Expectant Mother Parking, Help Expectant Fathers!!

You've all seen them, the "expectant mother parking" signs. Tempting isn't it? Will anyone really challenge whether you’re wife is pregnant. I've never done it, but I will admit there have been times when Carrie and I have been faced with parking what seems like miles away from our destination and I have thought to myself, “We could pull this off.” So now that I can, why is it so hard?

For the first time in my life I qualify for this preferred parking. Well technically my wife qualifies for it but doesn't that mean I too qualify in a roundabout way?

Speaking of which where are the expectant father signs? I should have full access to the best parking spaces as well in case at some point a pregnancy emergency should arise, such as a craving for a Twix blizzard, and I need a quick escape.

Getting back to my original point, now that I have the proper “credentials” to park in the special parking, why do I have such a hard time using it? Now that Carrie is pregnant and I could be taking full advantage of this newfound bonus, I can’t seem to pull the trigger. Carrie and I have yet to feel justified in taking the prime spot from someone who might perhaps be more pregnant. Do we have to wait until she looks like the picture on the sign? It seems to me that there should be an expectant mother parking code or proper pregnant parking etiquette, PPPE for short that is commonly known and passed down to all women upon determining a pregnancy. It could be in a book, a magazine, an old wives tale, wherever. Regardless of where it ends up this is an important lesson and one that I as a man see as a necessity in early stage pregnancy. In fact this is especially important for men as we aren’t afforded the other “fringe benefits” that pregnancy seems to provide. Now I’ll be the first to say I would never want to be pregnant or experience childbirth firsthand so women do deserve all the sympathy and anything else they are given during pregnancy, but can’t I just get some clarification on the parking spot?

The other problem I’ve noticed about the expectant mother parking spaces is they only seem to be available at locations where a large number of pregnant women would congregate. Grocery stores, baby stores, Target and other stores featuring stuff a baby or pregnant woman would need. The problem here is these spots are always full. Apparently the Obama baby boom is not a theory but a fact. The only time I was actually prepared to use the spot so far and fully committed to it, they were full, line waiting and booked for the foreseeable future.

My final question is where are those same parking spaces at your neighborhood sports bar? How great would it be if I could role up to the bar, park in front and maybe even have a table saved front and center for the Kansas game because I am an expectant father?

Obviously the sport bar idea is a little out of the question and I say that mostly as a joke. However, the whole PPPE thing is a definite need and one that I will head if I am ever nominated to some sort of position of authority with regards to parking. In the meantime I guess I’ll let Carrie make the first move as to when we finally splurge for the expectant mother parking spot, and when that day comes, a glorious day it will be.

Don't forget to vote in the current poll to the left of the post and help determine the PPPE for this pressing issue.

It's 3AM...Do You Know What Your Pregnant Wife is Doing??

Greetings all this is Carrie, Owen was kind enough to set me up with an account so I can be a guest contributor on occasion. I hope you all are enjoying Owen’s blog as much as I am. I find myself asking him daily if he has added anything or checking the site at work to see if he is being as counterproductive as I. Just a couple side notes I would like to add and embarrass my husband. First, he has been super supportive and loving throughout this experience so far even though we are only 2 months in, I find Owen getting softer and softer as the days pass. Second, both Owen and I pulled the morning sickness card while registering the other night. Owen was ready for his evening feeding, while mine was pregnancy induced.

Alright, on to my entry. I thought I should probably make a guest appearance every once in a while since we are taking you on this wild ride with us. As with most pregnant women, I find myself tossing and turning at night, unable to sleep. I find this hard to believe as there is no way it makes sense. During the day I am a zombie, walking around aimlessly, sleep and coffee deprived. I usually crash around 9 or 10 p.m. and usually am the first in the house to head off to bed. I typically count on a good 5 or 6 hours of sleep but rarely make it the entire night. For my entry I thought I would let you all in on my world at 3:00 a.m. I have compiled a list of ways I stay occupied. Feel free to borrow.

