Waiting

Come on, little man!  Come join us.

I have been winding down my work to take some time with the baby.  L just had her last day at work yesterday.  As a result I feel an odd mixture of calmness and stress, waiting for this thing to happen.  The part that makes me nervous is that trip to the hospital -- making sure someone is here to watch Alice -- navigating the journey itself -- and then finally feeling secure and ready at Mt. Sinai.  I am really excited to meet this kid, to name him, to bring him home, to see him as a younger brother, to see our girl as a big sister.  I can't wait to know what he will look like and who he will be.  The miraculous surprise of Alice was that she was immediately her own person, not necessarily a combination of L and me, but so clearly her own being.  I can't wait to see who we get to introduce and welcome into our family.

Come on, little man!  Come join us.  We have been waiting for you forever.

November 15

Today I had an interview today at work.  I spent a lot of time last night figuring out which suit I would wear, which shoes, which tie.  The interview wasn't until 4:30 pm so I had all day to sit and worry.  I felt too well-dressed, with my conservative pleated suit pants -- pants that I profoundly hate now, and don't understand why I ever purchased, unless I was in some law-induced stupor of backwater menswear conservatism -- and the janitor told me I looked like a Kennedy cousin with my fancy clothes and the apparently boyish swoop of my bangs.  The interview itself went really well.  I felt like I expressed everything I wanted to, and if I missed anything it's something I never saw coming at all.  I didn't know what I didn't know.  At the end of the interview after I asked my questions I said, "well, that's it, thank you for coming," and the laugh that I earned seemed to represent how the whole thing went.  I got a Chipotle Coke on my way home, stripped out of my suit immediately and read the New Yorker on the couch.  Then L and Alice came home and there was a present for me -- Alice had colored a picture on blue construction paper, and in the middle of the page, written in marker in L's steady hand, was: "Nov. 15th."

"I'm pregnant and that's when the baby is due."

Since last summer, we have spent every month (minus two) hoping and praying that we would get pregnant.  Each month has been punctuated by a few sad days when these hopes were dashed, days that became cumulatively worse as each month passed.  After Alice was conceived practically immediately, this long process of waiting has been difficult.  We both went to the doctor to get things checked out and everything seemed to be fine.  They told us to be patient, but we (I) are not patient people.  I started to worry that we couldn't have another child, and I felt guilty for feeling bad about that when we already have Alice, the greatest blessing of our lives.  My first reaction to the news that L was pregnant was that we didn't have to be sad this month.

Today L had been working with Alice to teach her to say "big sister."  She hadn't told me in the morning because she didn't want to distract me from today's interview, but the secret had been eating her up since she found out at 2 am last night.  Her strength is unbelievable.  After she told me we had a family hug that Alice scurried over to join.  L had gone on the internet to figure out that November 15th due date; that means we'll have a Thanksgiving-time baby.

I was bursting with the need to tell someone when my parents called to ask about the interview.  I successfully managed not to tell them.  We went over to John and Anna's to tell them the good news, because I still had to tell someone.  They had figured it out -- John opened the door with an expectant look, and I nodded yes.  They were so excited for us.  John and I had bourbon and we all had some shepherd's pie.  After a while we came home (Alice pooped tremendously on the bus ride home, crooning "yucky poop" as some indulgent commuters smiled wanly) and the stress of the day receded. 

I can't believe we're about to do this all over again: an impossibly tiny baby, minimal sleep, a new name for a new life.  All of our conversations about jobs, moving, childcare seem completely obsolete.  Game change!  But all those conversations can wait for another day.

If I let myself, I become aware of the meaning and weight of today's news.  The capacity for love, the responsibility, the legacy, the growth of our family, the playmate and lifelong friend for Alice.  Tonight I can skirt around these ideas and know that soon we'll be thinking about them all the time.  But tonight I am still struck by the idea -- L is pregnant.  We don't have to be sad this month.  And that relief is overwhelming.

Into the (pregnancy) archives

One housekeeping note:

Back when we found out about the baby, I started a private blog to write about some early pregnancy stuff.  In the interest of efficiency, and to assist my future biographers, I imported those posts into ol' Clarity.  So if you're interested in reading about the heady days of July and August 2009, here are the links to those stories:

Day one/Dandelion -- July 22, 2009

Collect $200 -- August 6, 2009

Telling my parents -- August 6, 2009

4th anniversary

Today is our fourth wedding anniversary!  After being struck by a bolt of inspiration on Sunday at the gym, I spent the last few nights working on this.  It has been a true labor of love -- it's been fun learning how to use iMovie, culling through our pictures, finding the right songs, trying to tell a four-year story in five minutes.

