A moment to remember

Today was the day we finally broke the seal on our big news. After going to the doctor this afternoon for our first ultrasound*, we went over to Hannah and Will's for dinner, with the plan of telling them our big news and then proceeding to tell our families from there. 

*I think that's what we had done, but maybe it was a sonogram? Whatever it was, it was the first appointment when we saw the baby.

Now. We all know I like the Big Reveal. I'd been thinking on how we'd play this out, and as of yesterday I had decided on a course of action. Plan A would be tough to pull off, but would be really fun if we could do it. Last time I had a Plan A, I ended up having to go to Plan B.

Plan A this time wasn't particularly elaborate, but it did have a lot of moving parts. The idea was to Skype with Leah and Lev (and, with luck, Eric) in Boston while having Hannah and Will (and Jessel) sitting with us together in Atlanta.

When we first got on with Leah, it was like a version of the improv game "Sit Stand Lean"; at first we had Leah and Lev, but Will and Hannah were in the other room. Then Will and Hannah came in, but Leah and Lev ran off to greet Eric walking in. Then all four adults were there, but Lev suddenly ran to his room and shut the door because, well, he's two, and that's what two-year olds do sometimes.

I began to feel like the moment was going to pass, but then Lev came back in, and finally, everyone was in place. I squeezed Hilary's thigh to let her know it was on, and then I began:

"Lev, guess what?"

(No response)

"Hey Lev, guess what?"

(silence)

At this point, Lev and I apparently swapped places, because our conversation continued in this manner for about 30 seconds:

"Lev! Lev! Guess what Lev! Lev! LEV! LEEEEEEEV! GUESS WHAT LEV! LEV LEV LEV!"

Finally everyone was like, "Micah, just spit it out!"

So I said: "Hey Lev, is Jessel your baby cousin? Do you want another one?"

Beat.

Then.

PANDEMONIUM!

Hannah freaked out (nearly squishing Jessel in the process), Leah freaked out, we all freaked out. Pretty sweet right? If that were the end of the story, I think we'd feel pretty happy and have a pretty nice little moment for the memory bank.

Then Leah said, "How about room for one more!"

OMG. Leah is pregnant too???

MIND EXPLOSION.

That's right. Hilary is having a baby in November, and Leah is having a baby in November, and my parents are really going to have a dilemma on their hands* about how to spend their time.

*not really, I'm the favorite

It really is hard to put into words how incredible the moment was - I only wish we had been recording the Skype video for posterity** so we could show just what a complete mindfuck it truly was.

**Big brother, are you listening? If you have the tape, I'd love to have it.

So we are thrilled as can be, obviously. In fact, there is only one true downside. Instead of having to keep one secret now, we have to keep two.

Keeping a secret is really hard

We are two days away from being able to tell the first people that we are pregnant.

I don't really know any rhyme or reason for the timing on pregnancy secrecy, but it seems like the general standard (at least amongst the Jews) is you tell family after a couple months, once you've had your first doctor's appointment, and then you really go public* after three months. Supposedly if anything is really going to go wrong, it will go wrong in the first 12 weeks, so in that sense I understand it, but it still seems somewhat arbitrary.

*and of course by public, I mean post on Facebook


God help the person who tells people they are pregnant before that 12th week. I have seen this happen on occasion, and you'd think they'd just copped to running a meth lab or putting a Sarah Palin for President sign in their yard. It almost seems like people think you can literally affect the health of the baby by revealing the fact that there is one.

We've known Hilary is pregnant for nearly a month now, and we've done our best to keep a tight lid on that information. It is harder than it seems. For some reason, every conversation I find myself in seems to somehow relate to pregnancy.

Like this conversation last week:

Hannah (my sister): We took Jessel to day care for the first time today.

Me: Oh yeah, we looked at that place last week. Oh, I hope it wasn't too hard.

Or:

Me: Hey Hannah, what are yall doing for dinner next Wednesday?

Hannah: Nothing much.

