So Ann came downstairs in tears last night...

...and she was beside herself.  But even then, there was a hint of a grin on her face, but mostly mortified fear.

Apparently, she felt the baby's foot for the first time. This, however, was not a moment of joy, but rather one of sheer terror. No, this was not a great moment, but a gross one.  It's pretty much great for other people, but for her, well...

The baby apparently takes after its mother - like Ann, it has an apparent hair of running in place while laying down if the ultrasounds are any indication.  That Ann gets to feel what I put up with from her every night?

I have to laugh.  It's a moment, a milestone. And it made my wife want to throw up.

Why We're Not Finding Out

We had the first ultrasound where we could find out the gender of our little spawn last week. We didn't take advantage.

Unscientific polls of people we know suggest it's about 50/50 on people who want/wanted to know and those who did not when it came to their little people. The one universal constant is how sure everyone is when it comes down to their way being the way it should be done. At the end of the day, though, it ultimately comes down to two reasons: one fun, and one practical.

* On a fun level, we live in New England, which means babies get Red Sox stuff. If it's a little girl, we'd like to avoid the pink stuff as much as possible. It's kind of silly, yes, and it's not so much that we're at all concerned with gender roles and expectations or whatever. It's just that pink Red Sox stuff is a little obnoxious.

* On a more practical level, our friend Mark put it pretty well: this is one of the last big surprises we can have as a couple. Perhaps as human beings period. Why not enjoy it for what it is, and have a blast with it anyway?

After all, if it's a girl, everyone will buy it pink stuff then anyway.

I hope my future kid is this cool

Omaha schoolgirl dresses as a different historical figure each day:

The Dundee Elementary School third-grader comes to school dressed as a different historical figure or character — Every. Single. Day. And she's done that since the second day of second grade, when this all started.

I'm impressed by this in part because the kid is so darn smart, but also because her parents not only go along with it, but actually foster it. And good on the school - and the kids at school - for accepting it and working with it.

I know this is a lot like what Ann & I hope to be with our kid. Maybe it won't dress up like a historical figure, but if they have a passion and we're able to facilitate it, I think that will go a long way toward our being successful parents.

The Big Reveal...

So after waiting and waiting, and, frankly, after 7 weeks of just insane amounts of work for me, we did the announcement on the Facebook and such yesterday.

What's interesting is just how funny it is to let people know. It was likely different before there was an unspoken expectation to share basic important life things all the time - you told people when you saw them, and you maybe called them if you remembered. Today, you're trying to keep track of the people who aren't on Facebook, and the family members who are and might leak the information early, and the people who you want to tell in person so they don't find out on Facebook.

With our life as it is, it's difficult. We see people when we see people, and not a moment before. We try to schedule times to see them, it doesn't always work. Then you're coming up on the point where Ann's starting to show a little bit and it's an open secret and you just have to dive right in.

Most people understand. If there are people who do not, they thankfully haven't been vocal about it, and hopefully they're getting there. But the "starved for positive attention" sides of us really generally loved getting a lot of positive comments from people on what ended up being a hard day for us this past weekend. As difficult as it is managing online and offline life and etiquette when it comes to pregnancy stuff, it turned out a lot better than what our overall concerns were.

Life With Pregnant Ann.

Today, we got the first ultrasound images.

Jeff: "You're baking quite the bun in your oven!"
Ann: "With cheesy crust?"

Expectations and Reality

At around this time, we've known that we're pregnant for about a week now. Some weird things about observing pregnancy:

* Pregnancy math, or the idea that conception is backdated a certain way due to cycles and such. I still don't understand it, to be fair, but it's not really my role to figure that out anyway.

* Telling people and not telling people: Traditionally, because so many things could go wrong, people don't tell other people until a certain point in the pregnancy. What Ann told me, and with the understanding that 72% of statistics are made up on the spot, is that, by far, most pregnancies don't have any problems. Something like 9 out of 10 are fine after the crucial first month or so. On one hand, it makes the waiting game feel kind of silly, but, on the other, who doesn't know someone who's miscarried? It's a tough thing to balance.

So, of course, we struggle to figure out when to tell people. Obviously, we have to share it with the immediate family we live with because, in the event something does go wrong, they're going to be witness to it. But what about the fact that we only see Ann's family every so often? Or that we're going on vacation with some close friends, and Ann can't drink? It's especially touchy in the internet/Facebook age - I know full well that people I want to have know early simply won't until they see it on Facebook, and that kind of stinks. But this is the world we live in.

* I'm helpless: Seriously. Ann's morning all day sickness kicked in fairly quickly, and all I can do is feed her peppermint gum and watch her suffer until this passes. I can't force her to do more in any area, but I want to make sure she's eating enough, that she's getting the rest she needs, and there's no way to guarantee that, nor has that ever been our dynamic. Then there's the "mother with Alzheimer's" wild card...

It's a weird place to be in, especially when you're in what amounts to pregnancy limbo. It's not so much a "I want to shout it from the rooftops" type thing as much as "let's get to the next step already..."

What's Going On Here?

So this is more of a blog to kind of chronicle what is really quickly the most scary and exciting part of my life - the fact that, in about 8 months, I'm going to be a father.

Some basic notes for newcomers, or those who don't know everything already:

* Home life includes my wife, Ann, Pigeon the cat, Lucy the dog, and our little rugrat-to-be.

* We live in a house with my parents, one of whom is slowly fading away due to Alzheimer's, which is why we're here.

* We have a room that has built in library bookcases, and we own roughly 1900 books, which I'm sure our future spawn will love.

* We live in a small town in Massachusetts. I grew up here, Ann is a transplant.

I'm not going to go into details as to the craziness that is conception itself, but it should be noted that Ann considers herself to be a scientist of sorts because of the amount of research and testing she did to figure out fertility and all that jazz. For everything that she did, it only really took us two months from when we decided this is what we wanted to getting what we were looking for.

Future fatherhood is strange. I've traditionally been one to just share my thoughts, and my goal with this is to keep all my family and friends who are all over the country up to date, as well as be a record to hopefully show my future son or daughter. We'll see how that goes, but having had a desire to do some more long-form writing, this isn't a bad way to do it, either. Blogs are the baby books of the 21st century, right?

Anyway, welcome aboard. Should be an interesting ride...