Allow me to Introduce myself...

My name is Timothy and today, Sunday, November 20th, 2005, my girlfriend Julie and I discovered we are going to have a baby.

She woke me up at 5:45 AM, crying, after I had been out the night before; an interesting evening filled with booze, creamy mushroom sauce and gay flirting (nevermind) to tell me that she just KNEW she was pregnant. I have to admit: I wasn't very convinced or worried at this point. You see, this was the approximately 36th time she had said, "I'm sure I'm pregnant." For clarity sake, she had been wrong EVERY time. I tried to console her, assure her that she wasn't pregnant, she was maybe just a little run-down. We couldn't go back to sleep so around 8 AM we went to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles for breakfast. It was delightful, by the way. After breakfast we went to Savon for the pregnancy test. You know, the $20 settle-down-it's-psychosomatic, girlfriend soothing device.

Turns out, I was wrong.

Something tells me I'm going to have some unique thoughts and experiences over the next nine months and I'm really very forgetful, so I thought perhaps a blog would be a good idea. For the record, I really think blogging is incredibly self-absorbed. I console myself by thinking no one will ever read this, so perhaps I'm not quite as incredibly self-absorbed as other bloggers. That statement is scary because I've sort of characterized myself as a "blogger." *sigh*

Anyway, here it is now, 6:oo PM, and I have had a hell of a day. Once we came to grips with the fact that she was pregnant (after taking a second test) I immediately called my Mama. After that, Julie called her younger sister, and after that call is when things got interesting. Julie came from a very Catholic family and although she is no longer like that, her mother and brother still are. Julie's younger sister got pregnant almost exactly 2 years ago and when she told her mom, well, in an attempt to keep the skeletons firmly ensconced, we'll just say that it wasn't a good scene. On top of that situation, Julie's older sister, who was trying (unsuccessfully) to have her own baby, COMPLETELY freaked out and, well, that was an even worse scene. So this morning, Julie was understandably terrified to tell her family. To recap, it wasn't an easy day, but things went a lot easier for us than they did for Julie's sister. That being said, I resent the fact that on what is supposed to be a very happy day for us, she had to spend most of it worried and uptight. Her mother was freaked out because we're not getting married. That is a BIG thing for her family, and I just don't see the point. It's a pointless religious ritual that I have no interest in, but we had to sit there and be lectured about "making decisions for three people now," and "think of the child!" Garbage. Listen, I may not have all the answers, but when the parents are happy, the kids are happy, lack of marriage certificate, notwithstanding. Anyway, her older sister kinda freaked because she has still been unsuccessful in her attempts to bear a child. The thing that bugs me is that after we told her mom, we had to sit there and devise a plan over the best way to tell her sister! My vote was to call her and say, "Hey guess what? I'm pregnant!" That, apparently, was a silly idea. Julie and her mother concluded that the best thing would be for Julie to call her sister and say, hey I'm pregnant but I need advice. I mean, Julie's sister has been trying to have a baby for 3 years now, so the woman is a fantastic source of info, but that's not what Julie was calling her for, she was calling to tell her she was pregnant. Maybe I'm being a touch bitchy about this whole thing. I just think this is our day, and we spent too much of it worried about others. Her brother, by the way, was the worst. When Julie told him, he was on his computer and said, "Yeah, I figured." He didn't turn around, didn't stand up, didn't congratulate her - nothing.

The thing that stands out to me the most about today is the weird, overwhelming feeling I have. I was talking to my friend Casey and while he was talking I kept spacing out and thinking, I'm going to have a child! I can't explain it, really. If you talk about your future children, it's a laugh, it's the future, it's not tangible. Now that someone is actually pregnant, things change. It's hard to get my head around the fact that I'm going to have a son or a daughter, me! It's absurd, really, and the absurdity of it all is the reality that my life is going to change forever.

You know what? I couldn't be happier about that.