Me: Cool, we haven't seen yall in awhile, maybe we can come over after our doctor's appointment maybe we can come over for dinner.

Or even this:

Will: Man, Anne Hathaway gets really naked in that movie Love and Other Drugs.

Me: Hilary's having a baby.

All I know is, I am ready to unburden myself of this happy news, so I can stop having to run every sentence through an internal censor before I say anything to anyone.

What to expect when you're expecting

So far, everything with this pregnancy (aside from the anticlimactic way I found out) has gone as expected. That is to say, Hilary and I found out she was pregnant last week, and our copies of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and "What to Eat When You're Expecting" arrived via Amazon yesterday.

These are mostly for Hilary at this point, but I'm sure I'll end up taking a glance at them (or at least the former) from time to time as the big day gets closer.

This morning I did skim through the chapter titles, and I saw a section for the dads, and noticed a chapter with the subheading "How to Deal With Her Mood Swings"

I haven't opened it yet, but my guess is it will look something like this:

GOOD LUCK RUN!

Don't act like you have any real suggestions on how to do this, WTEWYE. 

The next adventure begins

It's been awhile since I've posted on this blog, mostly because since we got married, we've pretty much settled into normal life as a couple. We've taken some trips, had some good times, but life has been mostly the same.

That is all about to change. After college, the years start to run together with no real delineation demarcating the passage of time. I have a feeling, however, that 2011 is going to stand out.

First and foremost, we are buying a house. That in and of itself is enough for us to have a strong year, and in most cases, that would be our big news. But of course, when it rains it pours, and now we have news much more substantial than that.

Yes, Hilary is with child. She's knocked up. I slipped one past the goalie. My boys can swim. Another cliche.

This is not unexpected news, but it is still nevertheless surprising.

If I am honest, I will admit that I have not been fully on board with the notion of having kids*. I am a selfish person, and I like having my time be just that - my time. So even though I signed off on the decision to have them, I still wasn't sure how I'd react to hearing the official news for the first time.

*Sorry future kids. Daddy does love you though.

I am happy to say that my initial thought was one of happiness and excitement. In fact, the terror and anxiety I thought I would have weren't (and aren't) present at all, at least not yet. I'm sure I'll freak out somewhere down the line, but I felt at peace with the news as soon as Hilary gave it to me.

Speaking of which: As you may know, I love making a production out of big news. Maybe I was suckered into it by movies and TV growing up, but I have always been under the impression that big news would be a momentous occasion in my life.

I pictured us sitting on the bed, anxiously awaiting the results of a pregnancy test, or of us eating dinner one night by candlelight and her confessing the big news. But alas, we live in a world of technology, and in this day and age, with so many ways of communicating with each other, this kind of romantic delusion was probably never going to happen.

So how did I find out? Where was I and what was I doing when I found out this most momentous of news?

I was sitting at work on a Saturday afternoon, alone in my office, talking to Hilary on instant messenger, when I accidentally asked the wrong question, and just like that, the cat was out of the bag.

The conversation went something like this:

Me: So, still no news? (Referring to her period)

Her: Still nothing...

Me: Did you miscount again? (She had miscalculated when she was supposed to get it twice already this week)

Her: Maybe...

Me: Well, I guess we should get you a pregnancy test. Maybe we can get one tonight.

Her: I got one this morning... (Kids, remember this: Ellipses always mean something is up)

Me: Oh ok. (Thinks for a minute, wheels start turning) Did you already take one?

Her: Maybe...

Me: And?

Her: :-)

Me: Oh.


And...scene. End of story. Pretty riveting stuff no? Shakespeare in his prime couldn't have come up with a climax of this magnitude.

Technology is a wonderful thing in this day and age, but it does have its flaws.


(UPDATE) Thanks to g-chat archives, here is the actual transcript from the conversation, complete with emoticons:

micahbhart: still nothing?

 hilary: nope

  but

  we'll see

 micahbhart: you miscounted again? :-)

 hilary: no

  haha

4:20 PM micahbhart: how long are you supposed to wait before you begin to wonder

 hilary: not long

  I can take a test right now and it should tell me.....

