(Lots of nursery talk in this one)

Shelby and I are great procrastinators, we really are, but when it came time to start getting things ready for baby, I’m all over it.

We’re nearing 25 weeks, but I’ve already started getting rooms in the house ready. Why the rush? Well, besides waiting FIVE FRICKING YEARS for this opportunity, it really is part excitement, part a little manipulation of the universe. Sure, I still worry about our little guy each and every day, but I’ve accepted and embraced the fact that *this* is going to happen.

It really is.

We’re so close to viability without major health problems. I can smell it. After getting our carpets cleaned, our office converted into office/guest bed room, I decided to take on a venture that I never thought I’d do; Paint a nursery. As Shelby drives away, leaving to have lunch with a few of her friends, I find myself stirring a can of baby blue paint. Two major things are happening here; I’m actually painting (something I hate to do and suck at) and I’m about to, dare I say it again, paint OUR nursery.

As I pour the No-VOC, light blue paint into the roller bucket, I find myself staring at the liquid and becoming awestruck that this event is here. If one was to catch me at this time, you might even see a tear in my eye. I never thought I’d be happy to paint. I used this time to blast music, put blue on the walls, and take count of things. Over this experience and the past few weeks, I learned a few new things about myself as a father to be;

Why I’m going to be a bad father?

1. I sung along to songs promoting drugs, sex, and rock and roll while painting a nursery.
2. The words; son of a bitch, fuck, god dammit, and shit came out of my mouth more times that I can remember while edging.
3. I threw a (dry) paint brush at my cat for almost getting paint all over the place.
4. I wanted to give up edging after the first 30 minutes.
5. Painting makes me want to drink, heavily.

Why I’m going to be a good father?

1. I painted a nursery while Shelby was out and wanted to surprise her when she got home.
2. I missed the cat with the paint brush.
3. I kept the vision of a complete nursery in my minds eye which served as excellent motivation.
4. I horrible at slowing down, taking my time and being careful, but wanted the nursery to come out perfect and worked very hard at making it so.
5. Seeing Shelby’s smile after she got home made it ALLLL worth it..

How I know I’m going to be a the BEST FATHER IN THE ENTIRE WORLD?

1. If you tell anyone, I’ll deny this: On Monday, I traded my DREAM CAR in for a mini-van and did so with a smile on my face.

(Lots of baby and pregnancy talk in this one)

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve updated. I know all two of you have been on pins and needles, so this is the day you’ve been waiting for!

Prior to our unscheduled visit to Labor and Delivery at 23 weeks, we were in Portland visiting my cousin, his wife, and their 8 month old baby (Baby L). I have to say, time, situations and perspective is a interesting beast.

My cousin and his family are wonderful, thoughtful, beautiful people who I look forward to spending time with, but in 2008 I simply couldn’t. When they announced a surprise pregnancy prior to moving to Portland, it was like a knife in my chest. You’ve read about that feeling on every IF blog, so I don’t need to repeat it. You get the idea. They moved to Portland shortly after that, and I was glad to not be involved in bump watch.

Their baby was born in Sept. of 2008 and, to me, represented the pain, loss, and un-rewarded efforts in our struggle with infertility.  They came to visit family for Christmas/New Years that year. Shelby should have been due any day, and we should have been beaming to see them and their adorable baby. To make a long story short, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to see them. It was too hard. I felt awful about making a lame excuse and not going to see family visiting from another state, but I knew that we needed to protect ourselves.

Now, present day, I find myself sitting on an airplane that is taking us to see my cousin for the first time in over a year. Those feelings of last year are a memory now and have been replaced with pure excitement of seeing his new baby. I have a special relationship with my cousin, he’s the only person (besides Shelby, of course) that I feel comfortable, and open enough to stay up until 4 AM drinking scotch and talking about anything and everything (ok, the scotch helps). Our conversations range from light heart-ed and jovial to some heavy, deep shit. I tend to shy away from these conversations with most other people, because frankly, I don’t give a crap about what they have to say. They either have no life experience, come from a perspective I do not support, or simply just want to talk at me. My cousin on the other hand, will listen, absorb, and understand.

I’m excited to see him and his family for many reasons and one reason is very new to me. I’m excited to see their baby. What the hell? I’m excited to a baby?! This is a weird feeling to say the least. With our baby due in November, I actually find myself looking forward to getting a crash course in baby. It’s a funny place to be… Shelby and I have spent countless dollars and effort to have a baby, and I’ve really NEVER been around one. I have ZERO experience with one.

I’m also excited to see him and have a single, very important conversation. I want to share our battle with infertility with them. This is one of the few couples that Shelby and I feel comfortable enough to bring them into the loop. As soon as we arrived, the baby talk commenced. The more we talked about baby stuff, the need to share our story grew. I simply couldn’t have the baby conversations without having them know where ours came from. Hours after landing, I find myself telling our story, sharing pictures of our two transferred blasts, and sipping a iced white mocha at Starbucks. While pausing at the end of our story, after explaining how hard it would have been to see them during the holidays, I brace myself for their reaction. This is one of the first times we  explained our struggle, and I prepared myself for the response. As we all know, they can range from ignorant, to rude, to invalidation.

