Down the Rabbit Hole

Life often sends us little signals that we recognize immediately, identify only in hindsight, or miss altogether. The events surrounding my wife telling me she was pregnant falls into that vast grey area in the middle.

She didn’t tell me “we” were pregnant, because let’s face it, after sending my boys on their way, my work was done; I am no longer part of the equation. She was pregnant, and while the coming physiological effects are certainly limited to her, my life as I knew it was over. What did I do? What any Irish recovering-Catholic attorney would do; I poured myself a drink and sat down to figure out what the hell this all means.

We discussed having a child, so this wasn't out of left field, but the conversations always stayed in the hypothetical. For some reason, at some point in time, I thought it was a great idea, but come on, really? The MONTH my wife goes off birth control, I knock her up? Really? I’m 34, and she's 37; conventional wisdom tells us to wait six months to a year before we really start worrying about conception or the lack thereof. I figure that either I have super-sperm or my wife is the second coming of the Fertile Crescent. Regardless, my life as I know it has officially ended. In pace requiem.

That isn’t to say that there weren’t signs, omens if you will, that should have alerted me to this impeding upheaval. From what little I currently understand about the process, and I may be mistaken here, pregnancy wreaks havoc on a woman’s body. My wife doesn’t usually complain all that much about bloating, cramping, and other GI unpleasantries, nor do I ordinarily bear witness to any of the secondary indicia; stinking up the bathroom is my job. Not these past few weeks. I just handed my funky crown to her. I bet they don't tell you that in "What To Expect."

More subtle were the subconscious signs. Can men pick up on biochemical shifts in their spouses, akin to the menstrual synchronization phenomenon of college dorms? Someone needs to look into this, because this past week I’ve 1) had dreams about us finding out we weren’t yet pregnant, planning out the consolation I would need to provide in order to earn the access necessary to try again; 2) experienced a sudden inexplicable urge to read “daddy blogs” documenting parallel experiences of others; and 3) become convinced that doing it myself was just the greatest idea ever.

So when I got home from the office the other night, I found a card (seriously, does she keep a stack of these hidden somewhere, and more disturbingly, some ass at a greeting card company felt the need to make ‘congratulations, you’re pregnant’ cards? That must be a sign of the downfall of western civilization), endearingly enough informing me “my swimmers hit their target.”

......

Did I know without knowing, or is this all an impermissible application of hindsight? More importantly, does this mean I have to buy a minivan and a car seat, or can that wait? At the end of it all, I have to say I really don’t want a minivan