Just another Saturday?

Every once in a while a span of 24 hours comes along that you want to hold onto. You want to keep it as fresh in your memory as the lettuce in your crisper drawer. Pictures work well, but they aren't the same thing as the actual 24 hours and when your camera battery dies, as well as your spare. . .well, memory needs to serve. Unfortunately, my memory works about as well as my old tonka trucks, sure it works, but it is rusty and parts fall off all the time. Therefore, I want to write it all down here so when I'm 80 years old, sitting in my hover rocker, I can download it straight into my brain and retell it to my grandkids for the 50th time.

I've already written about waking up on Saturday morning, and even though that was the biggest event, there was so much more.

Saturday, after I found out that I was going to have a son, I walked out of the doctor's room and realized that I really had to go to the bathroom. Yoon mi had to do a blood test so I was alone. My mind was reeling. I was trying to process what I had just heard, trying to figure out the best way to tell my parents and sister, and trying to find the bathroom. Luckily, I knew it was down the only hallway in the office. So, I walked in, found the toilet and just as I started, I realized that there were no urinals in this bathroom. I was in the woman's bathroom. Well, I had already started and this is Korea where it is common to find a urinal right by the door to the woman's stall so instead of pinching it off, I decided the best course of action would be to finish what I came in to do and quietly, yet confidently leave the bathroom. Luckily, when I was done, there was no one in the bathroom and no one in the hall; phew, crisis averted.

I called my family, but I was still in the doctor's office so I had to speak quietly and I couldn't get as excited as I wanted to be. Having to use the elevator to get down to the basement car garage, I had to get off the phone early, too. After leaving the doctor, we went to the local chain mega-store, similar to America's Wal-shop, ours drops the Wal and replaces it with an E. Anyway, while we were there, Yoon mi was diligently finding all the sample places and "seeing if we wanted to buy it." We didn't. Yoon mi was famished having been super busy at work and not having time to eat lunch. There were several things we needed to buy while we were there, but with both of us thinking about other things, we forgot about 90% of what we were supposed to buy and ended up buying a bunch of stuff we didn't need.

We went to a coffee/tea shop where we diligently changed our facebook status' and sent out some text messages with our news. Later, Yoon mi was tired so she went home and I set out for another ex-pat's birthday dinner. Gary is turning 38 or 47 I can't tell. He sorta looks like Vezzini from The Princess Bride. Anyway, he had his birthday party at a Korean beef restaurant where we all had to sit on the floor and cook our own meat. Now, don't get me wrong, I love cooking my own tender, juicy bits of beautifully marbled steak, I just absolutely hate doing it while sitting on the floor. This was the first time I've had red meat in . . . a long time. So, it was fantastic! After dinner, we decided to hit up the only bar in town that has a decent beer on tap. Now, with me trying to lose weight, I know very well that steak and beer are 2 things I should definitely not be consuming, but it was his birthday, what could I do? I had a beer. While at the bar, I was reminded that two other ex-pats, married, just finished their first semester of Master's and Bachelor's studies. So, we had a celebration that night of Gary's birthday, Amanda kicking ass in her Master's studies, and Bob with his Bachelor's work. But at least for me, the biggest celebration for my son.

By the time I left the bar, the Earth had just begun to cross between the sun and the moon, like a hiker between the mother and cub. However, instead of getting mauled, the hiker cast it's shadow on the cub slowly turning it a dark, burnt orange color. Eventually, as the moon became fully eclipsed, it darkened; an orb of blood dried for a week, lying on a black velvet sheet. I drove home and ran inside to get Yoon mi to come out and look up with me. It was freezing cold with a slight wind kissing my right ear, but I couldn't go inside. I had to watch this amazing eclipse unfolding in front of me. I went back in and grabbed my camera, ran out to the car to grab my tripod (yeah, I don't know why I keep them in two different places either) and set it all up. Just as I snapped off a couple pics, the battery died. Running back into the house to get my spare battery, the moon moved just a bit more so that it was nearly completely dark. When I got back out, I changed the battery and lifted it up for another shot. My spare battery was dead too. NO~~! So, I just sat there with a tripod and a camera with two dead batteries, staring at the moon. I know that many ancient civilizations have considered lunar eclipses bad omens, but I think that finding out my baby, who is going to be born in the year of the black dragon, is a son on the same day as a very rare total lunar eclipse is freaking awesome and worthy of remembering and re-telling when I'm old.

