He's Kicking!

     I finally got to feel our little one kick, and I am so excited for that.  We were sitting at home yesterday evening before going to bed, and I was in a goofy mood so I started singing a song I remember from childhood, The Story About Sammy.  My wife rolled her eyes and said, "Oh no!"  Of course, I wanted to continue torturing her, so I said that even if she didn't want to hear me sing the song, the baby most certainly did!  I got my phone, and searched for the song online.  Once I found it, I placed the phone next to her belly and pushed play.
     "Oh, great, you woke him up!" she said.  "He likes it!" I said.  To add to the fun, I made some fart noises near her belly by blowing air onto my arm.  Well, like most little kids, apparently our little one thinks this is hilarious.  He started kicking.  He's kicked before, but this time he kicked hard enough for me to feel him.  I was so happy to finally get to feel him move.  I think we will have to have a lot more silly songs and fart sounds very soon!

Mother's Day

     This past Sunday was Mother's Day.  This year, that day had a new meaning for my wife and I as our little one continues to grow and get ready for his/her big debut.  I spent the sunny morning running in the mountains where the season's wildflowers are in full bloom, and when I came home, my wife and I ate whole wheat chocolate chip waffles with walnuts and bananas.  I love making waffles.  I gave my wife some comfy, summery maternity pajamas, and she surprised me with a bouquet of very colorful flowers on the kitchen table.
     The day after Mother's Day was our second and final ultrasound.  This is the one when they do the anatomy scan.  We got to see the baby rolling and kicking around, and we got to see the baby's internal organs and external body parts.  I was really impressed with his/her strong, active legs and lively feet.  My wife loved seeing the four chambers of the baby's heart beating and pumping.
     Seeing the baby move and hearing his/her heartbeat made me feel closer to the baby.  We also learned the baby's gender, and so now we know the baby's name.  We are keeping these as a surprise for others, but I love being able to call our little one by his/her name when I talk to him/her through the filter of my wife's blossoming belly.
     The next time we will get to see our baby will be for his/her birthday in October.  That seems like a long way off now, but if the next 4.5 months are anything like the first, they will go by quickly.

Heartbeats

Today, at my wife's prenatal doctor visit, we heard our baby's heartbeat for the very first time.  It was about 160 beats per minute.  Today was also the day of the Boston Marathon, and there were 2 bombs that exploded at the finish line, stopping several heartbeats, and probably increasing the heart rates of the runners who already had elevated heart rates due to the miles that they had just run.

My wife and I are both runners.  We've each done two half marathons, and several shorter races.  In fact, one of the first purchases we made for our yet-to-be-born baby was a jogging stroller so that we can take him or her out with us for runs when he or she is old enough.  We are hoping to share our love for the outdoors and physical exercise with our child whose heartbeat we heard today.  Neither my wife nor I are elite runners; women in our age group qualify to participate in Boston if they can run 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 35 minutes or less.  We are not part of the Boston community, and yet as runners, we are a part of that community.  It may sound strange to those who don't run, but runners share a common bond over the miles we run, the challenges we choose to take on, and the dedication we put into such an individual sport.  And because of this, I feel a connection to those runners and race spectators in Boston today.

It is a very strange juxtaposition to hear our child's heartbeat for the first time on a day when some of the best members of our running community were threatened and injured by bombings.  I am overjoyed and deeply disturbed at the same time.  It makes me worry about the kind of world our little one will grow up in. I know that bad things have happened all throughout history, and that this really is nothing new.  It just feels a lot more personal this time.

Fetus Food!

         It's springtime here in Western Montana.  That means snow, rain, sun, repeat--sometimes within an hour.  One of the things we look forward to in our home during springtime is gardening season.  We grow a lot of veggies, fruit, and herbs as well as chickens for eggs and meat.  I'm really excited to be able to share our garden with our child, to teach him or her how plants grow, where food comes from, and how delicious and special homegrown food can be.

          For now, our child is still in utero.  But he or she needs healthy foods to grow and develop.  And springtime is a great time to finish off the bounty of last year to make sure there will be room for the goodies

to come this year.  So today, after a nice 6 mile run in the hills, I roasted a huge, 12 pound chicken that our hen, Tillie, raised from a tiny chick in our backyard.  Tillie will be wanting babies this spring too, and she is a terrific and skilled mother who keeps our backyard flock flush, our refrigerator filled with eggs, and our freezer stocked with meat.  It is a very special privilege to be able to eat healthy protein that was raised on our own land, and this privilege is made even more special since I know that it will help to nourish our baby's developing muscles and organs.

Along with our roasted chicken, I baked a raspberry ginger peach cobbler with a homemade granola topping.  We grew the raspberries in our backyard and froze them last summer, and we canned the peaches from a friend's peach orchard.  I used a little bit of honey to sweeten the cobbler, but it is mostly sweetened by the fruit since I want to help my wife prevent gestational diabetes.  Full of vitamins, fiber, and omega-3's, this dessert is both healthy and delicious.  I think our little one will love it!


When our child arrives and is ready for solid foods, I will use the seasonal fruits and vegetables that we grow to make homemade baby food.  But for now, I am happy to give our baby a little sneak preview of what's to come, even if he or she does have to eat it through an umbilical cord!

What? I have to adopt my own child?

     Today my wife and I met with an attorney to make sure that we have all of our legal rights and responsibilities in place before our baby is born.  When you're gay, you can't just get married, put your names on your child's birth certificate, and be a happy family.  You have to go through the courts and prove that you are worthy of only part of the rights that are given to married heterosexual couples.

     We learned today that we will need to go through the process of adopting our child.  Yes, the child that we decided to create and raise together, the child that my wife is creating with her own body must be adopted, specifically by me.  We must first indicate on the baby's birth certificate that the other parent is "unknown," even though I will be standing right there.  We must then go though a home study--that is, we have to have a stranger come into our home and decide if we are fit to be the parents of our own child.  The ironic thing about the home study is that even if they don't approve of our home, it is where our child will live since both my wife, who is the child's biological mother, and myself live there.  Then, we will have to go before a judge and declare that the baby's other parent has "abandoned" him or her and petition for the adoption.  Of course, there are plenty of legal fees associated with this.  So, money that we could have spent directly on our child will have to be spent on a lawyer, a home study, and legal filing fees instead.

     That's not all.  We will have to have an attorney help us to write a will and draw up a durable power of attorney to make sure that I can make medical decisions for my wife if she is hospitalized during her pregnancy, to make sure that we both can medically care for our child, and to make sure that if one of us dies, our child does not become a warden of the state.

     I am not happy about doing any of this.

     And, I am happy to do it all.

     It's a strange mixed-feeling of indignity and joy in preparing everything so that our child can have a happy life.  I'm happy we found an attorney who is understanding and can help us through these processes, but I'd rather be hiring her to help set up a college fund for our little one.  I'm trying to focus on the positive aspects rather than the frustrating ones, but that is going to take some real self-control.