Of course, I've also gotten no sleep, and I fully expect to get a cold this weekend, but L is worth it.

The day you were born

This is the story of the day A was born. In case you haven't heard, A is our new daughter, born today. Objectively speaking, she is extremely cute. Her nose and lips and ears are small and perfect. She has a funny hairline. Her skin smells warm and fresh. She has deep, milky eyes. She usually has a very placid demeanor, and she reacted to her first diaper change with an air of dignified resignation. When she sleeps her arms fly akimbo and her fingers grasp for something we can't know. Her first life lesson today appeared to be, "It's OK to sneeze." Her first sneeze resulted in tears; by the end of the day she could handle it, while her parents rejoiced at the chance to bless their lovely daughter once again.

But before A realized that sneezing was ok, she had to get born first. Here is what happened. It's rated PG-13 for language and stressful situations.

The original plan was for us to head into the hospital to induce labor around 9 pm tonight. We went to bed last night expecting to spend the day waiting for nighttime to roll around so we could swing into action. Consequently, I slept late, and woke up around 9 to find L anxiously pacing through the apartment. She was having contractions, and had started writing down their times. The contractions were lurching along at irregular intervals: ten minutes, twelve, seven, eleven. I briskly showered and ate breakfast and got ready for something. The contractions intensified; L was in pain. Around 10:15 we called the doctor. I explained what was happening. "She's in labor, come on down to the hospital," they said. Okay.

Except that L couldn't come to the hospital -- she was in too much pain to leave the bathroom, let alone the apartment. She was in agony and was making the kind of sounds you don't ever want to hear from a loved one. I expected her to emerge from the bathroom crazed with rage and pain, Hulk-like, like she had been ripping the linoleum out with her fingertips. After a half hour of cajoling and pleading (including one false start) I lured her out of the apartment. She was moaning in the elevator. Outside I dashed through the crosswalk, hauling our three bags of hospital-bound stuff, as L clutched her body and slowly made her way. People were looking at us but not saying anything. I ran back to get her and hailed a cab. I loaded everything up but the cabbie said, "Wait, does she need help?" L couldn't make it through the crosswalk. I guided her to the car and we got in. Before she stepped in the car, though, my delicate orchid of a wife said those magic words that every prospective father longs to hear: "I'm going to poop in the cab." "That's ok!" I said. After slinking through a few stoplights I asked the cabbie to take the West Side Highway, to make sure we could get all the way to St. Vincents Hospital, down on 12th street. We had almost 100 blocks to go.

In the cab L's contractions started out at about two and a half minutes apart. L was gasping, moaning, yelling out, arching her back and clutching onto the handrest or window frame so hard that her muscles would tremble with her pain. And then her contractions started coming at two minutes apart. During those brief intervals I would pray that we could somehow advance 40 blocks before the next wave, but L had to suffer through each crashing wave as we slowly made our way south. Later, I would laugh that she also seemed to be having a mild Tourettic episode. "Breathe through it, honey," I would meekly suggest. "FUUUUUUUCK," she would reply. Or I would helpfully say, "Just breathe, my darling," and then she would say, "SHIIIIIIIIT." It was a useful dialogue.

Finally, an eternity later, we made it to the hospital. It was around 11 o'clock. L got out and shuffled inside as I stayed back to pay. She hadn't pooped in the cab. Our angelic driver had turned the meter off early so we could dash out quickly, and he helped us get our bags from the trunk. I gave him a massive tip. We shook hands and he wished us luck. I kind of wanted to give him a hug. As we went in, someone else called out, "Congratulations!"

We made it up another elevator to the labor and delivery floor. L held on to me, buckled over, as I explained our situation to the nurses. They ushered us into a delivery room and a nurse checked L out. "Shit, there's the head," the nurse said. Our midwife, Barri, appeared, and there was a flurry of activity as they raised the bed and got L in the position to push, summoning forth piles and piles of covers and blankets and protective gloves. "What about an epidural?" I said. "There's no time -- the head is here -- it's time to push."

I started to laugh. What the hell was going on? According to our birth plan (which explicitly stated that the baby was to be born over a week ago), we were going to have a nice, easy birthing experience, including an epidural and a veritable rainbow of the pharmaceutical industry's finest painkillers. Now we had the midwife telling us there was no time, that we would just have to push through an all-natural, granola, hippie-dippie birthing experience. Well, stop the Joan Baez CD, I'd like to get off. L and I looked at each other and laughed at how things always happen to us in the craziest possible way. This was it. I was so proud of her. At that moment, stepping off the brink together, I loved her so much.

