wuv, twue wuv...

NIOSA is billed as "a four-night event that celebrates San Antonio's diverse cultural heritiage with 15 ethnic areas that serve fabulous in over 250 food booths and provides entertainment to over 85,000 revelers." What that description fails to mention is that 80,000 of those revelers are morbidly obese and wearing inappropriately revealing clothing while ravenously consuming fabulous foods from over 250 food booths. I, as you may have guessed, am not a fan of NIOSA but Clara is and so once a year I dutifully agree to go and spend an excruciating couple of hours seeing far more flesh than one man should ever be required to witness. Due to the fact that she is great with child, Clara felt going herself wasn't such a good idea, though she still craved chicken-on-a-stick and funnel-cake. Being as how here pregnancy is partially my fault, I agreed to enter this wretched hive alone. I went in with a list and came out with a sack containing various fried food items as well as a mild case of post-traumatic stress disorder.

If this be not love, then truly I know not what it is.

mind the gap (and the passed out pregnant lady)

So Ms. Clara and I just returned from our holiday in London.  It was a great trip in which we had the opportunity to see a great city and visit with some great friends.  Whenever I would complain about having to carry around her luggage she would point out that she was carrying my child.  There was little I could say to counter that.

Despite doing a considerable amount of walking, Clara did remarkably well.  There was one slightly scary moment where Clara began to feel faint while we were making a connection at the train station at the King's Cross tube station.  Luckily our friend, Navvab, offered up her bottle of water and after a minute of resting on a bench all was well.

With a little narrative embellishment, this will no doubt make for a good story to tell the little one.

200 days and counting

We made our three-month visit to Dr. Villanueva today and while he did not employ the ultrasound machine, he did pull out this fun little piece of equipment that consisted of a little microphone that was connected to a speaker clipped to his belt. As sophisticated as this piece of medical equipment no doubt was, it looked to me an awful lot like a Mr. Mike toy. Dr. V said it might take a moment to locate the heartbeat – apparently the little guy might have crawled down one of Clara’s legs or perhaps was hanging out in her upper chest cavity. Nevertheless we soon heard the heartbeat – 170 of them a minute to be precise – and we all breathed a sign of relief. Then Dr. V’s phone started ringing and because it was a musical ring, we momentarily thought our fetus had installed a sound system in my wife’s womb. When this was pointed out, Clara began to laugh and that chuckle translated through the Mr. Mike toy made it sound like there was something demonic inside my wife. I do not think I like the Mr. Mike toy.

In other news I downloaded an iPhone app yesterday that allows you to set a date and then the phone counts down the number of days until that date. As luck would have it, today is 200 days until October 26.

dreaming of the unborn

So I had what I think was my first dream about my unborn child last night.  I don't remember my dreams all that often so that is why this event is somewhat noteworthy.  The details are a little sketchy, but I believe Clara and I were unloading the little person (I don't recall a gender) into a stroller in a parking lot when another couple came and started getting into the car next to us.  In the process of doing so they moved the stroller in which our unborn child was still riding in out of their way and some words were exchanged.  I don't remember the intensity of the altercation (For the record I don't often dream of picking fights) or much about the person I was arguing with, other than he looked a little like the associate dean of UTSA's School of Architecture (who is a nice guy who I normally would not pick a fight with).  Anyway for what ever reason the situation was diffused and Clara, my hypothetical child and I walked away.  As we did, I saw the child (who now for some reason NOT in the stroller but was being carried by Clara) looking back at me over my wife's shoulder.  He/she smiled at me and all the feelings of anger disappeared and I no longer wanted to beat in the face of UTSA's associate dean.

I have no idea what this means, but I woke up feeling good.

flying home

Clara and I (and the fetus) flew home this past weekend to visit my family and tell them the Big News.  That went as planned but as we were flying to Dallas we ended up sitting across the aisle from what was probably a 2-year-old traveling with her mother.  The little girl was enjoying herself thoroughly before the flight - running up and down the gate area while her mother gently reminded her to keep her eyes open when she ran so as to avoid plowing into things.  The little girl was considerably less enthused about things once we were airborne.  Clara and I think she had a nasal infection or some other condition that made the short half-hour flight painful for her.  She cried throughout the flight and in a manner most disturbing to me repeatedly called out, "Daddy!  Daddy!"

Crying children have always bothered me not in a annoying sort of way but in a deeper, emotional manner.  I'm not entirely certain where this goes back to, but my earliest memories of feeling this way go back close to 30 years.  I was in the hospital for one of my many asthma-related illnesses.  I'm pretty sure my Dad was staying with me (he usually took the night shift) and he was sleeping late one night when I awoke to hear crying in from down one of the hallways of the hospital.  I never knew who the child was or what was the matter, but I remember feeling how powerless I felt as a child myself laying in that hospital bed.  Fast-forward 30 years and I still feel no less powerless.  Even though now I have the power (and soon the authority) to pick up and comfort a child, I don't really know how exactly to do that.  I am told that this along with other aspects of parenting will come to me in time, but my fear or discomfort or whatever over my responsibility for the pain of a little one does weigh on me.  I suppose it's not that I worry that I won't know how to love the little guy enough - it's that I won't be able to translate that love into meaningful action.

the announcements

Now that we have confirmed the existence of a grape-sized person inside of my wife, Clara and have begun the process of telling friends of it's existence. Actually Clara had begun doing this because she isn't so good with keeping secrets. She tells me this is a good thing and I suppose she's right. Still, I can imagine some instances where complete and total honesty isn't necessarily a good thing ("I have to tell you - I just slept with George Clooney and he was sooooo much better than you.")

The public response has fallen into a few defined categories. Women without children are by far the most giddily enthusiastic. Women with children tend to describe the degree to which "everything is about to change for you". Married men without children offer nervous congratulations whereas men with children tend to shake my hand as if I had just graduated from high school.

While I understand and appreciate the congratulatory gesture, it does seem a bit odd. It's not like I did anything especially challenging. In fact, my involvement in the process was, while critical, was fleeting and it is Clara that will be doing the heavy lifting from here on out. I suppose it is for this reason that I should begrudge whatever pleasure she receives from her tryst with Clooney.

heartbeat? check.

So last Thursday we went for yet another round of ultrasound wand fun. Clara pointed out that while Dr. Villanueva is always very good about warning her that she is about feel "a little cold, a little pressure" it would, in fact, be more accurate to say "hey, I'm about to stick something large and plastic inside you." Nevertheless the news was good - everything is looking as good as it could be and we did definitively see a heartbeat. We have another image which, as before, proves that we are in fact the proud parents of a blurry grey mass.

My spawn is apparently the round grey mass inside the blackish oval in the center of the image. Then again we may be looking at my wife's bladder and we're just too dumb to know any better.

With the passing of two months and the heartbeat confirmed it is now socially acceptable to begin telling people we're expecting. Clara has done this with great enthusiasm but for some reason I've been more cautious. I've told a few people via email, but for some reason I haven't quite been able to tell people face to face. I wonder if there's something deeper going on here.

While I am of course still a little wigged out by the whole thing, it's not that I'm ashamed or don't want people to know. Perhaps it's that I haven't come to terms with my coming change in status and want a bit longer to reconcile my position as "future father". Maybe I'm afraid I'm not yet excited enough. Maybe I'm over-thinking this.

Yup. I'm definitely over-thinking this.