Hi, I’m the Mr.

Hi, it’s me. The hippie liberal feminist husband. The gene donor. Mr. “OH MY GOD YOU DID THIS TO ME.” At least, from what I hear that’s what I’ll be called some time late in the third trimester. Holy crap we’re making a baby. Let me back up. Dear Penthouse Forums, I never thought it would ha… wait. No, that’s not right either. Let me back up, again. A few days ago, Ms walked into the kitchen at some ungodly hour like 7am. I was in there, on purpose, making coffee. For Ms. I don’t drink much coffee. I expect this will change. I turned around and saw Ms standing there. I didn’t really process much more than “hurr, wife.” I’m not really a morning person. God help me. I don’t really know what happened next. Ms held up a stick. I thought this was odd behavior for that hour. A few kind, trembling words were exchanged and I hugged my wife. A lot. Because I’m really excited. And happy. And excited. And now her boobs hurt. I’m 39 years old, and this is my first. Totally living the stereotype of my generation, I guess. I’ve picked up a lot of things from various friends and family over the years, but one thing I can say definitively now is that we men don’t really talk about this. We’re not prepared for it. We don’t really know anything. I mean, I think I know more than most. I’m a hippie liberal feminist after all. I’ve listened to my women friends. But we don’t really know. The extent of the conversation among the menfolk is, far too often, “Holy crap, dude, get used to not sleeping. That’s all I’m gonna say.” Why?! WHY IS THAT ALL YOU’RE GOING TO SAY?! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME MY WIFE’S BOOBS WERE GOING TO HURT?!?!? I mean, I’m sure I heard it somewhere, but it’s a jarring change when you go to hug your wife when she comes home from a hard day at work and she says “Ow,” and you’re overwhelmed with a primal feeling that you’re lucky you didn’t get kneed in the junk. So my role here will be to document the man side of things, but totally not in a “You’re on a special journey” way. This is biology. We’re mammals. We’re also sentient. That means a lot of things change biologically and we get a lot of time to think about them. So I’m going to think about them here. I love my wife, and I love the barely differentiated mass of cells that is alarmingly far on the way to being another person, but that doesn’t mean the whole experience won’t be funny, or weird, or disturbing, or even mundane. It’s a special journey that we are literally built from the ground up to make. It’s what mammals do all the time, even while being chased by cheetahs. And we’re doing it. That’s pretty rad. Given our age, there’s a fair chance that this will be our one kid. And that will be special, because it’s (yes, it, at this point) ours. But it’s not a special snowflake. Someday, if we’re lucky, it will drive too fast, engage in underage drinking, have more than one awful breakup, and possibly survive on human flesh and grass, if the Republicans manage to torpedo the global economy next week sinking the world into a postapocalyptic nightmare beyond imagining. One begins to understand why...

A Little Bit Pregnant

Let’s just get some shit out of the way: I’m 38. I’ve been married for *almost* six months. I’m totally knocked up. How I got here will, no doubt, reveal itself throughout this little “project,” aptly named Week Forty.  I say “aptly named,” but the truth of the matter is, every other domain name that was remotely related to pregnancy was taken, and “Sore Titties” didn’t seem like it sent the right message.  I had voted for “Linea Nigra” because I think it sounds really exotic and interesting – like Mons Venus. (Full disclosure, I’m from Tampa, Florida – strip club capital of the South. We have a strip club called Mons Venus, it supposedly has the best/most beautiful dancers anywhere. Now I kind of want to open a club called Linea Nigra.  Work the “niche market.”  Put the “bump” in bump and grind. There is no sex in the Champagne Room, or Champagne. Mostly sensible shoes. This unique gentleman’s experience gives dancers a solid work venue rather than have to take those last two pesky trimesters off. You just have to figure in the cost of lost revenue from the dancers destroying the prime rib buffet.  You think I’m nuts? Check the internet – there are freaks out that who are in to all sorts of kink. I bet a preggers strip joint would be a crazy success). My husband nixed the idea. He thought that Nigra could be misconstrued as racist. He’s an Apologetic White Southern Democrat with privilege guilt. I think it’s sexy. (The guilt – not unintended racism). He’s allowed to post here too. You know Liberals, we’ll give anyonea seat at the table. Anyway, Week Forty will mark the end of how long I’m going to be rocking the whole “I’m eating for two,” “I’ve got to pee ALL the time,” “I have a craving for artichoke hearts,” “If you don’t start helping out around the house I’m going to feed you your own liver” thing, and I figured it was as good a name as any.  I will take more care in naming the Critter I’m sure. Or maybe not, hell that might be a crap shoot too… “Is Stephano taken? Shit, really? How about Stepheeno?”  (Now that I think of some of my friend’s decisions in naming their children, I think it may have gone down just like that). We found out just about a week ago.  Actually, exactly one week ago.  I had been out at favorite local beer barn (it’s nicer than that) and the beer just didn’t taste that good to me.  That seemed to be a sign from God to pee on a stick. (Oh peeonastick.com is taken – like I said – there are some freaks out there). And if you are totally gonna judge because I was drinking a beer – let’s get this out of the way: I was still a week from getting my period – so it wasn’t like I was all, “Gosh, I’m really late, guess I’ll go crush some microbrews and ponder what it could be…” If you’re still freaking out here’s another thing: I am a woman who was totally okay with getting pregnant, and totally not going to put myself into a tizzy over it. And if you don’t know what a “tizzy” is I’ll tell you – it’s all those women who don’t eat anything fun (like oysters and sushi and brie), don’t drink anything fun (like beer...