Sleepness nights...and the baby isn't here yet--Jacob

Before I get started, let me introduce myself. Hi, I'm Jake, I'm 30, and I'm going to be a dad in January.

When Mr. Munson asked me to join his ranks as one of his daddy bloggers, I jumped at the chance, then I realized I've never blogged before.  Then I thought, wow I'm going to make a fool of myself by doing something everyone can see and read and point to and question "he's a blogger?".  I got a bit nervous and thought maybe I should back out, then it hit me, not only have I never blogged before, but I've never been a dad before! And I'm very sure there are going to be times when people point and question "he's a dad?".  So armed with this new self revelation and knowing that there are a lot of new experiences and unknowns in my future, I'm kicking off my blogging career.  I hope that I can be everything that a blogger is supposed to be: funny, informative, captivating, etc etc etc.

We got home from the Munson's baby shower around 9 o'clock last night, we had a blast.  We met some great people and hopefully didn't embarass ourselves or the Munson's too much.  I work second shift so I'm usually up late with nothing to do but watch tv or play video games, yes I still play video games, while I can, eventually I will pass this talent on to my offspring.  Last night though, after all the festivities of the weekend came to a close, I was worn out ( I battled a horrible case of the yawns on the way back to Memphis from Columbus).  So I decided to give in and go to bed with my beautiful wife, Melissa, who I occasionally get to see while on this shift. 

Our schedules aren't the greatest but we make it work.  She's an 8 to 5 working gal, and I'm a 4 to 1 working guy.  During the week we see nothing of each other, except when one of us wakes the other, either upon arriving home (me) or upon leaving home (her), and these few blinking seconds with a quick "I love you" along with a welcome home smooch or a have a great day kiss is how we make it through the week. I know she loves me, who else would be willing to risk my morning breath to say goodbye.  My shift can change on the drop of a hat or I can be stuck on a shift for half a year, but it usually switches from 1st to 2nd on a three month rotation. 

Anyways, to the sleepness nights that I mentioned in the title.  As read previously, I'm awake most of the night, and fall alseep for a few hours, then it never fails when it's time for Melissa to start her morning I wake up, usually grab my iphone, which is an extenison of my existance, and check all of the going ons, whether it be facebook or words with friends, then I'll fall back to sleep within 15 minutes.  Well, that's how it used to be, now I have a harder time shutting off my brain after waking up, even if it's only been a few hours of rest that I've gotten.  I think about anything and everything, from bills and housework (yardwork for me) to how to improve my Call of Duty ranking, and yes I've googled how to become faster and better at onling gaming, don't judge me. But now, I think more on one of the most important things in life, bringing a child into this world.

When we first decided to try and conceive, we didn't have a plan, we just practiced...a lot, it was an enjoyable time.  We were so anxious though, we thought we should've been pregnant within the first month.  We weren't real serious about it though, we knew it would happen, or hoped it would, but weren't getting crazy like waiting til the moon was at the right phase or any of that jazz.  It never happened though, so we did get a bit more serious, and apparently there's an app for that as well.  My wife found an ovulation tracker, calendar thingy, and took charge in when would be the best time for us to make a baby.  Armed now with a tracker and determination we tackled the second the month of Operation Baby Maker.  Again, this was an enjoyable time, and I'm sure all of you know this and experineced this, but I just want to put it down in writing, sort of, that that month was one of the best we've had as a married couple.  Not just because of the love making, but because of the first major "project", if you will, that we both we're on board for, we both had vested interest in this one.  I mean we've done home improvement before and worked together as a couple on many things, but this was different, this was spiritual.  There was a vulnerability laid wide open in front of both of us and the questions of what if we can't and what if it's me that we had to put out of our minds.  There was a great connection there that we hadn't had before, or at least to this degree.

After the hard work and dedication we found out we were pregnant the weekend of Mother's day, which, to me, was appropriate.  I stopped in at a CVS drugstore upon my wife's request and purchased some ept's.  This was my first time to purchase any feminine product, ever, and so I had mixed, awkward feelings walking through the store carrying these things, I wanted to make sure people knew I was married so I polished my wedding ring to the brightest it had ever been since being given to me by my best friend on our wedding day.  As I made my way to the register, my confidence grew, there wasn't a huge crowd in the store, but as I fell in line with the few others there, I got looks of congratulations from some of the guys, even a knowing fist raised in salute as I placed the product down in front of the cashier.  This would have been a great time for the scanner to have stopped working and a call to go out over the intercom for a price check, you would've seen me crumble, but it didn't happen.  I grabbed my newly purchased sticks for my wife to pee on and hit the door with all of the confidence in the world.  When we got home Melissa got a shy bladder, so we had to wait a few minutes, I asked every 30 seconds if she needed to go now, how about now? Now?  Finally the moment came, the work was done, and even though the package said it should take 5 minutes for a clear answer, by the time Melissa had handed me the electonic pee stick, it already had a postive  reading: PREGNANT! I said we're pregnant and she looked at me with disbelief and said no way, I pointed to the screen and said yes, yes we are! It was, as it is to most people finding this news out, very exciting!

Melissa's folks were on the their way to Georgia to see Melissa's grandma, my parents live in Loiusiana and neither of us could wait to let them know. We each did it in our own way.  Melissa called her parents and interupted their dinner and told them it could wait for them to call her back, but her mom, not knowing what it could be, said to go ahead and tell her.  My wife, gave no lead up, no long way around to getting to the point she simply said we're going to have a baby.  I'm not sure what was said after that, I was busy getting ready to tell my parents the same exciting news, in my own way.  I snapped an up close photo of the ept's screen that clearly read pregnant  and sent it to mom and dad.  Which it was good thing I did, my dad is a preacher and they were attending a singing with the local congregation. Mom had her phone turned down, but had no idea she recived a message, I think dad said he heard his beep and he turned it down without checking the message.  About 15 minutes later, mom checks her phone, gets up and leaves the auditorium and calls me ready to hoot and holler, but can't be too loud because of her present location.  Dad eventually calls me later to congratulate us and now all the parents know. 

We're 19 weeks along now, a week from tomorrow we finally find out if it's a boy or girl, and neither of us has a preference.  We're calling it baby E right now, for Ethan Thomas or Emma June, we still call it peanut every once in awhile too.  Most everyone, if not everyone I know has been told at least once or twice about how excited we are, probably to the point of annoying, but not only about how excited, but how nervous and scared we are as well.  Yes we have parents that are going to be here, and my sisters both live in the area, but at night, when the sun goes down and they go home, it will just be us three, alone, with no prior knowledge except for what a few thousand books or online sites have given us, but have never been put into practice before and I'm ready.  I'm ready for this adventure of parenthood, of entering fatherhood, even if I don't know a single thing about either, I'm ready to learn.  Most of all I'm ready to love.