Jan 25, 2011

My Pilot Post

Sorry my posting has been absent from the blog. Ashley had it set up on her account so I couldn't access it unless I was home. Now we have it figured out so I can post anytime, anywhere - even if that means stealing a little work time to talk about my future child. I apologize in advance for the length.

It seems that Ash must assume that the pronoun of choice for an unborn child follows nautical rules. Our baby is already a "she" even though we don't find out for another month. That's ok, I'll go with it. Everything to this point has been hard to believe. To me, it honestly feels like my first days at General McLane were just a couple years ago. Time absolutely flies in this world. Ashley and I had talked last year that we wanted to be younger parents. We wanted to be able to do a bunch of things with our kids. And looking even further down the line, I want to be able to do things with my grandkids. I look at my Dad's parents and I still hit the links with them every summer. And they both still beat me!! I want that, and maybe by the time I fill that role I will be the one winning. What we didn't expect was everything to happen so quickly. We hear stories from friends that I have tried to have a baby for months, sometimes years with no success. In this regard, we consider ourselves lucky.

The thought of being a parent is a bit overwhelming in many regards. How can we afford a child? Will we still be able to travel? Is our social life over? Will I be a good parent? The fact is that none of the above questions really matter. We will find a way to be great parents, even if Ash has to give me verbatim instructions. The baby books that we have are pretty good, but it's impossible to read them in their entirity. There is so much information, and so much of that information is repeated in a different way. It really is an encyclopedia for everything related to pregnancy. Nice to have, but not completely necessary. A better book would tell me what to do after baby Swanson arrives.

Ash and I were just talking yesterday that she is nearly 4 months, which makes this ride almost half over. It is flying by! Before you know it, the weather will be warm, Ash will be miserable and everything in the world will be my fault. That's alright though. I will embrace that role as the father-to-be. The sonogram appointment was pretty special. Despite the baby being only two inches long, we could see her clearly and the heartbeat was stronger than ever. We have another appointment next week, but I expect it to be a normal checkup. We should know the sex during the first week of March, so I'm already anticipating that appointment. Then we can start to register for baby shower gifts and figure out what we're going to do with the spare/baby/computer room. Won't be long before need a bigger home. Closer to home or to warmer climates? A topic for another day...

~ Post by Zach

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