On Saturday November 20th, 2010 my wonderful wife told me she thought we might be pregnant. We went to the store, bought a few home pregnancy test and over the next few hours we used all of them. Sure enough she was right, we were having a baby. The realities of having a child, rather becoming a parent took a moment to swallow.

We made a doctors appointment that Monday, she confirmed we were pregnant and gave us some advice on how to get started. A few of the things we described to her warranted concern and she asked us to get an ultrasound that day at the hospital, we of course went. The ultrasound technician did her thing, searching the screen for something, with very little narration of what she was seeing or what she was looking for she finished and said the doctor should review the ultrasound in the next few days and get back to us. As we were leaving I asked, “did you find what you were looking for?” and the technician automatically replied, “I can’t make diagnosis, the doctor will be in touch with us in a few days”. Though her response didn’t imply anything was wrong, it certainly wasn’t re-assuring, and provided no answers as to why we were rushed to the hospital. The awe and amazement of being pregnant had just turned on us, we left the hospital on a roller-coaster of emotion.

We hadn’t told anyone that we were pregnant, and after our very un-resolving visit to the hospital we were apprehensive to get excited about a pregnancy that seemed to possibly be experiencing complications. We were instructed to come back the next day to have Lindsey’s blood drawn and once again two days after that to analyze levels of HCG in her blood.

Lindsey and I would spend the next week pretentiously continuing on with life, though we felt we had been sentenced to wait in limbo. The next week we finally heard back from the doctor, and they found Lindsey’s HCG levels were doubling like they should be, the fears of an ectopic pregnancy were settled, we were pregnant and everything seemed to be progressing well.

We looked around to find an OBGYN and made an appointment for the Friday the 3rd of December. Our first visit was surreal, Dr. England was agreeable, and the baby was healthy. We weren’t able to hear a heartbeat, but we were able to find a gestational sac, just where it needed to be at just the right size. A baby was coming. As we discussed our questions about the pregnancy the doctor reminded us that Lindsey would start feeling morning sickness before our next appointment. I asked, “Will it start between Christmas and New Years?” because this would be the time we would be in Hawaii for the holidays,Dr.England replied in the affirmative.

One month later, we returned to the hospital for our next appointment, we had just returned home from the beautiful (rainy & cloudy actually) beaches of Hawaii and were excited to get an update on the development our clump of cells.

On January 3rd, 2011 the above photo was taken of our growing baby, measuring 3.8cm long approximately 10 weeks 5 days old we were able to also hear out baby’s rapid heartbeat at about 167bpm. It truly a remarkable experience.

By now had gotten more comfortable with the idea of having a child, we had spend extra time with our lovely nieces, we had talked about our ‘family’, spent alot of time imagining a baby in our howe and as a part of our live together. the trouble was, at this point the baby was merely an it. This made it difficult to identify with and with our next appointment scheduled

Our next appointment is for another ultrasound to check on the baby’s anatomy and peak at the baby’s sex. By now excited to find out what it was, we thought it would make the idea of the baby more real, the baby was merely an it, which was hard to identify with. Lindsey was convinced that knowing the sex of the baby would make it more real.

So, on January 29th we went to the Fetal Photo in the mall, to find out the baby’s sex. My brother and his wife, Lindsey’s sister and husband came with us, both bringing their little girls, and Lindsey’s mother as well. My parents were out of town for the weekend, and mother, we thought about waiting for you but Lindsey couldn’t wait. The experience, not the “photo studio” which lacked in every quality (but I won’t elaborate further) was incredible. The technician was able to tell the sex (above) but was also able to get her to move. To see a 5in long baby, my baby, move inside it’s mother, my wife, was amazing, inspiring, unbelievable!

Since then, my thoughts have been less on the awe of having a child, I’m really starting to like that idea, but rather, more on what it will be like to be a father. I’ll write more on that later.