No Clever Title Needed

We saw our unborn child today. I could say any number of things right now, and believe me, I will because I'm a longwinded saminabatch. But just as I will never forget the first time I heard our child's heartbeat, the first image of the Bean will stay with me forever.
It's weird, I have seen ultrasound pictures before, and I have never really understood what I was seeing. Seeing the living fetus's image on the screen though was surreal. You could see two tiny chambers of its heart beating (about 145 bpm) and by god it was moving. Despite the fact that this little bun needs a few more months in the oven, it was twitching and undulating in the safety of Margaret's womb. The pic above is actually from today's session. The curved white part is the spine, with the head immediately to its right. It looks like the Bean is lying on its stomach, with the head dipped down. As I suppose is appropriate in this scenario, the Bean is curled up in the fetal position. I plan to strike the same pose when I get the Bean's first college tuition bill in 2024. Har har...
Did I get emotional as I watched the Bean do its best to avoid the ultrasound transducer? You betcha.
Someday, far in the future, I'll be able to show the Bean this blog, and he or she will be able to see the first view we saw. I think of all of the things that we'll do together, and I get more and more impatient to meet him or her. I want to take a photo of the Bean each year of its life, preferably in the same place each year. I want to take it to its first concert. I didn't go to my first concert until I was 12, but I'm willing to bet that the Bean will take in a rock show earlier than that. A friend of mine suggested that calling our unborn child "Bean" was a sure way to make sure he or she wound up in therapy. Well, my wife was nicknamed Bunni from an early age, and is still called such by certain family members. It hasn't hurt her any. It's an affectionate term, and so is "Bean."

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Margaret is beginning to show. Not all that much yet, but there is definitely a bit of a baby stomach happening. The Bean really isn't bean-sized anymore, and yet we have decided to keep the nickname, simply because it's cute and we have become accustomed to it. It wouldn't surprise me if I continued to call the kid "Bean" after he or she was born, especially if it's a she. It is doubtful though that any offspring from the two of us will be small. I'm 6'3" and Margaret is, I believe, 5'8", so unless some recessive gene kicks in the Bean shouldn't have any problem defending itself on the playground. I myself hit six feet in the sixth grade, and have been taller than all of my teachers since third grade. I only got into two fights during my first 18 years of life, and one of those I started (hey, we're all knuckleheaded at one point or another). Throughout my life, when I have been involved in any sort of potential altercation, all I really had to do was stand up, and the situation usually resolved itself. Height is a good thing, especally when you aren't a particularly good fighter (I learned this during my third and last physical confrontation, while I was in the army, when a guy half my size mopped the floor with me. I'm not ashamed of this - he won fair and square...well, not really fair and square, since everyone fights dirty, but he definitely came out on top.
Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah, the Bean...
Anyhow, I had planned on showing pictures of Margaret's incredible expanding tummy, but have so far been nixxed on that idea. I'm not going to argue with a pregnant woman (hormones - they'll kill ya!) , but hopefully I'll figure out some way of posting the pictures that we get to see on Wednesday. We are still figuring out what we're going to do about a living situation. The options are moving, expanding what we have, or knocking down the 800 sq. ft. house where we currently reside and build something new on the property. We're looking at modular homes, which would be used in the event we went with the thrid choice. There are some designs that would actually work on our property. We'll see what happens.
We went together to see the Blue Dogs on Friday night. The band, which we both love, was celebrating the tenth anniversary of its first show at the Dock Street Theatre here in Charleston. That performance was recorded and released as a CD. I was at the show a decade ago, and Friday's show was just as good, and really showed how far those guys have come in ten years. Right in the middle of the show this awesome African drum group jumped onstage and put on a great show. One of the members of the troupe used to play with the Blue Dogs, and it was a nice surprise in what turned out to be a great show overall. Next Sunday we get to see Alison Krauss and Union Station, one of my favorites. I can't wait for the Bean to get here, so we can start exposing him or her to the finer things in life along the lines of music, film, literature and food. This is going to be one cultured kid.

