With Arms Wide Open

Okay, I hate Creed. I just wanted to clarify that. Its just that the song name fit perfectly for my title. They are one of those artists, like Vanilla Ice, that was cool for about ten minutes.

Well, the day has come. I am going to be a father. My wife and I talked about having a baby, and she stopped taking birth control a couple of months ago. I was told (by her and others) that it would take some time for the birth control medication to wear off, so I thought that I had a bit of time to prepare myself. Apparently it wears off much faster for some people. A little over a week ago, she was feeling strange, and decided to take a test. She kept putting off taking it for some reason, so finally I just told her to do it. So, that Sunday afternoon she did.

She walked into the living room where I was watching TV and had a startled look on her face. This look soon identically matched my own as she said, “It’s positive.” Very plain spoken, very calmly she said this. I said, “Are you sure?” “Yes”, she replied. She then walked over to where I was sitting and showed me the test. Sure enough, it had a second line indicating that it was positive. There was then an indeterminable moment of silence, I don’t really know how much time went by. She asked, “Are you okay?” “Yea”, I replied. She then smiled and asked me what I thought about this. Obviously still in a sheer state of shock, I said “I don’t know yet.”

After a couple more moments of reflective silence, I finally asked her, “Where did that test come from?” “Walgreens”, she replied. “It’s a cheap one.” I then thought that perhaps we were observing a false reading from a cheap test. So, I suggested that I go buy another one, a good one to determine with more certainty the real story here.

So, I raced off to Winn-Dixie across the highway from our neighborhood, and went straight over to the pharmacy area to pick up the test. They were locked in a glass case along with the condoms. Ironic, I thought. The thing that prevents you from getting to this point, along with the thing that tells you that you are at this point, joined together, imprisoned behind a glass door.

It seemed like an eternity before the teenage employee could produce the correct key to get into the case and retrieve the test that I wanted. Fifteen bucks for this thing. Complete with digital readout, and a second test inside. So, I bought it and went back to the house.

She took this new test, and it confirmed what the first, much cheaper test, had already told us. She was indeed pregnant. For a second, my mind started to race, with all sorts of thoughts of responsibility and whether or not I could handle this. Those thoughts quickly disappeared though, as the reality of the moment set it. Any doubts at this point were meaningless. It was happening, ready or not, so I had to just accept it and deal with it.

Once I came to this conclusion, I felt a simultaneous rush of excitement and fear. I suppose its probably a lot similar to riding a roller coaster (which I have never done.) Excitement and fun, packed carefully in a wrapper of fear and panic.

We then began to call people to tell them the news. We methodically went from our parents on down the tree to relatives and friends. All were happy to hear the news, and gave good wishes to us.

Now, as I type this, over a week has gone by, and I’m still not sure that I have fully realized what is happening. I think that is something that will come to me gradually, over time. Seeing my friends with their kids this weekend did help to bring it more into reality. I’m sure that they were equally as unprepared and unsure of what to expect when they heard the news themselves, but they have adapted well. I think I will do so also.

One thing that will be a major issue is my job. If I continue doing what I am doing now, I will away from home a lot traveling. This would put a great deal of strain on Ginger, and would also affect me, as I would miss out on many moments of my young child’s development. I am hopeful that my company can find a way to work with me on this, but I may have to start looking for something more locally based.

This has been a rather serious entry, and for that I apologize. I know many (if there are any out there) of my readers probably come here for my amusing anecdotes. I will have many to come, I can assure you.