It's Starting to Feel Real

I think it was when we went for our first ultrasound at 12 weeks when it actually started to feel like we were pregnant.  But after seeing a little human being inside Rhian, and actually seeing it jump, almost as if it knew we were looking at it, was pretty amazing.  We had initially planned to wait until Valentine's day to tell everyone, but we felt we were far enough along, and having just seen the baby, that sharing the news a few days early would be ok.  We had already told our parents and siblings over Christmas, but hadn't shared the news with Rhian's grandmothers or any extended family and friends.  Kind of like announcing things on Facebook, telling that many people you are pregnant made it feel official (as things aren't really official until they are on Facebook). 

Fast forward 12 weeks and it definitely feels real.  I think 5 of the first 7 weeks after we came back to Port Moody from Christmas, Rhian convinced me to spend at least one day of each weekend looking at baby and pregnancy stuff.  For those of you who may have not been baby shopping recently, there is A LOT of products that exist for babies and expectant mothers.  On my family's side, there hasn't been a baby since my brother, 27 years ago, so I was definitely not familiar with the baby product market.  I had no idea that there were special pregnancy pillows (which we went and picked up yesterday, and Rhian is very happy we did) or so many different types of cloth diapers.  Anyway, we have slowly started to pick up some items that we will need; we bought a car seat, crib and mattress in the past 2 weeks and the nursery is starting to slowly fill up, making it feel like our baby is coming soon (Rhian's due in less than 4 months!!).

Now that Rhian is pregnant, I am noticing pregnant women and babies everywhere I go.  Rhian can attest that I have probably been noticing babies for the past year or so, but noticing pregnant bellies is something that has happened since we have become pregnant ourselves.  It's pretty obvious to me that I am ready and excited to become a Dad.  We went to a wedding over the May long weekend and I was talking to a friend of mine from high school that I probably hadn't seen for maybe 10 years.  He was the father to a 2 year old little boy, and was telling me that the day his son was born was one of the most incredible moments of his life.  Not that I didn't expect him to say that, but actually hearing him describe how he felt then and what it's like to be a dad just made me even more excited.