Three or four pushes later -- at 11:19 am, less than fifteen minutes after we arrived at the hospital -- our daughter was born. She arrived a bawling tangle of blue limbs, plopped on L's belly as the midwife and nurses performed their ministrations. Our girl. A few minutes later I cut the cord, and made the nurses laugh when I said it felt like a scallop. We all laughed at the utter irrelevance of our birth plan and all of our expectations. We thought about how close we came to giving birth in a taxicab. And we would have, probably, but for a few short minutes.

We spent the rest of the day holding her, feeding her, gazing at her, taking pictures of her, speaking with loved ones all over the country and the world, and introducing Hank and John and Anna to our girl. I left to get some lunch in the afternoon and ran into an old neighbor, as well as our friends at the bookstore and Chipotle. Everyone was so warm, so happy for us -- L and A and me, our little family. It felt like a holiday in our city. What a blessing. What a tremendous blessing.

Good news

Our baby has arrived!

Alice Lee

April 5, 2010

11:19 a.m.

6 lbs., 13 oz.

20 inches

L and A are doing great. My cup runneth over.

Due date

Today, March 30, is the baby's due date. Obviously, given the nature of our active yet fickle little child, nothing is happening. I woke up this morning feeling like Christmas, feeling like my day had finally arrived. We have been waiting for the last weeks of March to roll around since late June, 2009. All of the holidays and hurdles that separated us from our baby -- including the holiday seasons, all of fall and winter, trips up and down the Atlantic seaboard, a move to a new apartment uptown, the end of one job and the start of another -- have come and gone. And the trophy for our patience and fortitude is L's big and glorious belly.

Rationally I knew there was no reason to expect the kid to arrive today. It's not like she received the memo that March 30 was her assigned date. In fact, less than 5% of babies are born on their actual due dates (most, especially for first-time mothers, are born after the due date). Yet I couldn't help but hope that our kid would come barreling into life on the early side. To be early is to be on time, after all. She should know that already.

So now we are winding down another day free of labor and delivery. Maybe tonight will be the night L wakes up to a strange yet not entirely unwelcome new pain. Maybe tonight, but probably not. L is convinced we will be having an April baby, and that makes sense to me.

...But it could be tonight! It's March 30, our due date! Our Christmas!

Not yet

This morning I was at my desk, waiting to hear back from L about her trip to the sonogram place to check on the baby's growth. Around 11:30 she called me on my office phone. When I picked up I could hear her laughing to someone else, so I thought everything was fine. "I'm in a cab to the hospital," she said. "The baby's heart rate was low, so they want to hook me up to a fetal heart rate monitor." The doctors had told her that I should meet her at the hospital. A nurse had walked L out of the office to make sure she could catch a cab to St. Vincents downtown.

I had a conference call at 12, and was supposed to attend a hearing at 2. Everything was different now. I emailed a few attorneys and my secretary to tell them I had to go to the hospital. At first I tried to be discreet but I couldn't find the words so I said exactly what was happening. I didn't care who knew. My wonderful secretary came to my doorway and helped me think of things I needed. We decided I should take the subway. I gathered a few work items, grabbed my lunch and the New Yorker, my headphones. "You know, this could be it," I said.

I was so nervous I got out at the wrong subway stop, walking briskly up 7th Avenue in my ill-fitting dress shoes at a clip that made my lower legs ache. St. Patrick's Day revelers were everywhere, laughing and plodding along in their stupid green t-shirts. A lot of green Yankees paraphernalia and orange wigs. In the hospital I remembered how to get to Labor & Delivery, but I had to stop at two different nurse's stations to find L. I thought of the other times I had made similar trips, navigating an unknown hospital to find my wife hidden in some small undistinguished room.

She was lying on her side in a hospital gown, a nest of tubes and wires snaking out from her belly. The room was filled with the constant, reassuring thrum of the baby's heartbeat. She was smiling. Everything seemed to be fine.

We sat there for almost two hours, as doctors and nurses came in and agreed that things seemed perfectly normal. We watched a little bit of TV: some CNN, some TLC, the "Full House" episode where Michelle learns to tie her shoes and Uncle Jesse admits he never graduated high school and decides to go back. It wasn't as poorly written and un-funny as I feared it would be; it wasn't bad at all, except for the unnervingly intimate close-ups. I've never seen a sitcom with such tight close-ups. It was like "60 Minutes" or something.

