Tales from the 1^st Trimester

With the first trimester comes an emotional roller coaster of mood swings, nausea, and bizarre food cravings. And then of course there was how my wife was feeling.

I was about prepared for a pregnancy as a Tyrannosaurus was for a face-slapping competition with Gumby.

How did this actually happen, I kept asking myself, and I mean that in a good way. I can’t even navigate my way home from work sometimes and I’ve done it a hundred times. How on earth did my sperm find its way? It must’ve been pure coincidence. Like for example, the sperm accidentally backed over an object while driving in the fallopian tubes and it just happened to be the egg?

(Amazingly this comic was not drawn by a newborn…that’s 33 years of doodling expertise right there. You’re welcome.)

There are plenty of books, articles and movies for women in the first trimester and rightfully so, but not as many for dad. The ones that are available however are pretty good. It’s just that I didn’t read them.

How hard can this roller coaster be I thought as I handed my nifty pregnancy ticket to the pregnancy park usher.  Well, it’s the type of roller coaster that takes you up 300 feet, drops you, takes you up 300 feet, drops you, takes you 300 feet, up, down, up, down, up, down,  so by the time the second trimester comes around you’re no more than a useless piece of mental jelly.

If the first trimester was a piece of furniture it would be one of those Ikea dressers that come with four less holes than screws just to make you think you’re an idiot and did something wrong. Month three hits, and you’re left standing in your kitchen watching your wife devour a carton of Rocky Road ice cream and all you have to show for yourself is a worn down allen wrench.

One day you’re absolutely ecstatic and the next day you’re frantically scanning the bus schedule for direct routes to Portugal.

How am I going to afford this thing?

What if he or she hates me?

What if he comes out as the devil reincarnated like in that movie The Omen and begins plotting my demise? Say I come home on a random Tuesday and find him in my den with horns and pointing a fiery pitchfork?

These were the things keeping me up nights.

My wife downloaded another app which gave her dynamic news for every week of the pregnancy.

Her favorite part was telling me what the baby’s size was each week.

“This week our baby is the size of a pea,” she’d tell me.

Another week it was the size of a plum.

Another? A yam.

Jesus, did my wife get knocked up by the cast of Farmville? Or did Yogi the bear surreptitiously make his way into our apartment with his basket while I was at work, put the moves on my wife, and now she’s filled with picnic snacks?

How does the app determine what your baby’s the size of anyway? Is it fruits and vegetables for every city or just the ones with the propensity to for healthy eating?

Meanwhile at the baby app headquarters…

“We’ve got another subscriber here boss- this one from San Francisco.”

“Dynamite work Jimmy, let’s turn their baby into a fruit salad, followed by a hummus dip, and then hit them with honeydew for the third trimester. That will shut them up.

“But-“

“Jimmy just do it – trust me on this one.”

What about in other parts of the country?

“Another one boss – looks like a Houston baby this time.”

“Great job Jimmy, ok let’s see, make it a doughnut, then a beef brisket, and at 22 weeks, make their baby the size of the largest Big Mac the world has ever seen.

This app is the only one created that was successful in making me actually want to ingest my baby. By the 26^th week, I was a full-fledged vegetarian.

The first trimester is also when medical professionals ensure you don’t sleep at night. At the end of an appointment you receive a document informing you of the exact chance your child will have some horrific disorder, as such, one previously found only in manatees.

“So there’s a 1 in 321,000 chance your child will have a condition that will actually swap their left foot and their genitalia,” the Doctor tells you after careful examination.

“Doc I don’t think that’s possible – so let me get this straight, my kid could possibly come out with a penis for a foot? Is that even legal?”

“Yes, and after examining with close precision looking on this monitor here, we’ve also determined with nine percent accuracy that your child will have a higher incidence of Indian burns when he or she is older.”

“Like the ones you get when someone turns both hands on your wrist in an irritating manner?”

“That’s right.”

People asked me.

What if your child comes out ugly?

Doesn’t like sports?

Is a communist?

Doesn’t love Justin Bieber?

Looks like Yogi bear?

Well after the Doctor’s assessments I would’ve been happy with a cross-dressing, hippy, peg-legged transvestite for a child, as long as he was healthy…wait a second did you just say Yogi Bear?

That son of a…

And now to the bear I mean beer (darn that Yogi!) portion of the blog…

What beer is in Steve’s fridge?

Pliny The Elder

Brewed by: Russian River Brewery   Santa Rosa, Ca

Style: American double IPA

ABV: 8.0%

If I could live out the rest of my days swimming in a pool of this stuff I would, but no one will give me the construction loan I need to make it happen. Perhaps it’s because I always ask while under the influence of this delight.

This beer is so good it literally is no longer in my fridge because I’ve drunken it since I started writing this sentence.

This beer is so good brewers melt into gold when brewing it.

If this beer was an orgy it would consist of Megan Fox, Kim Kardashian and Jessica Alba.

Have I mentioned this beer is amazing?

The taste of this beer is the epitome of perfect balance – hoppy, but not too hoppy. Malty but not too malty. Fruity but not too fruity. Sweet but not too sweet.  I mean who are these guys? They are the perfect ying and yang of beer making. No ingredient is too much or too little!

These guys could seriously throw any ingredient in and it would come out perfect.

“Bill what if we threw in this old moldy sock?”

“Mmmm… not bad… a little moldy, but not too moldy, perfect…”

This is a heavy IPA yet goes down as smooth as blackberry lemonade at a hot day which makes things a little dangerous with its high alcohol content.

Unfortunately this beer is almost impossible to find. You have to go directly to the brewery or be lucky enough to find it at a bar, but unlike Lewis & Clark’s discovery of North Dakota, it is worth the effort.

Like this?

Try on some other posts for size:

There’s an App For That 

   Two Pink Lines

 My Husband Thinks I’m Fat