Archive for July, 2008
Creeva on July 15th, 2008
Every time it seems we are done and all the announcements that Xie is pregnant pass through the cracks, another one comes up. This time around it’s a local community band that I play with and an announcement is being put out in their regular newsletter. I put in all the relevant info and of course I mentioned parentphobia.com to get all the latest and gory details.
With this I do realize that I haven’t made the announcement to all my aunts and uncles yet ( and I have more then two). I’m sure there is other relevant people that haven’t been informed. I know some of my ex-co-workers follow my blog or via twitter or some such social network device so they are at least passively in the loop. I’ve announced on a forum with all the ex-Star Wars Galaxies players I used to play with. Most of my closer friends should follow the same route as my ex-co-workers. My current co-workers, well some know, some don’t - I haven’t been shouting it from on top of the roof tops. I don’t want to be that guy.
The guy that will pull out a baby picture every five minutes. The guy that tells you about every little burp their baby made teh night before. The guy that complains all day about the baby throwing up on him the night before. I’m not that guy - at least not verbally. I’m sure over the time I will be blogging about all of these things and more, but that’s different. I’m broadcasting the information, but the people don’t have to tune and listen. They can passively parse the information they receive by going to my blog or Xie’s blog or parent phobia or any social networks I crosspost to. Getting information about me is easy. Why should I scream something uncomfortably down someone’s throat.
If I’m asked about something related to the pregnancy or the baby afterwards I’m sure I’ll have alot to say. I just don’t want to be the one to bring it up first outside of the immediate family. I hope all of you reading appreciate that I’m doing it this way.
Creeva on July 14th, 2008
You would think that on a blog named parent phobia, that when I start a blog post off with the title “Planting Trees” that I’m going to be speaking in the metaphorical sense. Well, your half right.
Today I slept in late and did my normal computing activities. I knew I had to wake up early tomorrow so I proceeded to mow my lawn. On a side note if you turn your mower upside down and it doesn’t start, you need to replace your air filter. I’m not a normal out in the yard kind of guy. I’m a in the artificial light sit at the computer kind of guy, much to the chagrin to my “I love the outdoors” wife. But I stayed outside I finished the yard and proceeded to weed.
As I was weeding I noticed that there was some saplings growing here and there. Now they weren’t in a spot where I wanted them to stay, but I didn’t need to outright kill them. I spent hours (I said I don’t take the best care of my lawn) taking out saplings from here or there and replacing them in along the edge of my properties. The varieties were Oak and some such tree I can’t identify. Xie came outside and helped with about half of the planting. Quite a few of the Oak saplings came from my gutters, we will go back to the fact I don’t care.
All said and done almost 40 saplings were planted, with another 10 - 20 to go tomorrow (more if I find another stash. Not all the saplings could be saved, some were mangled trying to remove them. It wasn’t in the cards for those trees. Currently on the property we had 16 trees - so now we have a total of 56, with of course more coming. This means less grass for me to mow in the long term.
Now for the metaphorical part of the discussion. Being a parent is a lot like plantings trees. You will push ideas down to your child and hope some of them take root. I know all the trees I planted won’t survived, but it cost me nothing other then a day of planting. Exposure to ideas, even those you don’t agree with is important. Your child needs to understand your views as much as they need to arrive at their own conclusions. You shouldn’t expect your child to be a clone of yourself, nor should you even want that.
This of course is just a the metaphor that I came up while I was working. Take it for what it is, but it still was alot of physical labor.
xielanthia on July 11th, 2008
Part 1 is available here
On the very next Monday I had made an appointment that day with my family doctor. By then I was freaking out because I was having some spotting and I was terrified I was once again having an ectopic pregnancy like I had October of the previous year. I remember sitting in the waiting room of my doctor’s office just thinking about the possibility of having to have a third surgery in under a years time. What friggin luck, man!! I wasn’t as scared as I was angry. I was downright furious. But I calmed my nerves, took a deep breathe and thought, “I’ve had some bad luck this past year but it is my turn for some good things to happen. Stay positive.” So I put on a brave face as I walked into one of the exam rooms. I sat down and waited for my doctor to arrive.
