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Jooae was doing great that first week we found out she was pregnant. We were reading online about what to expect and everything was on track. We told our families and were generally feeling right as rain. Oh how that changed in the next week - the sixth week of pregnancy. Now my understanding of morning sickness, you have to understand, was obtained from that great medical teacher TV. On all the shows, the pregnant character woke up, threw up, and then went on her merry way throughout the day - thus ‘morning’ sickness. This is a lie. What it should be called is ‘all-day-24/7-I-am-going-to-die-if-I-eat’ sickness and it struck my poor Jooae hard. Suddenly things that were fine before now had crazy-bad smells. In fact Jooae picked up some sort of superhero smelling ability to detect the slightest waft of fragrance in the air that made her nauseous. I knew it was serious when her usual excitement about eating (she’s small, but boy she can pack it away) vanished. All food - except of course chocolate and ice cream - lost any interest to her.
Jooae is a champion, though. I have always told her she is a tough Korean woman (never mess with her - that’s free advice) and she shows it in stoically facing her pregnant fate. I know morning sickness effects women differently, but guys, let me tell you, just be prepared for the worst and don’t think like me that it is called ‘morning’ because that’s the only time it occurs.
I was slumbering as only one does on an early holiday morning - deeply. I groggily realized that Jooae was standing over me waving some contraption in the air and being all giddy-like. Before I was fully with it, she was declaring that she was pregnant. I realized the contraption was a pregnancy test (which, if you know how they work, realize it was kind of gross to be waving around). Now, you have to understand my frame of mind to get the full picture. As mentioned in my previous post, we had been working hard at getting pregnant since December. Jooae had thought a couple of times that she was pregnant and so had gone through a number of pregnancy tests already. Of course, in our excitement at the possibility, we were really bending their design ramifications by testing early (that and they were the cheap versions you could by at WINCO - West Coast people you know what I am talking about). So you can imagine the hint of skepticism at the results - that and getting my sleepy eyes to figure out if it was a blue plus or what.
After getting into the light and confirming the results, I literally did not know what to think. We had been trying to get to this point and were disappointed each time we didn’t. Now that there was the reality, I was dumbfounded - now what? But the coolest thing was to look into my Jooae’s face and see the joy on it (which was a huge change from when we went to bed and she was grieving over her first traffic ticket received that night from a not very nice police officer). Wow, we are going to be parent’s. Happy Memorial Day (can you say that?)!
NOTE: THIS IS FOR A PG-ish AUDIENCE
I won’t go in depth here, since there may be tender ears that I do not want to impinge upon, but let us just say that when we decided that we wanted to ‘try’ to get pregnant, there was quite a whirlwind of activity, if you catch my drift. For a guy, this means going from chasing your wife around all the time, to a new, unknown place of suddenly catching that look in her eye with uncommon regularity. It’s like a parade of Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Valentine’s Days all at once. I actually found myself doing something that had never crossed my mind before - saying no.
It was not all fun and games, of course. There were the let downs when mother nature brought her monthly gift, especially the times Jooae was sure she was pregnant (psychosomatic nausea anyone?). Okay, I have to confess, I was despondent too, but nursed those pains with the knowledge that I would just have to try harder.
And so, after much labor, a monumental day came; but that is the next story…
Welcome to my little blog world. I am new to this so be nice. In this zone I will be reflecting on the process of becoming a Dad. Jooae and I found out we are pregnant and I quickly discovered that the prospective Dad has kind of an interesting experience, that perhaps, just perhaps, is not addressed as much as the glowing mother-to-be. So I thought I would attempt to humbly rectify that by sharing my experiences along the way. I can’t promise how often I will comment, but I will try my best to update as we experience all the fun of pregnancy. The first seven I kind of wrote all at once at the beginning summarizing my experiences up till the beginning of July.
Enjoy!
Andy
PS: Just so you know, Jooae does review these before I publish them
PPS: Though it is true we have here in Oregon the guy who was pregnant, lest you worry by the above picture, it is not me - just a little photoshop fun.
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