1. Work, catch up on email. Boring right?
2. Annoy the dogs and do everything possible to keep them from going back to bed. Jerks!!
3. Watch Fresh Prince of Bel Air re-runs. What a great show.
4. Walk into our room at night to grab random items, testing how many times I can do it before waking up the husband. I’m up to 3.
5. Catch up on trashy celebrity gossip. Recommended sites: www.tmz.com and
www.perezhilton.com
6. Canvass the kitchen. Nothing really sounds good and would probably make me throw up but at least it’s something to do.
7. Write my contributing entry for Man Pregnancy
8. Look thru my phone and see if there’s anyone else up at this time that I could call and talk to. I should call my other pregnant friend Becca. I know she has trouble sleeping too. Maybe she’ll want to hang out…
9. Shop online for baby gifts. Has Owen mentioned my sister is also pregnant so I’m going to be an aunt too?
10. Move my tossing and turning (or as Owen calls it jumping-jacks in bed) to the living room couch. I should at least try to go back to sleep. After all, my alarm is set to go off in 30 minutes.

The New Guy...or Girl

Yesterday we went to the doctor for visit #2 and the first ultrasound. Now before I go into the actual visit I want to talk a little about the way things work in a doctors office. I know I shouldn't be doing this since my dad is a doctor but I just don't get it.


We arrive for our 8:30 appointment at 8:20, check in, sit down. No ones around so I begin to read "The Cat in the Hat" because it is the only non parenting publication in the place. 10 minutes go by, then 20, then 30 it's now 9 o'clock and still no one has come calling for us. The funny thing is it's not as if the office is overflowing with patients we are the only ones there. At this point amazingly I am the calm one, I've managed to talk Carrie out of tackling the receptionist and I'm now trying to distract her from the sizeable delay. The question I have is what happens if I'm late for my appointment...do they wait for me? or am I just out of luck?

On to the ultrasound. Yes we were finally attended to and taken to the back room where the ultrasound equipment awaits. We get the rundown of the process, what we are looking for and off we go. Above are both the 2D and 3D views of the new guy/girl I put my picture next to it because the doctor says it looks like me. I assume she was joking, but I'll let you be the judge.

Lastly since I am a man, men love sports and sports are full of statistics, I thought I would give the rundown of the new guy/girls first ultrasound stats.

• Crown to Rump .2 somethings (I can't remember the unit of measure and Carrie wasn't paying attention but I think it's roughly a centimeter.)
• Heart rate 162 BPM's
• Measure in at the ripe old age of 7 weeks
• Expected due date remains June 30th (interesting note: could have the same B-Day as one of the future Aunts.)

So that's the tale of the tape for this rice sized embryo and one other thing I forgot to mention, Carrie pulled the morning sickness card again, this time inside the Doctors office.

Pregnant Wife Quote of the Week

From time to time Carrie has started to say things that don't quite seem like the normal loving wife that she is. She usually catches herself very quickly and we both have a good laugh, and I'm fairly confident these mood swings are part of the pregnancy...or at least I hope. So in the spirit of good humor I thought I would share some of these moments.

The other night Carrie was tossing and turning unable to sleep. I never have a problem sleeping but she was doing her best to make sure I knew she wasn't sleeping well. Finally, I asked if she was okay or if something was wrong. Carrie didn't exactly answer my question but said...

"If I'm not going to sleep well, you're not going to sleep well!"


I laughed a little to myself while dozing off shortly after this moment of apparent pregnancy rage as I envisioned Carrie as Linda Blair from the exorcist.

Strollers, Cribs and Water Slides

So the other night we went and looked at baby supplies. I'm not sure how I was talked into this since it still seems so far away but apparently we needed to go look. Clearly men and women go into this experience with a different perspective. Women are looking for those things that the baby needs from a caring and nurturing perspective. Men on the other hand, at least in my case go with the expectation of finding the best gadgets and gizmo's available.