Best bathroom exit, ever!

So, sometime around the middle of September, Yoon mi started getting super tired, worn down, exhausted. She had been working from 9-7 Monday through Friday and from 9-5 on Saturdays.
Yoon mi often asks me, "so, do you want to have a baby, or not?" and my answer is always, "if you get pregnant, then yes, if you can't, then I'm ok. If it's meant to be, then so be it." I honestly meant that.

I've known couples who felt an absolute need to have a baby and they can't. This inability to reproduce causes a rift in their relationship and someone often blames the other, be it consciously or sub. When Yoon mi and I got married, I was fully aware that it is possible that she couldn't get pregnant. She was told previously that she wouldn't be able to, or that it would be extremely difficult and after two years of marriage, we didn't have any reason to believe the other doctors were wrong. We had made two life plans, one for if we had a baby and one for if we couldn't.

We had just started preparing our lives for the latter. This summer we took a rather expensive roadtrip all around the Pacific region of America, bought an expensive vacation package that will last the rest of our lives and we were about to start looking for a place to open a pharmacy and possibly a private English academy.

However, on September 26th, after I got home from swimming, Yoon mi was talking about how ill she was feeling and said, "what if I'm pregnant?" well, she's asked this a hundred times and I've answered it a hundred times the same way, "if you are, then you are. Do you think you are?" and she turned and went into the bathroom. She was in there for a short time and I went back to checking out my facebook page. The next thing I know, she opens the door, looks at me and says, "why did I make a joke?" I turned and looked at her and saw that she was holding something in her hand. Realization dawned on me like the morning sun warming the glaciers of Mt. Ranier in its pink and orange hues. I slid out of my chair, grabbed her around the waist and waltzed her around the room, the news working its way through us in our dance and bringing us even closer together. . .wait. No, that's wrong. Let me go back to after realization sunk in. I turned in my chair and looked at her and smoothly, romantically, idiotically said, "what?" So, she repeated herself and THEN realization dawned on me more like Egyptian sun at noon focused through a magnifying glass.

I can't remember exactly what was said, but I do know that I looked at the EPT and her and the EPT and her as my heart drum was beating the rhythm for flight of the bumblebee. The emotions that stormed through my body were more numerous than anything I can compare it too. The thoughts running through my brain that didn't make it out of my stammering lips consisted of things like, "what will we name it?" "should I call it, it?" "Where will we live?" "I thought this couldn't happen." "boy or girl?" "when did that happen?" "It's ok to call it, it, for now, it doesn't have a gender, yet." "My mum is really going to want us to move to the US, now." "I'm hungry." but what did come out of my mouth was, "Awesome!" It's funny how my brain was able to filter all the stupid stuff out and allow the one word that could best explain my feelings to escape unhindered.

Yoon mi asked me if I was happy and from that moment, I realized that what I had said earlier about not really caring if we had a baby were words from an inexperienced boy. How could I ever, EVER, not want to have a baby with this amazing woman? Of course I was happy, I was happier than I've ever been in my life. My wife is going to have our baby. I'm going to be a dad. I'm going to be the father of this human being who will depend on me like I depended on my father. I can only hope that I will be as good as he.

We went to the doctor and had an ultrasound the next day. It was mind-blowing to see this living creature inside my wife, even if it is only the size of a b.b.

Since then, I've become a semi-pro on diapers and baby furniture. My wife has had to completely change her daily routine of coffee in the morning, spicy food all day, possibly a beer in the evening. I've had to contemplate my future more than I've ever had to in the future.

We went to the doctor last Friday and for the first time, I could see my baby and actually recognize it as a human being. Amazingly, I could see its feet and hands. It touched its face and was moving quite a bit. I'm going to try to post the video on here. It's pretty long, but for me, it's priceless!

edit: unfortunately, the files on the disc are something I don't recognize and trying to figure it out in English is hard enough, but in Korean its impossible. sorry. take my word for it, its amazing!