Baby On Board

Where was I...

Oh yeah, my wife is pregnant.

Very pregnant.

32 weeks pregnant.

We go by weeks now.

But considering what it’s taken to get here, it’s more like day-to-day.

At the ripe old age of 42, getting pregnant is the last thing my wife expected.

Definitely not the last thing she wanted.

But after driving down this road many times, the only thing she could see was a dead end.

But for a reason way beyond us, this time it has worked.

There’s no explaining why it worked.

And considering it took me two tries to barely pass biology.

I’m definitely not the one to do the explaining.

I’ve left that part to the doctors.

And we saw plenty of them.

Including one of those reproductive specialists.

Dr. Bush.

(That still makes me laugh.)

(Come on, a reproductive doctor named Dr. Bush?)

(Really!)

Anywhoo...

Visit after visit.

We learned pretty much nothing about why.

Or in our case why not.

What I did learn is that doctors make my wife nervous.

So nervous, she makes up words.

Like, “examinating.”

Examine, that’s a word.

Examinating, not so much.

And she’s got a Master’s degree.

My wife and I are the proud parents of three children.

Proud!

Three healthy, happy children.

We are blessed beyond belief.

But like Dick Van Patten, three was not enough for us.

We’d been trying for seven years to bring another member to this family.

Which may sound like fun to a horny teenager.

But it’s no fun when you are 44.

No fun for me.

Hell for my wife.

Maybe it’s a male/female thing.

Maybe it’s more than that.

My wife and I are very different.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I come from an extremely small family.

Both my mother and my father had no brothers.

And no sisters.

I have spent most of my life calling people Uncle and Aunt.

Even though we didn’t share the same blood.

My wife has a much bigger pool to pull from.

A brother and a sister.

Nieces and nephews.

Uncles and Aunts.

Real ones.

Cousins and more cousins.

But that’s hardly the only difference between us.

Hardly.

She was born in South Korea.

I was born in San Diego.

She was raised Catholic.

I am was raised Jewish.

Very Jewish.

She moved to the United States when she was three so that her parents could chase the the American dream.

My father was the first person to earn a ring from both the World Series AND Super Bowl.

Not bad for a 5-foot-9 white guy from Jersey City.

My wife and I met in college.

We were actually friends years before she fell in love with me.

What a concept.

We dated for a few years.

I proposed.

We got married.

We moved cross country for my job.

Did I leave out any details?

Maybe a few, but keep reading.

The year was 1997 and my wife and I decided that we were ready to start a family.

Three years after we got married.

I was approaching 30.   She had just turned 27.

On a Saturday morning we announced to the baby doctor that we were hoping to get pregnant.

Moments later the doc announced to us that we already were.

Pregnant.

Surprise!

Wow, that doctor works fast.

We had no idea when we sat down in the office that nature had already taken its course.

But with a little test in a cup, we got the very exciting news.

40 or so weeks later, give or take, our little girl arrived.

It was a very normal pregnancy.

As pregnancies go.

The little guy was pretty much no different.

We met him 21 months later.

By that point we figured that getting pregnant was not only fun.

But easy.

So we tried again.

And again.

And again.

A couple of times it actually worked.

And then it didn’t.

Only my therapist gets those details.

But the bottom line is we had come to grips that if a pair was good enough for Noah.

It had to be good for us. 

Little did we know that in the fall of 2003, we’d turn that pair into three-of-a-kind.

Another beautiful baby girl.

Born in October of that year.

Healthy.

And funny too.

There wasn’t a day during that pregnancy that any of us took anything for granted.

I think we spent more time in the doctor’s office than Cliff Huxtable.

But the end result was a healthy child.

And that was all that mattered.

We knew for sure that she would be it for us.

Until now.

I’m not sure my wife really believed it when the test came back positive.

But with something the size of a basketball now sitting under her shirt, she’s a believer now.

And we couldn’t be more excited.

We, meaning my wife and I.

Our three other kids.... well, that’s been a work in progress.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, they are excited.

Now.

But each of them had a very different reaction when they first heard the news.

The youngest, eight.

Of course she was sold right away.

So happy about “the gift in mommy’s tummy.”

She credits Santa Claus.

As she should.

The boy, 13.

He was disgusted upon hearing the news.

After all, it was just a year earlier that his principal gave his class “The Talk.”

Yes, THAT talk.

And he had a hard time digesting that his parents were involved in such debauchery. 

Then there was our oldest.

The 15-year-old girl.

She was terrified.

Terrified that when this thing comes out.

And she has to take it to the grocery store.

Somebody might actually think it is hers.

Thanks MTV!

But even with the early hiccups, everyone is on board now.

We even have the crib.

Courtesy of some friends who don’t plan on getting pregnant at 42.

With a couple of months still to go, we are still taking it day-by-day.

But those days seems to be moving a lot faster now.