Ultimately they discharged us; L got dressed and we staggered back out into the day. A part of me had hoped this would be it, that the day would end with a baby. But I suspected we would probably just head on home. The doctors concluded that the low heart rate had been a fluke: maybe L had been sitting in a weird way, maybe the baby had been squeezing the cord or something. Who knows. Nothing to worry about.

We stopped at the bookstore visit with our friends, and ate lunch at Subway. We both returned to work rattled. I had a couple of beers at the office's St. Patrick's Day happy hour, organized my personal emails and eventually went to hip hop. Class was great tonight; we had a sub, and he was doing really intricate, asymmetrical stuff, based on the California style of krumping. Then I came back home to see my pregnant wife and wind down this day.

Now at day's end, I'm glad we were able to go through a dry run of things. L told me she had initially gone to the wrong floor of the hospital. Now she knows which floor to go to, and I know which subway stop to take.

On my subway ride down to the hospital, I had started to get excited. If the baby was going to be born today I could just wear my suit at the hospital for the next few days, my nice starched shirt getting wrinkled and soft after a couple days of broken sleep. This necktie would always remind me of the day my daughter was born. The work I brought would have gone untouched, but I might have read the New Yorker. We didn't have a lot with us, but it would have been enough.

There was that sense, riding the train down to see my wife and my daughter, that this could be it. The question kept rising in my mind, and the realization that there was no wrong or bad answer made me revel in the asking: Why not today? Why not right now?

Eventually, soon, we can answer. But not today.

Breakdown

Well, I broke. I don't know if it was seeing all the baby loot we acquired at the shower last weekend, or else the time I spent the other night considering the mechanics of baby clothes, with all of their snaps and clasps and tiny little safety pins, or else our trip yesterday to Baby Buy Buy Buy, when we selected a mobile for the crib of plush pastel little insects -- fireflies, ladybugs, caterpillars -- all sleeping peacefully and smiling gently from their cozy orbit, or else the moment in the store when I found myself binging on onesies, pink ones, yellow ones, with their snug matching hats and bibs and burp cloths, embroidered roses or butterflies or bouquets, imagining soft tiny sleeves filled with fat baby arms, imagining the snaps and clasps and pins securing a warm tiny body, imagining my rose, my butterfly, my bouquet -- sometime in the middle of all that, I admitted to myself:

"Ok, this shit is fucking cute."

Beautiful Saturday

Yesterday was a really magnificent day. The weather was a little warmer and the sun was strong in the blue sky. It was L's baby shower, so Melissa and Anna arrived early to set up and bustle around in the kitchen for a while. I had made plans with John to head down to Benny's Burritos for some margaritas while the ladies feted our wee baby.

I was in a good mood heading downtown; the air was crisp and the skies were clear. Upbeat music in the headphones, spring in my step. The Village sidewalks were crowded with people enjoying the day, out and about with their shopping bags or strollers. I got to Benny's around 2 and went inside; John wasn't there yet. I left the restaurant to wait outside on the sidewalk, to watch the people and enjoy the old neighborhood, when who do I see coming up but -- Ashesh! I have a distinct impression of seeing his face and the bright green triangle of his scarf. Even though he's only in Philadelphia (studying at Wharton; I think he's taking some kind of evening-division part-time GED prep class or something) I haven't seen him since he left the city last summer. We stood on the sidewalk chatting when who comes sauntering up but -- Russell! Russell lives in Colorado and spends some time in Virginia, and I only get to see him a couple times of year. I hadn't seen him since Thanksgiving and I wasn't sure when we would hang out next. A little while later John arrived, brandishing a bag from my favorite bookstore and laughing at my incredulity, and we went inside to sit.

(This surprise was orchestrated by L, of course. Amid the hubbub of her shower and everything else going on, she engineered an early birthday celebration for me. I was floored.)

It made me so happy to share a table with these guys. As we were sitting there, eating and drinking, I tried to take in how it felt - a beautiful afternoon outside through the plate glass windows of the restaurant, good drinks, catchy songs playing in the background, John on my left, Russell across the table, Ashesh on my right. A table of some of my favorite people, somehow finding themselves in this old dive. I had a dumb grin on my face, feeling happy and at ease and very thankful. I couldn't believe these guys would make the time to be here and shoot the breeze for an afternoon.

