result of pregnancy and most are doing fairly well--even if those cousins and uncles are a bit off balance (not our families, of course).

This brings us to this first of many entries on advice. All these people you see--it doesn't matter if they know you or not--they're more than willing to tell us about having a baby and what to expect. There's lots of unsolicited advice to be had and at even at its worst, it's quite interesting. What follows are the most recent bits of advice we've received. The quotes will remain anonymous to avoid antagonizing our friends and relatives.

1) "If you have a boy, nothing you own will be yours anymore. Kiss it all goodbye."
I guess that means my kid could be potentially swiping piles of rap magazines and What's Happening DVD's.

2) "Buy diapers. Lots of 'em."
This one's pretty straightforward.

3) "Ignore anything you read in those pregnancy books." --received three times thus far!
See honey? This is why I haven't finished this one.

Stay tuned for more advice! Feel free to send some in. Believe me, we need the help!

And they say...

Men cannot be pregnant.

Tell that to Val Kilmer.

What's Up Doc?

I had my first OBGYN visit this week. He looked me over and declared me to be a man. Really though, I went with Jess to get a rundown on her pregnancy.

Let's just say I was a wee bit uncomfortable in this type of doctor's office. The main problem with our surroundings wasn't the pregnant women though, it was the lack of entertaining periodicals. Where's the Sports Illustrated? I'd even have settled for a copy of Us Weekly! Guess SI isn't read too frequently in there. They did have copies of Parenting, Motherhood, Fatherhood, Pregnancy and Cat Fancy--if I remember right.

After we were ushered in, our Doc asked some basic questions. Thankfully, are you pregnant wasn't one of them. (I obviously didn't know what to expect.) After a short while, he got out what looked like a Fisher Price My First Microphone set and placed it on our baby's current home--my wife's belly. He announced that we'd be hearing our baby's heartbeat soon. He also said that sometimes it takes a while to find amongst all the stomach rumbling (OK, he didn't say that last part.). After a few minutes passed of sounds that weren't far from Jaques Cousteau's undersea recordings, he playfully complained that Jess was his first patient of the day and he hoped it wasn't indicative of how his Monday would go. Finally, we heard the heartbeat. While visions of E.T.'s glowing red heart bounced through my brain--don't ask why--we heard something like a choo-choo train (i'm trying out my babyspeak). There, it was evidence that something was in there. Doc also told us that a sonogram is a waste of money at this point because it doesn't tell you anything.Wow! A competent, no-nonsense dude that's out to save us a buck--sounds good. Mr. M.D. strikes a balance somewhere between frugal and fantastic, so we're quite happy with him.

We'll provide another medical update in about a month. Maybe I'll bring my own copy of SLAM.

Our library

This is our library. I call it the "Tower Of Titles." Thankfully, it's not a leaning tower.

Yet.

If you ever need books on pregnancy--and this isn't even getting into "baby" books yet--please come see us. We have 9 to choose from. Want the womb? We got one. Need to know what to "expect"? Check. Need to know what dad's are supposed to do? Got ya covered.

At least we're not in double digits.

Yet.

Hopefully we can learn something from these books. We're probably going to learn a heckuva lot on the fly.

Have any advice for us? Post a comment!

Full disclosure--some of these books were given to us.

How It Happened...

For some background, lemme tell you how this all happened.

No, not that.

Trust me, you wouldn’t even want to know that anyway.

The first thing to note is that I didn’t believe my wife was pregnant. When she announced she’d missed her period, I scoured our place and tried to find it the missing punctuation point. (And people say I don't help around the house!) No luck.

Next, I got a pregnancy test. After she doused it with urine and we waited half a minute, it read “+.” I got another one. Make that another three. All positive.

After spending close to $100 trying to confirm the same thing several times, I still didn’t believe it. My wife set a doctor’s appointment and I waited for the official word. This is how my mind works–I wasn’t convinced, even after shelling out the hundred bucks. When my hapless Redskins are favored to win, I’m wholeheartedly convinced they’ll prevail. When I’m staring at multiple positive pregnancy tests, I’m doubtful. Figure that one out.

Maybe the tests were error prone–hey, they’re only 99.5% effective! I’ll admit, the odds were slim that we weren’t going to have a new addition, but it was only when she came home from the doctor that I accepted it.
She called me immediately and the thought that first entered my head was wow! There were times in my life when I never thought I’d be in this situation and here it was.

I’m Gonna Be A Daddy!