Reality Check

First of all, all of our friends were right - the gestational diabetes was a false alarm, so big thanks to everyone who sent us support.
We told my dad and his wife last weekend over breakfast, and it went pretty well. I can tell that my dad is looking forward to being a grampa, and seeing him happy made me happy.
We heard the heartbeat this morning. Talk about a reality check. Now don't get me wrong - I wasn't at all in denial about the fact that we have a kid on the way, but actually hearing proof of the fact that blood is coursing through the Bean's tiny little heart is pretty surreal. The doctor used this little microphone that could pick up the Bean's heartbeat. She positioned it on Margaret's abdomen and felt around for a second, then she said, "Oh, there it is." If you have never heard the heartbeat of an unborn fetus, it's quite different from ours, even as a kid. Where we have the deep steady ba-dup, ba-dup, ba-dup, the Bean's was much faster. It sounded, for lack of a better description, sort of alien. The rate was 150 beats per minute, so it was fast, and because of the microphone, sounded a little like a tiny little washing machine on the agitate setting. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a little emotional. I swear I will never foget that sound as long as I live. I plan to call that beautiful sound to mind when the Bean is a teenager and has switched to his or her own agitate setting, and I'm ready to murder him or her for some indiscretion. I'll just call to mind the humbling wowwowwowwowwow sound of that first heartbeat, and the little grommet will live to see another birthday.
Went to see Tom Jones last night at the Plex. Spectacular show. Jones is one of those performers where you pretty much know what you're going to get when he steps onstage, and the dude didn't disappoint. He was one of the acts I was going to see whenever we made it out to Las Vegas, so the fact that he came to Charleston made it a bit easier. I couldn't bring my camera in, so no photos, but I got a copy of the setlist, which I plan on sending to my friend, Ray, who is a Tom Jones freak. Jones did all the expected stuff ("It's Not Unusual," "Delilah," "Sexbomb," "Green Green Grass of Home," and the cover of Prince's "Kiss") and had a full backing band, including a four-piece horn section. The light show was pretty cool as well. Margaret and I also went to see the new Harry Potter film (Goblet of Fire), which we both liked. We have another doctor's appointment a week from Wednesday to have a sonagram. We'll actually get to see the Bean! I can't wait!
Oh and regarding the photo above, Iam at least confident that the Bean will be more adept than our current "leader." Yeesh...

A little friendly advice

After the post about gestational diabetes, we received several e-mails from mommies, or people who know mommies (thanks Mindy!). All of them agreed that the lemonade that Margaret drank right before the test probably resulted in the false positive. She went back to the doctor this past Tuesday just to be sure. We'll see what the tests say.
We went to see the movie "Jarhead" last weekend. I really enjoyed it because it was not your run of the mill war film. Also, I am a veteran of the first Gulf War, and I have to say that for the most part the filmmakers got the look of the terrain right. Apparently it was filmed in Yuma, AZ and Mexico, but if you want to know what Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq look like, with the flat ground reaching to the horizon in every direction, then this film does the job. I'll have to find some photos of when I was out there and get them scanned so you visitors can see what I'm talking about.
So according to Margaret, she can feel her uterus as of yesterday, which means that (and this is the official scientific jargon for the situation) "there's stuff going on down in that vicinity." One of the things we are looking at now is our living situation. We live in an 800 square foot house that is both "rustic" and "cozy." Ask any real estate agent, and they will tell you that means "in need of many repairs" and "cramped." We're looking at either moving or putting a bigger house on the property. If we do the latter, we're considering a modular house, which would be cheaper than building outright, and the house would be just as sturdy. We'll see.
We told my siblings last night and this evening. We called my sister, Andrea, and my brother, Dylan, last night. Andrea, whom lives in Boston, basically freaked after I asked her, "So, how do you feel about being an Aunt? Nearly blew my eardrum out. But she seemed very happy, which of course is good. My normally stonefaced little brother, the Charleston city cop, actually broke character when we told him. "No shit?" he kept saying over and over. But he seemed very happy, which of course is good. Tonight we called my other sister, Katy, who lives in California. She asked how my job was going, and I said fine, that it was a really good company to work for. "For example," I said non-chalantly, "if you have a baby, the health insurance pays for just about everything."
"Oh, that's cool," she said, in a tone of voice that suggested that she had no idea why I would be mentioning babies. I repeated the same question concerning Aunt-hood I had asked Andrea, and damn if she didn't scream into my other ear. (note to self: hold phone away from ear when delivering joyful news to female siblings). But once again, she seemed very happy, which of course is good.
I'm considering posting the blog on my favorite website, Fark.com, to see if the post will get greenlighted. The comments generated from doing that out to be interesting.

I believe it was Bette Davis who said...

..."Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride." Okay, so she actually said "bumpy night," but I can paraphrase. Margaret got a call from the doctor to come in and be retested for gestational diabetes. It's the first of what I know will be endless nights of worrying about the health of our child. I guess, I was not expecting that sort of worrying to start so soon. I pictured kissing boo-boos, perhaps cleaning up the occasional puddle of puke (god knows my parents did that for me), but while I have the same worries that I'm sure every parent has about their unborn child being healthy, it appears that things are moving from the "Whee! We're pregnant!" phase to the "Please God, let it be healthy" portion of our program. That's not to say that I'm not still euphoric about us having a baby.
The good news is that Margaret thinks that the fact that she drank lemonade before her appointment might have spiked the initial test. The bad news is that we have no way of knowing for sure until another test is done, and that won't happen until next Tuesday. The other major factor is that, since I'm adopted, we have no idea what my medical history is. I'm going to have to see what I can do to remedy that. I have not really had a need to find out about my biological parents before, but now I certainly do. My sister, who is also adopted, got some info on her biological parents a few years ago, so I'll consult with her. Man, I haven't told anyone in my half of the family yet. I need to sit down with my dad and tell him (we don't get along all that well, but better now than a few years ago), and then I'll tell the siblings.
Margaret is understandably just as nervous about the retest as I am, so I bought her the t-shirt pictured above to cheer her up. She wore it out today, and not a single person she encountered got the joke. And they're such nice boobies too.