Baby Journal (Part 1)- Where do I Start?

Quick links to my other baby hubs:

Baby Journal Part 2, Baby Journal Part 3 and Baby Journal Part 4.

Entry date: 8/18/07

I have written several baby journals in the past weeks and months, and I wanted to share them with everyone here. These journals reveal more of my softer side. As many of you already know, having a child really brings out something unique in you, and I'm no different. This is a log of my thoughts- genuine, loving, moving, challenging and above all, honest.

My wife doesn't even know I've done these! I hid the files deep on our computer's hard drive, and she hasn't discovered them yet. Honey, if you read this, SURPRISE! Also, in later journals I have listed our baby's name. My family doesn't even know our baby's name! So, of you read this Dad, Mom, Josh, Marc, Emily, Bob, Debby, Dave, Steve and extended family and spouses- SURPRISE! We haven't shared our baby's name with family and friends because we get a lot of reactions like, "Oh I don't like that name" or "really? hm...". These have discouraged my wife (and me at times), so we're keeping it a secret. Now, I'm sharing this personal information with those of you on hubpages! Just don't tell my family!

Finally, having a personal relationship with my Savior is a large part of who I am. You will quickly realize that my journals include prayers for my daughter, as well as real heart-felt conversations with the Creator. If this offends you, take it with a grain of salt. Otherwise, I hope your lives are enriched by reading my secret journal and I hope you join me in this walk toward becoming a good parent of one to whom I've been entrusted!

Where do I start? Well, it would seem that today is the start. Today is the start of a new journey, a new path, a new adventure. Not just new, but exciting and enriching. Today is the day that my wife and I found out that we were pregnant! Just typing this up causes my eyes to swell as if I were going to begin to cry. Who would have thought that having a child would cause a grown man to cry?

Before we learned that we were pregnant, but after we began trying, there were a thousand things I told myself I would do. These days people are becoming more and more creative- one guy took a single picture of his wife's stomach every day of their pregnancy and posted it online. Well, I'm not as creative as most- I'm very much a left-brain kinda guy...logical, intellectual and orderly. However, streaks of creativity hit me, and this journal is one of them. This is the "child journal," properly named "Paidi Update." Παιδί or Paidi, is Greek for child. I have hidden this journal of our first child's conception and growth in the womb in an old update folder in the hopes that no one will find it. Karen might stumble across it which would be fine, but until that happens this journal will remain a secret in the hopes that one day I will be able to reveal it to our firstborn.

Here's how it began:

Karen has started swimming in the last several months- partly to stay in shape and partly because she loves it so much. Well, this morning she woke up for swimming at Ida Lee around 5ish. She admits she was groggy but she got up and decided to use our last remaining pregnancy test. She saw the one solid line and thought nothing of it until a second, less visible line showed up. She told me she kept saying, "oh my gosh, oh my gosh" when she realized that two lines means she's pregnant!

In the mean time I'm in bed sleeping and planning on waking up at 6:20 to the sound of my alarm. I never woke up to her getting ready for swimming; however I did wake up at 6:20. I got out of bed, tidied up a little, and then began my morning devotional in the sun room. She eventually came home at 7:15 and did her morning routine. I went and got on the elliptical and ran for twenty five minutes then hopped in the shower. When I did that, Karen told me she had to go out to Target to purchase some cat food for cats she was watching for a friend. It didn't make sense to me for her to drive to Target, come home then drive to work later when she could simply stop by Target on the way to work and save some time. This was not, however, the first time in which Karen did something that did not make sense to me! I thought nothing of it and continued my shower, then got online to read emails.

When Karen came back from Target, I told her to come watch a cute video of a six year old singing a beautiful song online. She watched it with me and loved it. When she left, she went to blow her nose and I thought she might be crying from the video, but again I suspected nothing. Boy, guys can be so oblivious sometime!

Karen then called me into our bedroom, "for help with something." I agreed, and walked in to see her sitting down on the bed and I immediately knew she had something serious to say. Again, however, I was oblivious because there was a baby's bib and a onesie sitting on my pillow that both read "I love daddy." Anyway, Karen looked at me and began to cry, and I knew that meant we were pregnant (finally, right?)! She explained her story of using the pregnancy test this morning and that she asked her swim coach if it was safe to continue swimming when pregnant. We sat and talked for thirty minutes about the magnitude of the news.

A baby changes everything. If the pregnancy is successful, we will be the first on both sides of the family to have a child. How wonderful it will be to have both sets of grandparents spoiling our child! Not only that, this child will have four uncles and an aunt! If/when all our siblings get married, our child will have up to five uncles and five aunts! Needless to say they are anxious to have nephews and nieces- Marc keeps asking us when we'll make him an uncle.

So my child, you will be surrounded in love. You were conceived in love and God has placed you into a family who will pour out their love for you. What an amazing example of how God loves us. He loves us so much that He allows us to co-create with Him. God created the world and the life in it, and yet we, as parents, have the great privilege of creating life on our own.

I offer this prayer for you:

God I thank you for the life you have so generously allowed us to create. Lord I pray that your Holy Spirit would accompany us throughout this pregnancy and that He would accompany our child throughout his/her lifetime. This is the day that You have made, Lord, and we rejoice and are glad in it.

Thank you for listening to me. Although I am not a writer, I do have moments of creativity and I wanted to journal this exciting adventure. I will continue to journal my thoughts as they come. Right now I am struggling to not ramble on because my thoughts are going more quickly than I can type them out, and I'm a pretty fast typist!

So where do I go from here? This is such a HUGE thing...I don't know what to say about it. We are so blessed to have a child. Again I feel myself choking up at the thought of this pregnancy. God you are my God, and I will ever praise you! Take my thoughts, concerns, wishes, deeds, insecurity. You can have them. I don't even know how to write my thoughts. We have begun a major life journey, but where do I start???