Now I will admit I was pretty excited about the stroller thing. I'm not sure if I was envisioning myself getting a ride in it or what but I was looking forward to seeing what type of all terrain stroller type vehicle I could find. For those of you who watch "The Office" I was fully prepared to conduct Dwight's indestructible stroller test as seen here. Strollers are a segmented market in every sense of the word. Strollers with plastic wheels, air filled rubber tires, car seats, fold ups, flip downs you name it they've got it. In order to test these things out I attempt to pull one off the shelf only to discover a further feature included in most strollers...brakes. After wrestling it free much to the embarrassment of my wife I push the stroller down the aisle to see how well it rolls. I'm in awe of the smooth comfortable ride but quickly reprimanded for making a scene. Now this particular model was one that could double as a car seat and had the little plastic type wheels and I was very impressed. However being the savvy consumer I am I need to test out the "jogger strollers" because they just look impressive with those air filled rubber tires that could summit the Rockies in a single bound. I'm not sure why this appealed to me but clearly I envision my self as more of an outdoor enthusiast than I truly am. Again after a short wrestling match and a near spill of strollers all over the aisle I get the object of my desire off the shelf. Again I am amazed at the smoothness and handling of the stroller and am prepared to trade in my car for an opportunity to be pushed around in an adult sized version of one of these. Does this thing come with a spare?

On to the next stop cribs...or play pens...what the hell is the difference. I've got the entire middle of the store consumed by two entirely separate items that appear to serve the same purpose. I'm quickly informed that a play pen while an effective temporary sleeping quarter is hardly suitable for permanent inhabiting. This is further confirmed by a call to the mother in law. Back to the cribs it quickly becomes apparent that my child will soon have a better bedroom set than myself. A crib is essentially an enclosed fortress of comfort and safety. To go along with it there are dressers nicer than any goo goo ga ga kid could ever need. Finally to top it all off a changing table where we apparently cover a nice comfortable changing pad with expensive covers only to get little kid poop all over it. Now while I am not completely sold on the entire ensemble clearly many pay for these marvels of modern furniture making and I'm sure I will eventually find myself throwing a $900 crib in the garbage unless I can find a way to fit in it myself once my children outgrow it.

So let's see...cribs, check...strollers, check...now what else could there possibly be. Let's see there's bedding, mattresses, bottles, bibs, bags, pacifiers, diapers, car seats and my favorite of all...baby baths. These are like a sink sized swimming oasis for a baby. Now these things are supposed to fit in your sink and act as a tub for the infant. Most of these are pretty reasonable but like anything at this baby mecca you can certainly go overboard and I am fairly confident I even saw a baby tub with a water slide included.

Now two other items really hit home for me...the bottles...and the walkie talkie's to listen to the baby. Growing up I have often heard how much I cried and how colicky I was. This scares the hell out of me as I at this point require my sleep and more importantly my wife does. So when I saw bottles that prevent colic I was sold even though I have no idea what that is or why it happens I am prepared to spend top dollar to prevent it. The other item that amazed me, besides the strollers, was the baby monitoring devices. They actually have a video camera that you can have active on your television and even connected to your cell phone so you can monitor you child anywhere and everywhere. While I was amazed by this technological breakthrough I will be forced to say no thanks as that would clearly be overkill, especially considering my home does not come equipped with enough square footage to ever necessitate it.

Successfully informed on the ins and outs of baby stuff we departed and fortunately at this point have come away with only a parenting magazine to my name. I hate to think about the numerous return trips in my future but if I can take a ride in the stroller, I could be convinced to return.

Morning Sickness??

So once again a situation arose where as a man I am falling very short in the understanding and sympathy department. Morning sickness has arrived and while the morning doesn't really seem to necessarily have anything to do with it, apparently it does exist.

Now I am doing my best to be accommodating and sympathetic but it seems to me that whenever I might be down, out and maybe in need of a little sympathy myself this mythical sickness rears it's ugly head. I am often not sure that this morning sickness thing is for real or if it is a large conspiracy perpetuated by women around the world to keep us ill informed men on edge during the early stages of pregnancy. Now what amazes me even more about this potential myth is that they somehow have convinced the doctors to be on board with this as in our first visit I was informed of the effects of morning sickness and how it will only get worse before it gets better.