To be honest, during this whole pregnancy there have been some moments of extreme loneliness. A few weeks ago, when we were at the Buy Buy Baby Maternity and Childcare Emporium, I remember feeling very overwhelmed by the sheer amount of junk and information and decisions and childrearing philosophies that seemed to demand immediate analysis and commitment. I have missed having family close by, to impart some wisdom, offer guidance, and help contextualize this new baby into the larger story and tradition of our families. True, our families are never too far away, and we speak with them often and think of them even more often, but the idea of raising our kid here by ourselves can be daunting. We have relied so much on the new community we have knitted here, but I miss the old comfort and shared history of old, genuine friends.

That's why yesterday struck such a deep chord with me. After we left Benny's we made our way to Wogie's for a couple of beers. Finally we returned to John and Anna's, where we rejoined Anna and L. John cooked up a delicious dinner, we watched the Olympics and played some poker, sipping on Old Pogue and sambuca.

Yesterday I felt contented and grateful and at peace. To be honest, I felt a kind of easy happiness with life that I haven't enjoyed in a long time. I tell you, man -- with the love of a good woman, and the kind of friends who will come up to the city on a lark for a long, late winter afternoon of margaritas and poker -- these are the days and the people I can't wait to introduce to my daughter.

"Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters"

I just read a really interesting book that was recommended to me by Ryan, husband of L's cousin Kristen (thus making him basically my brother): "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters" by Meg Meeker. I have thought a lot lately about the kind of family life I want to build for the three of us: a specific architecture of values, traditions and habits that requires some purpose and forethought.

I was excited to read this on Ryan's recommendation, even though he warned me about some of the God stuff in the book. I felt like the author was writing from a very solid conservative Christian background, which is not exactly the environment in which we will be welcoming this kid. The approach to sexuality was drenched in horrifying statistics about HPV and other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as earnest hypothetical anecdotes about one day discovering that your own daughter is the centerfold model in your hunting buddy's new issue of Playboy. Statistically, this is very improbable. They only have 12 centerfolds a year!

On the other hand, though, nothing riles up my inner social conservative like the prospect of guiding my daughter through the next 20 years of our increasingly degenerate pop culture. I think about the TV shows L and I thoughtlessly watch, the winkingly obscene music I enjoy (see below), and I wonder how you can protect a child from that stuff when she sees the world innocently and genuinely, without that shield of irony and cynicism that we adults grasp instinctively. The book had some excellent instructions and reminders about a father's role in his daughter's life: his centrality, his moral authority, his modeling of the way men and women interact and how a young woman should expect to be treated. I found myself agreeing with much of it, and feeling a renewed confidence in my own instinct and the way that L and I can complement each other in raising our girl.

There was excellent stuff about the need for fathers to say "I love you," to show affection, to establish boundaries, to make yourself known, to truly listen, to take your daughter on special outings. I particularly loved the chapter on humility, which really resonated with me and seemed to go hand-in-hand with the value of empathy. The book made me excited to raise our girl and thankful to be able to look back and see so many ways that my parents did all of these things, all of these traditions and simple ways of living that I can't wait to pass along.

As expected, the book hits hard with the God stuff, which I did not really enjoy. One big question L and I are grappling with is the role of religion in our kid's life, and in the life of our family. We're not actively going to church these days, and I'm struggling a lot to find a resolution that seems to carry some integrity with it. I want my kid to have a firm moral grounding, but I have so much doubt and anger towards the church's own moral authority. I don't want my daughter thinking she has to submit to a church that doesn't treat her as an equal. I don't want her assuming some of the chuch's toxic attitudes towards women and sexuality. On the other hand, I think the church has done a lot of good in the world, I think it maintains a strong intellectual tradition that I want to pass on, and I think its message about love, charity, sacrifice, forgiveness, and devotion is fundamental and something that a kid should begin to wrestle with. I don't know. Doubt is a part of faith, I know that. I'm just trying to reconcile all of this so that we can figure out what to do with our girl with some measure of integrity. Integrity, and not superstition.

Anyways -- "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters." I really enjoyed it and I gave it to L to read, too. I mentioned architecture before and I think that's really what I'm trying to do: I want to think about this purposefully, to enter fatherhood with an idea of our compass and our goals for our life together. Now I'm just working on the blueprint.

Barrow Street

We just finished packing for the move tomorrow morning. It has been too busy a night to feel sad or anything besides relief that we are finished with the task at hand. Taking the pictures off the wall was kind of sad, though. The movers estimated that we would have 15 boxes per person, yet I think that we have about 50 total. A couple of minutes ago we shifted a few boxes to the side to veg out and watch some TV for a little while before bedtime. This week has been another epically bad week at work and all of my thoughts have been clouded by anger and sadness for the last 48 hours. I needed to clear my head, and packing up our house/lives has been a good distraction.

