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.