Now before women everywhere determine that I am a insensitive jerk I too have felt these symptoms, headache, nausea and things getting worse before they get better. Typically this is referred to as a hangover and I'm usually told it's my own fault. So while I don't necessarily agree with it I will go along with it and do whatever I can to make things more tolerable for my wife in her time of need. However, when this time is over and I wake up some morning ailing from a few too many the night before, I will cash in my chips and remind her of "morning sickness"

Sharing the News

Next up, who do we tell? and when? My initial thought was let's wait, let's tell everyone after we get an ultrasound. I guess I needed something tangible to tell me this was truly the real deal. No amount of plus signs or blue lines or whatever they were was going to convince me as well as a picture.

Here's the thing, as men and especially experiencing this pregnancy thing for the first time we have no understanding or appreciation for hormones, feelings, and the changes that the woman feels that make her truly understand that this is the real deal. We are visual creatures we need to see it, hear it, touch it, something to make it real. However, one of my biggest faults is a lack of patience and in the end that far outweighed my need to validate the pregnancy with my own two eyes.

First up Carrie's mom and dad. For anyone who don't know these two they have been waiting for one of their three kids to make them grandparents for a long time. Even though their oldest is only 31 they have been looking forward to this for a long time. Needless to say I wanted to hear the reaction. One of the great joys in life is being able to tell somebody something and it bring a smile to their face. So we call up the Sue and Steve. Carrie manages to talk them into both getting on the phone so she can tell them a funny story. After dragging it out a bit Steve asks her to get on with the story to which we learn he is standing in his underwear talking on the phone. So Carrie breaks the news, screaming follows as Sue realizes she is going to be a grandma. Clearly they are both very excited and after the initial surprise subsides and Sue informs us she will be purchasing an "I'm going to be a grandma" t-shirt, I remind Steve of a comment last summer implying the first grandchild would be the proud recipient of a $15,000 "bonus" if you will. My comment is met with silence and while I still hope that check arrives in the mail I'm not holding my breath especially with the recent election of every farmers worst nightmare Barack Obama.

On to my own parents. First up I call my mom. I catch her walking up the stairs to her office and after some casual conversation drop the news. Her excitement is a very welcome thing and something I enjoyed. She told a story about a conversation she had the day before when someone had asked if she had any grandchildren. Her reply was more true than she could have guessed "no, but I suppose it could happen at any time." I did unfortunately have to inform Sue that my mom Stacia would not be interested in a bulk purchase of the "I'm going to be a grandma" t-shirts but she was nonetheless excited about the news.

That evening I called my dad and told him the news. Those who don't know the men in the my family should understand that we aren't the best with emotions and news of this nature. The conversation though went very well. My dad David was excited and very willing to offer any advice or support he could throughout and I'm sure that is something Carrie and I will take him up on at some point. I think the highlight and what really sums it all up was when I said to him, "I bet this is a bit of a shock to you," to which he replied "probably not as much as you."

We told the parents, our siblings and lastly my grandparents and all were great calls to make. My 80 year old grandmother found out on her birthday, and while I didn't speak directly to my Grandpa Lee Duvall he has inspired the title of this blog when he sent an email to Carrie and I after hearing the news secondhand from my grandma. He told us he was happy to hear of our "scheduled parenthood." We both thought it very fitting of his personality and I have since decided it should somehow make it's way into this journal as my wife and I continue down this path, scheduled for parenthood.

Excuse Me, Did You Say Doctor?

Clearly this blog starts in November and as I said we found out in mid October so there is a little catching up I want to do before we get into the current posts moving forward. Tomorrow is our first ultrasound which apparently means we get to see a heartbeat but I'll talk about that later, for now I want to talk about what has already past.

So first there was the task of confirming the news and determining the next steps. Now I don't know what I was expecting but when I got home from San Diego I know my ears heard that Carrie was pregnant but my eyes didn't see it and nothing felt different so it was still strange to consider a doctors visit but that was where we were headed the following week.

Arriving at the clinic I was definitely jittery, for one I hate hospitals and clinics and secondly I was going into a OB/GYN office. This should not be an issue for me as I've spent plenty of time in such offices growing up. You might be asking yourself why and I should have qualified the last sentence by explaining that my own father is an OB/GYN. So I don't know what it is but sitting in that waiting room brought about a variety of strange memories. There was the time one of my teachers in middle school told me she was going to see my dad for a doctors visit. Or the time I was at a friends house and his mom had "appt. w/Dr. Kemp" on her calendar, both very strange moments for me. Now I will say many were very complimentary of my dad as a physician and we frequently ran into parents with their kids whom he had delivered and my dad was always as happy to see them as they were him. Still though I was going to see the other side of things now, the side of the patient.