When she appeared, I expressed my concerns and fears. Being obviously more level headed than I, she said, “Well let’s confirm the pregnancy first. We’ll start with a urine test and go from there.” After I deposited my specimen, I only had to wait a few minutes back in the exam room before my doctor reappeared. “We didn’t even have to wait the full time,” she said, “the test showed you were pregnant almost right away. Congratulations Xie, you are very much pregnant.” My face must have drain of color or something because she pointed out that I didn’t look to happy. Well the truth was I wanted to be but with my past I was afraid. But knowing full and well why I wasn’t jumping up and down for joy, and to my doctors credit, she ordered a blood test to once again confirm the pregnancy, check hormone levels, and also managed to squeeze me in to get an ultrasound that day.
Three hours later and a bladder nearly bursting with the 32oz of water I walked briskly into the local hospital bound for my ultrasound appointment and preregistered. They sent me into a changing room to strip the bottom half of my clothes and put on one of those icky dressing gowns. For fifteen minutes or so I proceeded to pace around the waiting room doing my best not to break out into the pee pee dance. The result turned out to be quite a spectacle I am sure.
By the time the technician arrived and set me up for the ultrasound I was in pure agony. The technician took her own sweet time with the procedure or so it felt like. Every slight pressure from the probe had me cringing. The technician could find nothing through the normal ultrasound probe which she reassured me was normal since the pregnancy was still very early. Since the normal probe found nothing, she informed me we were going to be doing a vaginal ultrasound and sent me off to use the restroom.
Women have to go through some pretty humiliating stuff throughout our lives. The yearly exam to name one and the vaginal ultrasound to name another. I am a very private person. I usually get very uncomfortable from any sort of physical contact form a stranger. Even things as harmless as a hand on my arm. So you can imagine how I felt about this. She checked for a heartbeat. Nothing yet. Thankfully this part was over fairly quickly and after another thirty minutes of waiting while the tech went and asked what they were supposed to do with me now. They ended up sending me home, telling me I should get a call from the doctor in the next few days with the results.
Mid morning the very next day I received a call from my family doctor. She had the results of the blood work and the ultrasound. The blood results confirmed the pregnancy, no red flags there. Good! The ultrasound showed that I might have what is called a uterine septum. To drop the medical mumbo jumbo basically it means there is a piece of tissue divides the uterus in half. Supposedly this shouldn’t be a problem. A lot of women have uterine septums and have a very safe and healthy pregnancy. The ultrasound also showed that I was about four or five weeks pregnant. The fetus was where it was supposed to be. Which meant it was definitely not ectopic. Whoo hoo!!
Creeva on July 10th, 2008
You know I thought people at least waited a bit for they started getting out the baby presents. Xie is only eight weeks pregnant and yet we already have our first baby gifts. Last weekend it seems that her mother bought us a crib, we haven’t seen yet but we have a crib. We told her mother we don’t even want it until we’re well into the second trimester. Her grandmother, not wanting to be left out of the fun, purchased us a playpen, something we won’t need for at least a few months after the baby is born.
It seems everyone wants to get into the celebration and be a part of the pregnancy. The best sign of that is that it seems we will have an excellent support network to draw from. Of course there is always the chance that after baby is born everyone disappears when we need help. I don’t think that will be the case.
xielanthia on July 10th, 2008
Earlier this month (June 4th to be exact) I had an operation to remove my gall bladder. They made four small incisions in my stomach. One at the belly button. The other three were located horizontally from right under my rib cage in the very center of my abdomen to the right side of my abdomen. They inserted air into my abdominal cavity so they could see what they were doing. Through one incision a tiny camera was inserted and through my belly button incision the gall bladder was removed after it had been drained of all liquid. I don’t specifically remember what they told me what the other two incisions were for. I assume one was tiny scissors or a scalpel and the other was how they drained the gallbladder. I awoke with my stomach wrapped in a sort of supported brace.
