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Eyes Open

Originally uploaded by darkmarty

I can’t seem to catch a smile just yet, but we’ve at least got eye color.

Monday will be our 34 weeks mark. That’s 8 1/2 months for all you monthies out there. What this means is that in two weeks, the boy will be full term. Then, we wait.

Considering this issues that we’ve had to this point, resulting in multiple miscarriages, I can’t help but get a little weepy thinking about the fact that, after 18 months of on again-off again pregnancy, we’re finally (almost) at the point of becoming parents. Well, I would get weepy, were I not a man and thus not allowed to be weepy. Solemn, perhaps, but never weepy.

Tonya’s body has become something of an inside-out jungle gym to the Bean (who, it may be said, is now the largest bean ever grown), who struggles to find comfortable laying positions. Invariably, he finds one that involves his foot in Tonya’s ribs, or his butt against her spine, or the ever popular “two feet one bladder.” It’s almost as if he’s fighting his way out, which may not be a stretch considering how big Tonya’s stomach has gotten.

In order to document the occasion, I bought what may very well be my last purchase from a company not named Gerber. I got a Flip Ultra. The rest of the day will be spent uploading crappy videos of me playing my guitar (poorly) to my youtube channel. If you’re lucky, you may get to see a video of my dogs barking, or possibly of me shaving. Under no circumstances will you see anything of value in that channel. So stop checking. Mr. Worthington.

Soon, however, you’ll get to see my beautiful son. Who will almost certainly have a cone head and look like a lizard. Just like dad.

The Bean has crazy Kung-Fu skills. Last night, for the first time, I felt him kick. I got a bit choked up over that, which was really unexpected. Huh.

We’ve been interviewing day care places as well. We really liked KinderCare, an opinion boosted by the fact that Tonya went to KinderCare as a kid, and loved it. A close second is keeping the Bean in a shoebox on my desk.

We’ve made our first change to the home, in preparation for the baby. We successfully put together a crib, and put lovely Winnie the Pooh sheets on it, courtesy of Tonya’s mother.

See? With the Pooh? So cute, my eyes could explode.

Note the printer in the background. That’s because this room is still technically my office. But the transition begins.

And yes, this is, in fact, what qualifies as news at my house these days.

I’ve read that it accelerates the development process to talk to your children. And I’m not talking about “as opposed to keeping them in a closet until they’re 14,” I mean, in the womb. Now, I’ll be happy so long as my son is healthy, but if I have a shot at making him super villain smart, it would just be irresponsible of me not to try.

So I talk to the Bean. I poke Tonya in the belly, so he knows I’m there, and then I talk to him. I can’t feel him moving yet, but Tonya can, and she tells me that he loves the sound of my voice. He gets very excited to hear it, and shows that excitement by performing excerpts from “Stomp” on her bladder. So, as I tell my son about the day’s Cubs game, or my day at work, Tonya groans in pain. But she still smiles, knowing I’m engaged enough to talk to her belly, and geeky enough to blog about it later.

We sat down at the ultrasound with a very short agenda. We wanted to make sure the baby was healthy, first and foremost, and we wanted to know the sex. The nurse fired up the machine, put the wand to Tonya’s stomach, and there was the baby, and what was very clearly (to a trained professional) a penis. The nurse took a still, announced that we would be having a boy, circled the penis, typed "BOY" next to it, and printed it off. Now, I must admit, I’m not really sure what happened in the minutes after this. I checked out as soon as I heard the word boy, into a land of baseball, scouts, race cars, army men, and other stereotypical ‘boy’ things¹.

Later, we got to see more of the Bean, as in kidneys, a four chamber heart, a spine (which fluoresces brighter than anything else in the Bean’s body, leading to a very H.R. Geiger-esque picture), the brain, and perfectly formed limbs. The heart is beating 150 times per minute.

The Bean is strong. My son is healthy.

1. This isn’t to say these aren’t things you can do with a girl. They are, and were we having a daughter I certainly wouldn’t discourage an interest in these activities that we typically consider boy activities. Likewise, if I have a son that prefers playing with dolls to playing baseball, I’m okay with that, and I’ll be on the floor playing dolls with him.

We’re having a boy!

I’ll write more later, but I wanted to make the announcement, and it turns out that I’m having a hard time with words right now.

The Bean is the size of my fist, and enjoys the evening life. S/he gets up for CSI and Futurama, and dances around a bit while we watch the shows. Truthfully, however, I don’t have a lot to report. Tonya feels the baby dancing, but s/he’s just not strong enough for me to feel the movement. As such, Tonya could have had a softball surgically stuffed into her gut, and at this point, I wouldn’t know the difference.

On a somewhat different note, since we’ve hit the point where people know that we’re pregnant, people are also letting us know what we should and should not be doing. Not in the sense of whether or not Tonya should be drinking Jack and Coke every night*, but where every decision we make is now up for public debate. I’m not sure why people think it’s important to argue about our decision to find out the sex**, or what kind of crib to get, or what last name to use, but suddenly, random strangers have very strong opinions on the matters. And wish to share them. At length. I suspect this will go on until… 2031, I’d guess. Though I might have to lose my mind on someone well before then.

* Every night would be excessive, wouldn’t it?
** We are, by the way, on Aug 14th.