Barrow Street. We have enjoyed four good years here. This has been the home we returned to as husband and wife. We earned a couple graduate degrees here. We had some good professional experiences and some bad ones. Our marriage was formed here, and we endured those early crucibles here. Hell, the baby was created here. We've started new traditions here, like Faux Thanksgiving and those rituals that punctuate our daily lives together. I could tell you dozens of stories about every room in the house -- the places where we have laughed and wept and fought and made up and made out. It was all here. I am so thankful we had this time together, in this place. L and me. How we will bore our children with stories of these days.

I am really tired right now. I tell myself that we could always move back to this neighborhood someday -- there's always that possibility of return. I'm the kind of person who needs to find that doorway back.

Baby by Chipotle

Tonight L and I went out to pick up some Chipotle for dinner. We were both tired from work and our kitchen was full of broken-down boxes in anticipation of the move -- there would be no home cooking tonight. At Chip we saw the usual motley crew, and they were excited to see L in all of her pregnant glory (she is honestly a really objectively good-looking pregnant lady). One of them said she had a present for us, and she ducked in the back -- and she came back with the onesie you see above (sorry for that word, "onesie", which sounds like a game girls in Britain played in the 1940s) as well as a bib that says something along the lines of "When I Have Teeth I Will Want to Eat Chipotle Products." On the front of this onesie, it says "food goes in here," with an arrow pointing to the kid's mouth, and then on the back, it says "food comes out here," with an arrow pointing towards the rear end. This is not only factually true, but it's also classy.

We were both really touched by this. Will our child grow up to enjoy Chipotle? Yes. Will we dress her in Chipotle-branded clothing, making her into an adorably fat little billboard? Hell to the yes.

Changes

There were two significant things today amidst the usual daily cacophony.

First, L went to the doctor to check out the baby, our little man. And it turns out that baby...is a GIRL. It's a Girl! Not a Boy! This news left us both reeling. How did they miss this information? Are they using a sonogram or a dowsing rod? What year is this? It's very weird how you can spend a month imagining a very particular life for yourself with the utmost certainty that those ideas will be realized. For some reason the most vivid thing I could imagine was introducing my kid to other people, saying, "this is my son, X," as a shy toddler hid behind my legs. This was the vignette that gave life to otherwise abstract ideas of fatherhood, identity, and devotion. And now I am reworking those ideas, those scenarios, to wrap my mind around the idea of a daughter. It's surprising how quickly the track shifts. Worries about autism give way to questions about how girls pee. It seems as if life is now cast in a different yet more revealing light. From our little man to our sweet girl, the way it was before we even knew it. Our girl.

Second, today we were approved to sign a new lease on a three-bedroom apartment in Morningside Heights, right on the edge of Manhattanville. The apartment is on the top floor of a pre-war six-story elevator building. The rooms are large and flooded with light, with pleasantly warped hardwood floors and crisp white paint over the walls and moldings. The kitchen is large, although a little dated. L and I both realized that this was a good apartment as soon as we entered. The price was fantastic and it's right by the 125th stop on the 1 train, an easy 20 minutes from my office. It's farther north than we expected, and I worry about some of those ramifications, but now we've got it and we have a new home waiting for us. We'll be moving in around the middle of December.

So today has been a day of change. We knew these changes were coming, that this would be a season of transition. In a few weeks we will be taking our stuff and our lives and the new idea of our daughter to a new home, the place where she will enter this world and experience some love and solace and security. I feel very aware that we are entering a new stage in our lives. I can see how these last few years -- our years in the village, years of walking to the bookstore and the gym, years of idleness and books and wealth and thought -- are giving way to something else: possibly something more grounded, more tightly woven. Days of looking out over the roofs of Morningside Heights, wandering with our daughter through Riverside Park, singing her songs she can't understand yet. Teaching a new person empathy and kindness.

There is so much excitement to bear, but there are also fears and doubts. Change requires endings and beginnings, and I've never been able to face an ending without some measure of doubt and nostalgia for the places left behind. Today seemed like a a prophecy, and it left us exhausted.

It's a boy

As L said, the little one is a boy. We went to an anatomy scan on Thursday, and our technician assured us it was a male. She showed us his junk on the sonogram, and if she thinks it's a boy based on that, then I will take her word for it. The doctor came in and agreed, so there you have it: our little man.

