The waiting is the hardest part

"What's Nine Months?  It's like...a baseball season?"
"The waaaaaiting is the hardest part"  (- Tom Petty)

"So.  You got yer wife pregnant and have nine months to go.."

TL:DR?  It was about as normal of a pregnancy as you can get.

For probably the first 7 months or so, everything is...pretty status quo.  We had the morning sickness early on in Italy, which wasn't awesome but bearable.  I know you hear you can occasionally pregnancy drink these days, but my wife quit drinking cold turkey.  I wish I could tell you I tee-totaled with her, but I'm just not that strong of a person and yeah.  Our status quo, if it's not too gushy to say, is that I love my wife very much.  She works hard, has long days, gets in her head about things like we all do...so I try my best to be a loving and communicative partner.  So with few exceptions, I was still running errands for us, meal-prepping on Sunday nights and making healthy lunches for work week, keeping our home tidy.  I mean, there are a lot of conventions that people like to tell you to expect when you're expecting.  Ok, fine.

Most people know you shouldn't smoke crack, or you hear the mother should "Take it easy" and "Eat for 2!"  It's those last two I guess I imagined might be a thing, but it was actually the opposite.. *

My wife wanted to keep moving for as long as her body would allow, barring doctor's orders.  She kept hitting the gym,  kept at it on the elliptical, then as the months went on walking on the treadmill - supplementing everything with a weight circuit afterward.  (Which, bless her heart, I know she doesn't care for.  She told me that when her belly was really showing she'd get some weird looks that made her laugh.)  I kept up by trying to get my own strength routine on back on track-  working on strengthening my back and shoulders, and trying to keep as flexible as I could- Since I figured I'd be an old man heaving my kid around way into my AARP years.

As for the food bit?  She had cravings, sure.  We've never had cereal in the house, but before I knew it there were Oatmeal Cinnamon Squares and Reeses Peeb Cereal on the counter.  (Here I had hoped she'd start to like cilantro and seafood, but no dice.)  And she wasn't eating for two.  She was just...eating normally.  I mean, even by the end of the 2nd trimester  you've got a big something taking up space next to your tummy.  That, matched with pretty horrible heartburn meant keeping things light and simple were the rule of the day.

We took the classes and had hospital tours, which I kept as quiet as I could and listened as attentively as I could and took notes when I could.  (I guess my listening aka "Not Making Stupid Jokes" face makes me look like I'm constipated or upset.  But when the head nurse at Region's pulls out the big inflatable rubber pool to show you where you'd water birth if you chose to, and then makes sure to VERY SERIOUSLY remind you there are to be NO NUDE DAD'S...look, I'm a very, VERY childish man.)

So we learned a lot together.  The number of days to anticipate being in the hospital if it's a natural birth vs. C-Section.  How breastfeeding isn't always a natural occurrence and the kid's gotta learn how to do it by mom just sort of MASHING the kids face in there when the mouth opens up.   When it's okay to be intimate again, and when it's going to actually be harmful to mom.  (With a very, very real possibility of a repeat performance in the delivery room sooner rather than later if you aren't careful.)

And yeah.  We worked.  (I was still feeling pretty dim about my day job and not getting any nibbles when I cast my resume' into the void.)  We partied.  (*I* partied.  My Christmas birthday was epic and grand.  My wife looked fantastic on New Year's Even when we attended a fundraiser where she wore this rented dress for mamas-to-be that really, really accentuated the...hey look, she's really pretty and now she's glowing and throwing off some serious pheromones so most of the night she was getting checked out while I was the shiny sweaty guy who by that time of the holiday season had imbibed and ate so much I couldn't button my suit coats.  Not proud, but that meant another month of drying up at least.)   We shopped for nursery furniture, registered for baby goodies, visited mom and dad at the cemetery to tell them our news which hit us both very hard

 We just sort of went with it all.  Me and the sacred vessel.  We had all the time in the world, or at least until May 2nd when she was due.  And shit, it was our first kid.  EVERY one knows first babies are always a few weeks late.

Right?

*Cat litter and Deli meat.  I didn't know, along with non-pasteurized food being a no no, like brie cheese?  The nitrites in deli meat are off limits.  I learned about the cat litter shortly after our 1st attempt, and if you were unsure how much I love my wife- I kept doing it after the miscarriage and through/past her pregnancy.