One pee test and a short walk to an exam room and I'm praying to god that those stirrups in front of me aren't going to be used on this trip because I'm not ready for that. After some reassurance from my wife that this was just a preliminary visit and that wouldn't occur the doctor came in. She seems nice enough, interesting she brought a laptop, and now we are talking about all things pregnancy. Now I don't know how everyone does it but this particular visit the doctor goes through what you can expect, concerns, procedures, pregnancy and delivery 101. In short the doctor scares you into wishing you weren't having a baby. I'm rehashing every scratch, cut and illness in my life trying to determine if it in some way predisposes my future child to a horrible disease or problem. She's talking vacuums and C-sections, surgery and I'm' not sure I do or even want to understand it all. After all that and the various prospects for what can go wrong during delivery and the pregnancy we are reassured that everything will be fine and we are sent on our way. So out the door we go, wide eyed to the car and on our way, the joys of the journey to parenthood right?...next up sharing the news...

Hi...my name is Owen...and my wife is pregnant...

Hello and welcome to the story of my journey to parenthood. My name is Owen and on October 21st, 2008 I was traveling home from a business trip when I received a call from my wife Carrie. Surprise we're pregnant!!!! To answer your first question yes this was planned, but truth be told I didn't expect this to happen so fast. We decided to start trying at the end of September and for whatever reason I thought had more time but I guess that's not how these things work. So now I'm getting on a plane flying home to a pregnant wife and a whirlwind of emotions.

When I first heard I was truly excited, I really don't know why it surprises me but as a man it's kind of a weird feeling. You spend your entire adolescence and early adulthood pretending you aren't phased by kids and they aren't something your interested in, then all of the sudden there is one on the way and reality sets in. If I were an M&M for instance, I thought I was the hard candy shell but when I heard the news I was more the soft chocolate middle. Now onto the business of getting home.

After I successfully snapped myself out of it and regained my masculine outlook on life I set about the business of getting on the plane, flying home, and determining the next steps. A funny thing happened on that plane that once again exposed my deeper feelings for the matter at hand.

Flying from San Diego to Denver we were expecting some turbulence as there were storms over Denver. I had slept the majority of the flight but as we began to descend I woke. Now this particular flight had televisions where you could watch varying offerings from ESPN to NBC. The television also offers a map channel that shows obviously where you are in the world as well as speed, altitude and direction. As I gather my wits from my short nap we begin to descend. Interestingly this seems to be a very rapid descent, and the plane is suddenly shaking to the extent that I think a wing might very well fall off. Clearly I am a little concerned but my brother is a pilot so I feel I need to project confidence unless for some reason the flight attendant panics or the pilot comes on the speaker with bad news. So our rapid, bumpy decent continues and I decide I'll checkout the map channel, we must be close to Denver so I'll just take a peek to confirm it. To my surprise we aren't even beyond Aspen and for those unfamiliar with Colorado that means we haven't crossed the continental divide yet. At this point my attention turns to the altitude reading on the map. Our decent is swift and we have gone from 35,000 to 20,000 in a very short time. Now I'm looking out the window and telling myself if this thing gets to 14,000 and we aren't past the continental divide on this map TV thing in front of me I'm going to have to track down a parachute somewhere in this fuselage and jump my way to safety because this plane is going to hit a mountain and I've got a baby on the way. At this point I'm clutching the arm rest, sweating, and likely not breathing as I should when I look up to the flight attendant asking me to put my chair in the upright and locked position. Turns out things were fine and despite my brush with death I made it home and have since successfully confirmed the pregnancy and I am now scheduled for parenthood.

This blog is my journal. I wanted to have an outlet for all the things that cross my mind, all the fun, worry, excitement and other stuff that goes along with having your first child. I also thought it would be an opportunity to share with friends and family what Carrie and I are going through and our own unique perspective on the journey.