Now that we can get a little more specific in our planning and in our imagining, my thoughts have immediately turned to what we will name this child. Obviously, the top three possible names are: (1) MKD Jr., (2) Barack, and (3) Justin Timberlake. This list may evolve as the months roll on, but I doubt it.

After our appointment on Thursday we walked through Central Park to get back to the west side. We celebrated with some hot dogs and an ice cream from a street vendor. We ate on a bench and thought about the future. There were some Little League teams practicing in the fields as we walked by, little uncoordinated boys in uniforms and oversized caps, stumbling around and and hollering and missing catches. Then yesterday we saw a father playing with his sons in the Park, batting them easy grounders and laughing good-naturedly as they threw the ball towards each other, waving their tiny mitts in the air. I saw all of that and I thought, I can't wait to do this.

Exciting news

Here's some exciting news: L is pregnant. We are in the family way.

It's such a tremendous thing, and we've known for a while now, but I am still trying to grasp it all the way around. Nothing will ever be the same, that's for sure. L is due on March 27, which happens to be her mom's birthday, and we are now in the second trimester, on the brink of week 15. Each Saturday we get a fun email explaining what the little one is doing ("your baby is now yawning, winking, and cracking its knuckles...") and offering a new estimate of approximate size ("...and is the size of a beet"). Anticipation of these emails is the force that gets me out of bed on Saturdays.

I have been conspicuously quiet on this blog for the last several weeks, and this beautiful new fact is a main reason behind it. Thinking about this baby and our new lives has been such a source of joy, of refuge, for me these last few months, no matter what other storms we are weathering. Realizing that I'm going to be a father soon, just on the other side of this coming winter, has inspired in me surprising feelings of cool confidence and serenity. I was afraid this would magnify my stress in other aspects of my life, but instead it has acted as a counterweight, reminding me of what is important and urging me towards the knowledge that I need to get my life together by the time this kid arrives. To make the nest. I am excited to enter a season of change, of preparation.

L and I spend a lot of time musing about the kid and who he or she will be. I think a lot about how amazing my parents are and have been, and how I can support this kid and love him or her and be a guide and a protector. What if this kid is dumb as a brick, and an extremely good athlete? What if it hates reading? I won't know what to do with that. What if the kid has eyebrows like Bert on Sesame Street? This is a real possibility, genetics-wise. Let's be honest here.

I have a million things to say about all this. My beautiful wife is looking lovely and voluptuous, with that baby curve already announcing itself. We are batting names back and forth and musing about how we'll be as parents. L will be patient and kind, and will expertly know how to deal with a child, while I will make be making fun of the kid for my own amusement like the dad in "Calvin and Hobbes."

I really love this sonogram of the little one. Those are his or her legs flailing outward, floating in its little nest while we are outside surrounding it with love. I am so glad this adventure is with L and me. No matter what else is happening, these are such bright days for us. There is a world in every minute.

Telling my parents

My parents were in town this past weekend, and we got to tell them the great news. After two really long, stressful weeks at work, I was so excited to see them and tell them. The idea of that moment kept pulling me through.

My parents and L were waiting for me at their hotel on Washington Square. We spent a few minutes visiting and checking out the room, and then we started meandering through the park on our way to dinner. We were going over to Stand for some burgers. It was turning into a very nice evening -- the heat had broken, the sky was a watery bluish pink, and people were strolling all around. We pointed out some of the renovations made to Washington Square lately, the wide boulevards and colorful flower beds and wrought iron fences and lightposts. We were just talking about work stuff, nothing major, just visiting with each other. We were over by the south side of the fountain, watching the jets shooting up, standing in a little circle. I had made eye contact with L and she gave me the go-ahead.

"Guess what?" I said. My parents looked at me expectantly. I looked at my mom and then at my dad as I said, "Lillian's pregnant!"

There was a real moment of silence then, as what I was saying settled in with them. Then it was all hugs and good cheer. L said later that she saw my dad tear up as soon as I said it, but there was a real moment of astonishment there. They were so excited. "Oh, this is so special!" Dad said. "How could you not tell me?!" Mom said. It was such an exciting thing. Mom said later she thought that maybe we were getting a dog. She started crying a little bit out of happiness, and told us how much we would love our child. She said Kelsey's and my cheeks used to turn red because she would just kiss us so much. "You will not believe how much you love that child, you will kill for your child, you will kill for your child," Mom said in a way that was funny and only a little weird.

