we’re painting the nursery a light pink right now.

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tuesday morning at 8:00, we have the 20-week ultrasound. stephanie will make sure she’s properly hydrated and we’ll find out all about gus’ health, size & weight. most exciting of all is finding out what gus is. no more “it”s; we’re moving on to “he”s or “she”s. we’ve already picked out two sets of bedding and two paint colors. stephanie’s finger is already on the pottery barn kids checkout button.

gus’ growth has been amazing. for 17 weeks, the little thing grew and grew, but was so small that stephanie didn’t really change. suddenly, two weeks ago, this tiny little belly started appearing and, inside of it, a little kicking monster. we now spend large chunks of time just staring at her belly, waiting for gus to kick or punch again. she’s my beautiful little pregnant wife.

we rented a belly beats fetal doppler monitor for the month. it’s amazing to hear that tiny little thing beating away 155 times per minute. it’s such a strange thing to imagine this little bugger inside of stephanie. obviously it’s still dependent on her for food & shelter, but it has its own heartbeat; its own little brain. it’s completely baffling; so i did what any good dad-to-be would do: i made an iphone ringtone.

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our condo has been on the market for over seven months. i suppose i should say had been, as we took it off just over a week ago. we have been wanting to move to a little bit of a larger place, but we weren’t really in any rush. with gus’ impending arrival, we had quite a bit more motivation to find somewhere to live with a little more room and a lot more sound insulation. being able to hear a baby cry from two floors below us isn’t terribly encouraging, especially for our neighbors.

two and a half housing heartbreaks later, the house hunt has completely taken over our lives and the stress has really been prohibiting us from enjoying anything. even gus. and that’s just not right. so we’re almost certainly going to settle in here for the next two years. we’ll add some sound insulation to the shared wall and get a nice sleeper sofa for when family comes to stay the night. our condo is lovely and we’ll just have to do a few things to make it perfect for a baby.

our to-do list just became significantly shorter and now we will be able to spend more focus on the countless positive parts of our lives, most importantly, gus.

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this week, in addition to our 12-week ultrasound, we told our works and friends. by the looks of it, my boss just happens to be approximately 13-months pregnant. she was so happy for me when i told her. i also got a high-five from beth and all kelli could do was jump up and down, clap & proclaim that she is a great babysitter; i hope she knows what she’s in for.

a pregnancy rumor has been spreading on stephanie’s floor and the other nurses have been on a witch hunt to find out who it is. she was finally able to put the rumor to rest and told the nursing supervisor that she was the guilty party. her supervisor was very supportive and happy for her. at least now she has a legitimate reason to avoid x-rays and other potentially damaging procedures.

i emailed josh, jared & john this morning and they wrote back with jokes and congratulations.

now, we can finally be public.

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we went into the 12-week appointment with great news—our insurance will cover all of the prenatal tests, even the ones that are completely uneccessary for a healthy 25 year old woman in her first pregnancy. first on the list for today is an ultrasound in which the technician measures a fluid tube in gus’ neck to check for birth defects or down syndrome. neither one of us have a history of that and it’s a near impossibility, but we do get to see the ultrasound as the tech is searching for measurements.

we knew stephanie had to have a full bladder to help push gus up and make it a little easier on the tech, so she drank a bottle of water on the way to northwestern. after a short wait, we found ourselves in a dimly-lit room with a rather snippy young woman who promptly asked, “did they not tell you to drink water, or could you just not hold it anymore?”

excuse me? did our happiness piss you off or are you just generally this delightful with everyone? yes, she drank a bottle of water on the way here, just as she was asked.

the tech said she’d be back in a few minutes and hopefully stephanie could fill her bladder a little bit by then. i had packed a liter of smartwater for my afternoon at work, but handed it over to stephanie. she chugged the entire liter down like a champ, and with 54 ounces of water down the hatch by 9:30am, the tech came back. this time she was much nicer.

there gus was, sucking its thumb, all curled up on the screen. its little heartbeat a pixelated flutter of constant motion. it looked so different than what we had seen just four weeks ago. tiny little legs, hands with fingers. gus actually looked like a tiny little person. sure its head was enormous and it had little stick limbs, but it has fingers. fingers. while stephanie’s bladder was quickly filling up and gus was much more illuminated, the little bugger wasn’t in the right position for the test and just didn’t want to move.

“let’s have you roll on to your side.”
not budging.
“ok, the other side now.”
still sucking its thumb.
“ok, on to your back again.”
snoozing away.
“can you get up and walk around a little bit?”
“ok, let’s try again.”

this time gus was awake, and maybe not so happy. the ultrasound screen lit up with a tiny little gus thrashing and kicking around. gus quickly calmed and re-entered dream land. until the tech started bouncing and shaking the ultrasound thingy on stephanie’s belly. the thrashing resumed and was very entertaining. she was finally able to make her measurements and even gave us a terrific profile, fingers and all.

after a few trips to the bathroom, we went in to meet with sara who was just as great as we had remembered. she answered a question or two about stephanie’s exposure to diseases at children’s, then we got to hear gus’ heartbeat. it was pumping away at 165 beats per minute; amazing.