Their response? Complete sympathy and respect for our battle. While they couldn’t understand everything we went through, they sympathized with how hard it must have been on us. They were amazed at how hard we tried, and how strong we are though the battle. They were in awe of the procedures, pictures, and efforts.

It was exactly the response I would have wanted, dare I dreamed of one. Sure, the “fertile” baby talk and advice flowed, but at least they knew our story. They knew the story of our baby growing in Shelby’s belly and that was what mattered to me. Over the course of our visit, and many glasses of scotch, my cousin and I talked about our battle and how hard it has been. It was a weight off my shoulders to talk about this freely.

Only after those conversations were out of the way did I completely open myself up to their baby. This was the first time around her, and I completely let her past all of my built up and hardened baby-defenses. I saw a small hint of what my love will be like for my own baby and it floored me. I didn’t know it was possible to get any more excited about November, but I am. I was worried that I’d have no idea what to do or act around a baby, but my fears were laid to rest. My time with their baby was wonderful. I even managed to postpone a full on baby meltdown by just doing what felt natural.

The trip was worth the visit, in every way. I learned one, important thing about myself that help calm my fears of our own baby.

I will be a good father.

I came across an amusing article today that claims that “ugly” men produce more sperm per ejaculate.

Ladies, I don’t mean to brag, but it took 5 years of sex, procedures, timed cycles, IUI’s and an IVF with ICSI to knock up the misses.

You know what that means???

I am one HOT piece of ass.

If you’d like to line up and get a picture taken with me, please the line starts over there. It will be the best $10 you’ve ever spent! Hey, I need to repay our years of procedures back in one way or another!

What’s that you say?

Being in debt to conceive isn’t so hot?

Damn!

Guess the world needs to balance itself out in one way or another.

I’m a fan of celebrating little milestones of, of sorts. I love these little celebrations that range from Shelby hugging the porcelain god with her first real bout of morning sickness, to our little guy, who is 1/2 way done with the best hotel stay of his life (Hey, it even has 24/hour room service!), to Shelby’s baby bump, and to last week, where I received my first annoying pregnancy comment.

I bet you can guess the question… I rank it up there with the ignorant, “natural twins, or [voice quiets] fertility twins?” when someone finds out you are having twins. Yes, you guessed it, I got the “was it planned?”

Really, what kind of question is that? In the millisecond after it was asked, a few things occurred to me when that question is asked. I take it two ways 1.) I’m a responsible parent by planning the creation of a human being, or 2.) I’m a drunkard who didn’t want to use a condom, it broke, or we’re just TOO fertile. Ha, TOO fertile, imagine that. Sure, there are exceptions to that, but really, you’re asking me a pretty damn personal question. I mean, think about it, that’s pretty intimate. They are really asking what my (and Shelby’s) mental state was as at the time Shelby and I did the horizontal tango. What’s your next question? What position got Shelby pregnant? Ahh, the questions of the fertile.

Well, in our case, there was a lot of FUTILE horizontal tango going on. Fun? Sure. Productive? Not so much.  Actually, I believe the position we were in was begging on our hands and knees, praying for our IVF to work.

I know it’s an innocent question, but how should it be answered? I carefully considered my question and responded to “was it planned” with the answer of “Yes, very much so” and left it at that. I know I could have answered with a simple yes, but at that moment, it seems to cheapen how much we’ve gone through. Hell yes it was planned. And we have 5 years of a monthly payment to continue to remind us of that fact.

To answer any other way would seem to dishonor my little bean that is budding. We worked hard to get to this 21 week mark. We worked hard just for the chance of getting here, and I simply cannot turn my back on that effort.

I’m proud that we have an IVF baby. Simply put, I’m proud of us. We have gone through the hardest 5 years of our lives, and we’re coming out happier, more in love, and closer than ever. Even, in some way odd way, I’m grateful that we’ve worked so hard to get here. It’s made me a better  lover, husband, and soon-to-be, father. So when people ask “was it planned?” the answer should be “Planned enough that it took 5 years, a hundred appointments, heart break, tears and $60,000. Our baby, that we fought so hard for was indeed, very much planned.”

Until I feel comfortable enough to say that, I will for now remain, half way in the closet and simply answer, “Was this baby planned?” with “Yes, very much so.“

I am here to award myself an award. I’m not proud of it, but regardless, an award of this caliber needs to take place.

I’m a bad blogger.

Not only am I a bad blogger, but I’m a bad commenter. My lack of blogging and commenting has been on my mind lately, and Babysmiling’s Thoughtful Thursday post really hit the nail on the head. It’s an excellent post regarding things that really turns her off from reading blogs.

It’s not that I don’t have a lot to talk about… Things are better than they have ever been before. This year has been full of amazing changes, and excitement. I’m just not sure how to share it with everyone. Maybe just hit the highlights in a list at some point? Obviously, Shelby and I are going though a major life change, but I’m just not sure if I’m ready to be one of those “pregnancy after infertility blogs”. At this point, all I’d write about is what we’re shopping for, the latest karate kick from the little one, that we’ve named Baby G. The list goes on, but I’m just not sure what that means for my blog entries…

I did want to direct you to Shelby’s post about reflecting on the past year. A lot has changed for us, but I wanted to second her “thank you” to the ALI community.

Thank you for being there for us.

Thank you for supporting us.

Thank you for being a circle of friendship and trust.

Thank you for reading.