I'm smiling even now as I write this. Dad said we must have planned this, to tell them this news in such a perfect setting -- in the middle of Washington Square under a clear pink sky on a great July evening -- but we really didn't. Telling them cast the rest of the weekend in this great glow of love and excitement. My parents said they would be talking about this for a long time that night. Mom insisted on calling her friend Jill to share the news immediately ("I'm going to be a grandmother!"). It was so wonderful to feel such love and support from them. I had this strange fear that they wouldn't be excited -- that they would think it was too soon, or that we were too young or not established enough or too indebted or something -- and even though I knew those fears weren't rational, it was nice to have them dashed anyway.

Telling my parents was different from telling friends. Like marriage, having a baby is a significant event in the life of an entire family, not just the immediate participants. It was nice to add another circle of love around the little one.

Collect $200

Every week we are getting emails from Babycenter.com that talk about the baby's development, its size, and other issues that will pop up. Every week there is some tidbit about how wives can get their stupid, lazy husbands involved. These are tips for women married to comically inept men, and the suggestions are all hilariously inane in their own right. "Invite your husband to come to the doctor's appoint with you." "See if your husband would like to think of some questions that he'd like to ask." Who are these people? The other fun thing is this "Quote of the Week" feature, which highlights some twitterish lines from some random pregnant woman somewhere on the internet. They tend to be depressing. "What's happening to me? I feel sick all the time. It's like my scalp is on fire" -- Jenny, from Buttock, Iowa.

The really exciting thing, though, is that by the time you figure out you're pregnant, it's already week 4. (True, pregnancy is something like an 80-week process, but it's nice to not start all the way at square one.) It feels really good to dive in with a few weeks under your belt, like in Monopoly when you collect $200 just for passing Go. We're really moving now.

Currently, at the six week mark, Little Blabe is about a quarter of an inch in size. This is a real measurable quantity! No longer comparing the baby to seeds! L.B. also has dark spots on its head that will turn into eyes, which seems weird, and its heart is beating furiously quick - something like 100-160 beats per minute. Our little lentil bean.

Day one/Dandelion

I came home tonight after another long, rainy day at work. I was chatting with L as I stripped out of my dress pants and shirt, putting on shorts and a t-shirt. I was telling her about my day at work, a day of minor victories and defeats, long waiting hours. I asked her about her day, if she was feeling better from the fever and headache that kept her home. She was feeling better, and in bright spirits, except for a dull headache. The apartment was clean and she looked sweet and pretty, wearing a light blue t-shirt and a summer skirt. L said, "I'm pregnant!"

I started laughing. I was happy but also just amused by the whole thing. We've been trying for a mere three weeks, and you're pregnant already? And, after telling me that a wife's announcement to her husband is like her own version of a proposal, and thus can be done with any degree of creativity and romance, this is how you tell me? These two thoughts were running in parallel through my head. Just this afternoon I was worrying about if it would take a long time, if it would be stressful if it would even be possible. And now this?

I felt so, so happy. Just a big grin on my face. I felt a new wave of energy and we talked about how incredulous we felt. She had already taken two pregnancy tests, as well as made a call to the doctor and done a bunch of research online. It looks like we're in week 4 of the pregnancy. The baby is but a mere bundle of cells. I am happy that we are aware of the kid now; that while it's still forming and developing, something out of nothing, there are already people in the world who love it. We love you.

I still can't believe this is happening. We read about how 20-30% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and I hope our little babe makes it through. I spent a lot of time tonight kissing on my wife's belly, telling our new kid that I loved him or her. L will be such a beautiful mother. She is already. Of course I told her, half-facetiously, how they say you're not really a father until you see the baby -- but I am enraptured nonetheless.

I wandered to Chipotle to pick up some dinner in a happy cloud. I listened to Musiq's "So Beautiful," which seemed appropriate. We ate dinner, watched television. I called James to tell him this unbelievable, wonderful news. It was so good to tell him. He was impressed, as was I, with my ability to get this job done quickly. We had a good laugh over that -- I told him how I figured I should be able to do it, since even my limited knowledge of my genetic background tells me that indeed, those kids were able to do the trick. I feel proud of myself in a dumb, masculine way, but still proud. I am so happy L and I were able to interlock ourselves in this way.

Tonight I keep thinking of the blossom on a dandelion. Our little guy (or girl) is but a mere puff of cells right now, something small and beautiful and perfect and loved. So delicate, yet strong, the miracle of life itself. Please don't scatter, dandelion -- remain and grow and come to us. We are in love with you already.

Such awe and gratitude tonight. And laughter -- incredulous, genuine laughter.