The very next day I had another, minor operation to remove stones that had been passed from my gall bladder into my main bile duct. There was no incisions for this one. They put a tube down my throat, followed my digestive track to where the stone lay and removed them that way. Luckily I was under what they call twilight. I guess it is more like sleep than when they put me under all the was for the gall bladder surgery. Having a super strong gag reflex there was no way in hell I could have handled them sticking something down my throat while I was completely awake. My lunch which consisted entirely of orange jello would have ended up all over the doctor, the floor and the poor nurses.
A few days before the surgery I had confided in my Mom that I was afraid of possibly being pregnant and if/how that would complicate things. We had both shrugged it off. There was no real reason to think I that I was pregnant. The day I was released from the hospital I once again voiced this fear. Again with nothing but maybe a womans intuition.
I few weeks later I found out that my intuition seemed to be dead on. On the 15th of June (a Saturday) I took a home pregnancy test and found out I was indeed pregnant. The time I took the test it was still pretty early. My husband was still sleeping and I really didn’t want to wake him and bombard him with the news. So I waited an hour and a half to two hours (it seemed like forever) in hopes that he would wake soon. When I could take it no more I guiltily walked in the bedroom, woke him up as gently as I could and said, “Umm, Creeva?. “What?!,” he said groggily. “You’re gonna be a daddy.” For a moment he looked at me like I had spoken in some long dead ancient dialect. Then, “Okay, Lets wait and see how this one turns out.”
For part two click here.
Creeva on July 8th, 2008
This is a letter to my future child.
Dear Little One,
Though by the time you read this you will be old enough, hopefully, to comprehend it. Who knows you may even have brothers and sisters by this time. I’m writing this because I know that your mother and I will make mistakes. Contrary to what we may teach you we are just human and not super-human. We possess no special abilities beyond judgment that is tempered with wisdom that we have arrived at through age. We will screw you up. That is an unfortunate fact. Like your grandparents we will think about ways we can do things better with you then they did with us. It is highly likely that we, like them, will screw you up and make you less then perfect the same way they did it to us. The only thing you get to look forward to is when you screw up your own children by teaching them in ways that you perceive were the wrong ways to handle you.
We will always love you in an unconditional way. We may get angry at you, and I’m positive you will get angry at us. I hope it is not lasting. Our home will always be a home with a place for you in it and a place that you can come back to. If you sixty and I’m ninety-three you will always be welcome to live with me. Though expect me to drive you up the wall like I do to your mother sometimes. Your mother and I may fight, that’s because we are very strong in our ideals. You will learn that a lot of what your mother and I fight about is much different then other parents. This is because we are strange, please see the section where I said that we will screw you up and our parents screwed us up.
I write this to you now to give you something to read that is just for you and your siblings. An understanding in case I’m not perfect. A message if I’m not vocal enough in expressing my feelings. A hope that you can learn and grow from the things I write down and give you a moment in time to grasp across and to see if in the future you have the same feeling and problems as I do now. Not everything is time period specific, something transcend human time to give you an emotional connection with what you feel is important.
I blog about you so you will always have a sense of who I am. How I experienced things. What I believed in. It may not be the same as you feel in the future, but hopefully you will the struggles I overcame to get to the place you know me. I’m sure there will be many stories I tell you over the years that won’t be recorded. These hopefully you will be able to keep forever so you can have a piece of me with you always and something to pass down to your own children.
I can’t wait to meet you for the first time, to read to you, to cuddle with you. These are going to be the experiences I will cherish even when you have far outgrown them. I hope you gain the same in return from your own children. I will write you more in the coming future. See you in a few months.
Love,
Your Father
Creeva on July 8th, 2008
I can’t say I’m overwhelmed by congratulations about the pregnancy, but I wasn’t looking for that either. People slowly catch up and respond to information they’ve seen online that I’ve posted. It’s good it filters out and the modern way of disseminating information works much better then calling 100 people all day just to let them know. Heaven forbid the old days when you sent out snail mail to everyone to let them know.
Creeva on July 2nd, 2008
Remember to the old days? When you could launch a blog and just start writing? When you just hoped and prayed someone would come and read your stuff (ok I still do that). These days however it takes a bit more self promotion. I already managed to snag a domain name otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. However there are a few more things I need to secure until the blog is fully up an operational (then I can go take that Princess Leia - how does your precious Alderaan look now? - (too much?)).