4:21 PM micahbhart: ha

  i'd give it a few days

4:22 PM hilary: :)

 micahbhart: but its up to you

 hilary: yeah

4:23 PM :)

 micahbhart: did you already do it?

 hilary: maybe?

 micahbhart: ha ha

 hilary: i wanted to tell you tonight!

4:24 PM micahbhart: tell me what?

  :-)

 hilary: nothing

  the test I took today says positive!

Pictures Galore

I realize I haven't written anything about the wedding weekend or the honeymoon yet. If I were to breakdown the reasoning for this, it'd probably be something like 45% work, 45% laziness, and 10% an inability to do either of them justice.

However, we just got our weddings pictures back (or at least, online), so I figured the least I could do would be to post all the pictures we have from the wedding and the 'moon.

The pictures from the wedding aren't available for linking to a slideshow, so instead I will just link to the online album. They are really great, and our photographer (plug! Charlie Gunter Photography!) did a great job on them.

The honeymoon pictures were taken by a decidedly less professional photographer (namely me), but we think they came out pretty well also. Check them out and enjoy below!

I Don't Know How To Put This Delicately, So I'll Just Say It

It's exactly midnight on Tuesday (Wednesday morning). Tonight is the last night Hilary and I (livers-in-sin that we are) will sleep in our bed together as an unmarried couple. Tomorrow we leave for Virginia Beach, and from there the wedding festivities begin to kick into high gear.

For those who are new to this blog, you may not know a couple key facts about me:

1)I once wrote a column saying you should never get married during football season.

2) I am getting married smack-dab in the middle of football season.

Oops!

When we chose our weekend, I tried to do it early enough so we wouldn't catch many of the big-time college football match ups. Turns out, that didn't work out so well. This weekend features not only a gigantic showdown between #1 USC and #3 Ohio State, but also tradition-rich Michigan-Notre Dame (though to be fair, both teams suck), as well as a nice SEC match-up between Georgia and South Carolina. Oh, and my alma-mater, Texas, is supposed to play Arkansas, a formerly huge rival from back in their days in the Southwest Conference.

I say supposed to, because according to a report in the Austin American-Statesman, Hurricane Ike may force the game to be postponed. Really?

I am having a tough time with this one. I know many people who were affected by Hurricane Katrina, and it is hard for me to make light of any situation involving the kind of damage and destruction made possible by the devastating power of these natural disasters. At the same time though...F#$K YEAH!

Do you mean to tell me that the only game I care about missing during my wedding weekend has a chance of being postponed to a later date? One which I will most likely have full access to a television???

God, thank you for this wonderful wedding present. Your thank-you note is in the mail.

I Hope We Have This Much Fun, At Least, You Know, Up Until The Tasering

Hilary and I have been to many, many fun weddings. We hope ours will be quite the shindig as well.

But maybe we shouldn't have this much fun.

"A former Chicago couple's wedding night was spent in separate jail cells after both bride and groom got shocked by a police Taser and arrested at their raucous reception...

...the story didn't end after the reception. Two nights later, the bride and groom were again arrested in Michigan -- and again shocked by a stun gun -- after struggling with police investigating a noise complaint, Sepic said. The groom was charged with pushing his new wife down during that incident, but the charge was later dropped as part of a plea bargain, Sepic said." (Photo by Kacper Skowron/For the Sun-Times)

I don't know. Get tased once, shame on you. Get tased twice in three days? I'm starting to think you might want to consider a different deterrant. Almost seems like they were starting to enjoy it.

Nevertheless, to put your fears to bed, we promise there will be no tasering at our wedding.*

• Newlyweds tasered, arrested at reception (via Boing Boing)

*Unless you give a toast consisting of a poem that doesn't rhyme. Then we can't be held responsible.