Starting Out...

Okay, so here's how it happened. Melissa woke me up one morning and showed me a pregnancy test stick.

"Does this look like a plus sign?"

"Why? What does that mean?"

"If it's a plus it means I might be pregnant."

Me, trying to figure a way out of the conversation, replied something along the lines of "Okay, plus sign. But I
don't believe it, Let's check again next week."

Fast forward to next week. Plus sign. Darker.

"Let's, um, see what the doctor says," I said, looking around the tiny apartment and wondering where, exactly, we were going to put a baby.

Short story short: The doctor said she was pregnant too. And now we had about five weeks to keep our mouths shut so as to not piss off the pregnancy gods by informing people before the 12th week. Bad things happen if you do that and your children are born predisposed to ballet lessons and jumping off of roofs onto the hood of your car.

So we waited. And she dry heaved. And we waited, despite multiple trips to our parents and being around all of our friends (some of us slightly drinky and talkative), but we held it in.

Last weekend we let our families in on the secret. Happy happy, joy joy. Cousin Dana gave us a way cool crib (THANK YOU) and we waited for the next big day -- Wednesday and the first sound of a heartbeat.

Yeah, that's my backyard!

There is nothing quite so amazing as hearing the heartbeat of a baby that's barely 12 weeks old, even if sounds like it's underwater, next to a working oil rig and your wife is crying her eyes out. It sounds kind of like a butterfly avoiding being sucked into a vaccum with various levels of whimpering and sobbing. Very cool, nonethless.

It was good to at least prove there was heart somewhere within
Melissa. Because after 5 weeks of waking up early to dry heaving every morning, I was beginning to wonder.

Which brings us to today -- August 12, 2010 -- and the beginning of the Readling Baby Blog. It is here that you can keep updated on all the cool happenings and goings on in the life of the whatever it is growing inside of Melissa's uterus.

There will be doctor updates, random musings, professional tips in case you happen to find yourself in this situation and, of course pictures.
We'll start that last category with Melissa, Week 12.5. Total weight gain: -1 pound. Best. Diet. Ever.

Have fun!