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steve & cheryl

we told steve & cheryl this weekend. stephanie has been absolutely beside herself scared about telling them and i’ve been trying to tell her that i think they’ll be thrilled. she could happily admit that i was right.

we were sitting at the island having lunch when cheryl asked what stephanie wanted to tell them. after a moment of hesitation, she blurted out that we were going to have a baby. eyes instantly brimming with tears, both steve & cheryl were thrilled. beyond thrilled. steve proclaimed that it was exactly what they need in their lives and there were hugs all around and bubbly almost all around.

dana

unfortunately, dana had to settle for over the phone. it was a normal weekend conversation that was beginning to ebb when i happened to mention that i had something to tell her.

“stephanie and i are having a baby.”

she gasped-choked and immediately started to cry. she was so happy and wanted to know how far along we were, how stephanie was feeling, everything. she was thrilled.

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Step Four: Excitement, wait we already had that step. EXCITEMENT, that’s better

we went to northwestern today and met sara. there were pregnant ladies everywhere and soon-to-be big brothers and sisters. i didn’t realize how frequently kids come in sets. stephanie peed in a cup, had her blood pressure & blood taken and then we sat down with sara. she’s unimaginably better in person than we could have ever guessed. sara’s all about normalcy and sure, we’ll deliver in a hospital but the doctors will only intervene if there is something wrong. no induction unless it is urgently and medically necessary. phenomenal. she went over all of the questions with us.

“genetic disorders?”
nope.
“drugs?”
nope.
“drinking?”
barely even socially.
“smoking?”
no way.
“cool.”

“here’s what you need to watch out for; do you eat meat?”
no.
“oh, well there’s nothing you need to watch out for then.”

then we were off to the ultrasound. this whole thing has been unreal; like we were in a movie. after a quick exam, the screen came to life as sara hunted for the little thing.

and then there was gus. all of a sudden, this little being was up there on the screen. holy shit, there it is. those 10 tests and that mild nausea were all right there. it’s real. gus is real and living inside of stephanie. we both melted. how can this be real?

this little flippered alien parasite became lovable. i love this thing. you could make out it’s yolk sac, its little tail and flippers. its brain hole.

what to call it, what to call it? we don’t know what it is yet, and we don’t want to give it a name only to not like the name later. i’ve got it. GUS. gus, for giant uber surprise.

whoa, i could even see its heartbeat. there it was, this tiny pixelated fluctuation from gray to black to gray to black to gray to black. amazing.

then it moved. it fucking moved. even sara was surprised. it was in that moment that everything just. went. away.

are we young? yes, whatever.
can we afford this? who cares? yes. i don’t know. yes.
will our families freak out? yes. NO. no, not now. they’ll be thrilled

wait, did it really just move? how is that possible?

sara snapped a fuzzy picture, and we resolved to bring a camera to the next ultrasound. it’s real. it’s finally totally real. it was very hard to concentrate at work for the rest of the day.

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she said that she knew the next day, and on a certain level i did too. 10 pregnancy tests later, we were both pretty certain that we were no longer alone. and honestly, it freaked us the hell out. we both wanted children but the plan was to try in two years and that even seemed soon. there it was, though, 18 pink lines and two LED words later; we were pregnant.

Step One: Confusion

i always thought step one was denial. maybe it was, but it just happened so quickly that i jumped ahead to confusion. no anger, not at all. i just wasn’t sure what to do next. we drifted apart for about 18 hours. but only for 18 hours.

Step Two: Acceptance

well, it’s happening. i love my wife and she loves me a lot too. We make a pretty damn good family right now with satch + punks, so why not something else? i secretly realize that when stephanie told me i’d never feel ready to start a family, that she was right. how could i feel ready for this? it’s scary. it wasn’t according to our plan, but it’s here. and you know what? it’s pretty awesome.

Step Three: Excitement

there’s this little thing; this little surprise growing inside of stephanie’s belly. it’s not a person yet. it’s not a baby yet, it’s some sort of minute alien parasite. it has flippers. and a tail. there’s this little flippered alien parasite growing inside of my wife. it sounds kind of fun. sometimes it makes her want to vomit a little and sometimes it makes her a little more hungry. she has no awareness of it being there, stealing her food, slowly evolving into something vaguely more humanoid. it started out as two cells, then became a tadpole, then grew little flippers and is working on tiny little fingerlets. i wonder if it wants mittens.

we picked out a midwifery practice and stephanie scheduled an appointment. they didn’t give us who we wanted, but she called back and rescheduled to get sara. she seems nice—she has a kind smile in her picture at least.

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