I need to:
1. Set up a proper e-mail address
2. Setup a Twitter account
3. Setup the blogfeed to post to the twitter account
4. Setup a baby status twitter account so the short and sweet updates can be in one place for family and friends and not buried in my mindless tweets.
Then we can start the shameless self promotion of ourselves - is that shameful self promotion - ask my friends I say it’s former they tell me it’s the latter.
If you are reading this on Creeva.com then be warned you are only getting half of the story. I will be crossposting all of my own writing over to Creeva.com, but I won’t be taking any of the other blog authors stuff over. This means you are doing yourself a disservice by not going to Parent Phobia directly.
I would recommend subscribing to the Parent Phobia feed at first, then visiting the site regularly through the week. Once the Twitter account is up I would recommend adding that as a twitter contact.
As things get in place I will be posting regular updates and I highly recommend you get back to the main site and read Xie’s stuff she is going to post on Parent Phobia since I’ve read some of what she is working on and it’s truly great and personal writing.
If any readers have a suggestion of something else we can add please let us know - and no we are are not creating a myspace account for you to friend.
Creeva on July 2nd, 2008
Normally in the future I plan on posting all pregnancy and parenting stuff here first and move it over to my other blog. However with the announcement of the pregnancy I placed it on my home blog first.
Here is what I posted under the title “I’m Going to be a Father“:
In the picture above is my maternal grandfather and my great grandfather, it seems I am going to be joining on them on the ability to reproduce and pass down genetic material to the next generation. Yes I am going to be a father, Xie want and annouced the pregnancy on Twitter just a few hours ago with the following message:
As of yesterday I am 7 weeks pregnant - coming from the person who would never in a million years want kids, I am very excited & happy 
I sent the follow up:
@xielanthia congratulations who is the father……nm 
Then I sent this:
As of yesterday @xielanthia is 7 weeks pregnant and I’m going to be a father - wish us luck - we’ll need it.
So we have announced to the Web 2.0 World (WTW? W2W?) that we are having a baby and doing it in true web fashion. We have known for about 3 weeks and over that time eeked the information out to family and friends. The first person I told was the IPS guys I played SWG with that I have constant e-mail communication with. The first family that knew was my in-laws and followed by Xie’s grandmother (I wish she had a blog i could link to). Then it was ghoulishcharm. From there I told my father and my brother who was also there. I went and told my grandparents last Sunday and drove over to tell my sister, but she already knew it seems that she found out from my father who knew the week before.
I did find out from my sisters that my grandparents had already known about the pregnancy (having heard it through her) but yet they acted like they didn’t know anything. Welcome to my family, we can act surprise even if we have known something for months. I know I used to unwrap my Christmas presents before hand and rewrap them - I got that trick from my godmother.
Creeva on July 2nd, 2008
I always enjoy putting the first post on a new blog. Something about it being exciting and new. We don’t know for sure where this is going to go, but we hope to share our journey with you. Pregnancies and baby’s in general are a hard thing to go alone on. In this new web world we live in everything is shared, commented on, re-purposed, and passed around. Over the last couple years I’ve been living these thoughts in mind and trying to live with the ideal of saving as much information as possible. Parenthood and the trials and tribulations that go with it should be no different.
Life is a precious thing that shouldn’t be taken for granted. Parenting is another special thing. How do you raise your child properly? What do you do when X happens and you want to make sure Y is the outcome? How do you postpone the time period when your child hates you and wants nothing to do. How do you share these experiences with your child and make them an active part of what you are involved with? Everyone has an answers. In the grand scheme of things everyone also has some correct answers and some blatantly wrong ones. We are going to share with you what is happening and our thoughts and ideas.
I wont’ say we have the answers, since it’s more likely we will have questions. We will have opinions and thoughts and some answers, though they may not necessarily be the correct ones. I hope this blog does give you something to think about, comment on, and pass around though. Welcome to our journey and I’m happy to share it with you.
