So...(a needle pulling thread)

La, a note to follow so.

Te, I drink with jam and bread.

And that brings us back to do do do doooooooo.

Sorry, got distracted by insanely annoying song.

As some more astute people may have noticed, I did update that little countdown so that it says Heiress, though to be fair, an Heir knows no gender. Jessie/The Queen sort of left it up to me whether I'd divulge her name or not, which I thought was thoughtful, though kind of silly. I mean, not exactly a celebrity or anything, nor will her name topple foreign governments...though how awesome would that be?

Anyway, she shall be called...

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

WAIT FOR IT!

Nymphadora Ignatia.

Just kidding.

Erin Noelani.

Father's Day

Today being Father's Day, I thought it might be appropiate to speak a little bit about my impending fatherhood status.

I'm not going to lie. There's a part of me that is down right terrified. Not a very large part, but it's there nonetheless. I'm not all that terrified because I have a pretty good template for fatherhood from my own father. He wasn't perfect, but I think he did an okay job raising me. I didn't turn out to be a complete sociopath (just a partial one), and I think I can be the father he was. Commanding of respect, but easy to love. Lenient, but not too lenient, and completely intolerant of bullshit (when it's detected...I won't lie again and say I never lied to him and got away with it, I totally did).

But a part of me is terrified because even though I have this template to go off of...I don't have my father around anymore. I can't get his counsel or ask him advice. I could ask my mother advice on basics, but not about fatherhood. It's a whole different ball of wax. Though, the fact that the Heir is a girl would have thrown him as much as me, I'm sure. I'm the youngest of three boys for him (two from a previous marriage), so there's a bunch of stuff he'd probably would have said "beats the hell out of me, go ask your mother." Not that she had any girls, either. But Dad's logic would have gone something like "female child advice = mother."

And due to general circumstances, I don't even have a father in law to turn to. Though I do have a mother in law to turn to when my mother makes no sense (which is more and more frequent, unfortunately).

So, I'm a bit of a kite in the wind when it comes to fatherhood. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'll get advice from the unlikeliest of places, but there's something a bit more reassuring to get it from your own father.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. Sorry you're gonna miss it...

Okay, We Know This Kid is Mine...

Waving for the camera at 13 weeks. Hamming it up. Yeah.

Eep.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I've really had nothing to say. Worthwhile anyway.

So far, so good on The Heir. Heard the heartbeat on Thursday.

Okay, Less Cryptic This Time...Sorta.

I'm gonna be a father.

The reason for the general crypticness was it was really early then. It's still really early, actually. The Queen is only 8 weeks pregnant, so we can't even hear The Heir's heartbeat or anything yet. But we (well, she) had her first appointment today, and it seems like so far so good. Lots of "homework" to do, though. Forms and such.

We're leaning towards natural birth, or at the very least having a midwife attend Jessie at a hospital. I'm nearly infamous of my distaste for hospitals, and we watched a movie yesterday called "The Business of Being Born." Watch it if you are thinking about, going to have, or have had, children. Seriously. I already had my suspicions about "modern birthing techniques" especially the rationale of "why be in pain if you don't have to?" but there are some very scary things brought up about how, and why, certain things are done. The pitocin/epidural vicious circle issue for one, and the alarming amount of planned cesarean sections at this point in time.

Jessie's worried about the pain of labor of course, and I can't blame her. But I also think she's selling herself short. Our midwife (who is a guy...do you ever hear feminists complain about that?) seems to be wonderful and suggested a technique called Hypnobabies, which he thinks would work for her wonderfully. So I'm excited about that. But even without that sort of technique, I think she could "handle" the pain. Think about it. This race has been around for a pretty long time. Women have been doing pretty darn good. And what about all those countries without access to our so called modern birthing techniques? Some of the statistics brought up in the movie were eye opening. So yeah, given my distrust and distaste of hospitals in general, I'm supporting her in her original desire for natural childbirth, and acting sort of as a crutch for when she falters. Plus, our midwife told us they do have the ability to prescribe and administer a certain painkiller, so that also helped assuage her a bit as well.

Well, anyway, I'll keep you posted as we hear stuff and everything. Maybe Jessie will revitalize her blog as a pregnancy journal of sorts, that might be an idea for her, I don't know. Oh, and I am accepting handouts. I'm not shy about that. At all.

Our midwife put our due date (which of course has that two week pre/post window) at October 21st. I'll be finding a countdown clock in the near future and putting it up.