Holy Crap!

Yesterday we found out that Cheryl is pregnant.

Wow.

It’s kind of funny how it happened too. She has been sick for the last few days with what we thought was an infection. So, we went to the Doctor last friday and they did a test and found out she had an infection, so she was prescribed Antibiotics. (Luckily safe for the developing child.)

So, the Antibiotics didn’t seem to be working. We scheduled another appointment for yesterday morning. Friday, their debit card readers weren’t working, and Cheryl didn’t get the check book off the table, so I dropped her off at the Doctor and went to snag $20 from the ATM in case their card readers still weren’t working.

I drop her off, and go get the cash. I come back and wait 5 minutes for her. She asked me to go back into the business office, and we paid for her appointment, and then walked out to leave. As we were leaving the office, she smiled at me and said “I’m pregnant”

Wow.

I was immediately blown away and in complete shock. I think my first words were a laugh of disbelief.

After that, all I could do was smile and say “Holy Crap!”

Mind you, all of this is in a good way. I am REALLY looking forward to the prospect of being a father, but I am beset with several emotions at once. Fear, Love, Shock, Exultation, Worry.

I am for the first time in a LONG time outside of my comfort zone.

I feel like a boat that has been set adrift at sea with no course plotted and no stars to navigate by. For probably the first time in my life I am being forced to put things into God’s hands to take care of.

Foremost in my mind is this: I don’t want to be the parent that my Mother was. I want to be better, and not drive my child away from me.

My child.

Man, it’s weird to say that.

I’m going to be a FATHER!

God, I can’t imagine what it’s even going to be like. Knowing that we have a nine month schedule to keep that is going to end with my wife screaming in pain and end with the birth of our first child.

Wow.

Father, please give us a healthy child. I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, please just give us a healthy baby. I have never felt this good in my life about something, and I don’t want to lose this child to a miscarriage or some other circumstance.

Please God… watch over us and guide us and keep our child healthy. Give it the best of Cheryl and I. Please let it take after her as I don’t want my child to have to live life as I did being overweight and made fun of all through it’s childhood.

I am placing this in your hands and I pray that things will work out the way that you want them to.

Last night on the way home, we wanted to stop in at Dad’s and break the news to him, but we passed him on the road out to his place. I had to track him down to the Marathon station where he was scratching off a lottery ticket as I walked in the door.

I asked him to swing by our place for a surprise. He would later comment that as I walked out the door I was walking pretty tall and he wondered what was up.

So he got to the house, and was sitting on the couch. I asked Cheryl to sit next to him and I asked him the question, “So Dad, what do you want to be called? Grandpa, papaw, or pappy?”

He looked at me funny for a second, and then it hit him. He exploded into smiles and laughs and gave Cheryl a great big hug and a kiss on the cheek.

For the rest of the night he was floating. When he left to go home he was all hugs and smiles. He said he was going to go home and “dream about being a grandpa.”

He said he couldn’t wait for the “little critter” to arrive so he could spoil it to death.

One thing that I thought was pretty darned funny was when he said that he was going to take all his money that he spends on lottery tickets and start saving it for the baby. Ironically he said that he HAD to win the lottery now.

Man… what an adventure we are on.

We haven’t told anyone else in the family yet as we want to go to the OB first and get our plans. We are going to tell her family tonight after church, and then I imagine we will break it to my family at a later time.