It is my great pleasure to announce publicly that we are pregnant. I say “we” because even though I am not dealing with daily nausea and 40+ weeks of discomfort, I am involved in this process.

Planning

My wife and I have been talking about having a baby for a the past year or two in earnest. We have always wanted to have children (2 currently sounds like a good number), and our eventually finally arrived.

At the beginning of 2024, we both admitted that we are getting older (30), and our jobs are not going to be getting more secure anytime soon. So what were we waiting for? In response, we moved to California to be closer to my mother-in-law, who is a delivery nurse.

To prepare, I read a few books, specifically The Expectant Father and Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy. The former was good because it was specifically an “if you know absolutely nothing and are an average man, start here,” and the latter was excellent as a follow up because it added far more detail, medical research and practices, and a more in-depth understanding.

Let me know your top suggestions for follow-up reads in the comments.

Finding Out

Funnily enough, we found out we were pregnant because of my cat, Freya. She hates everyone, except me. Even after five years of my wife being in her life, my cat will not let her give more than 2 pets at a time, and has only occassionally walked across her as a shortcut to get to me.

And then one day, Freya crawled onto my wife’s lap to relax, stretch, and groom. She sat there for almost 30 minutes even though I was seated across the couch and perfectly available. We had heard of animals detecting changes sooner than humans, so we decided to take a test.

Sure enough: we were pregnant.

Heartbeat

I took a day off from work to attend our first checkup at around the 8 week mark. I had not actually expected to hear a heartbeat, but we did. Technology is incredible, and it was a surreal moment for both of us.

Just like people often say, hearing the heartbeat made it real. It really is the best sound.

We were also relieved because we only saw one adorable peanut-sized parasite (yes, I got her permission before calling it that). We did not really have a reason for it, but we were sure it would be twins.

Celebrating

Now that we are nearly 12 weeks in, it seems like as good a time as any to let the world know and celebrate with us. The tentative due date is May 23, which is a little sooner than we originally expected. We wanted a summer baby, but it does not matter now.

We will probably find out the gender in a few weeks, and we are so excited to eventually meet our little jelly bean.