I am gonna be a daddy. It is a moment I have been waiting for for many years. A day I have dreamed of. Words cannot explain the feelings I had when Jackie yelled “DAN!!! Get in here NOW!!”. I was overjoyed because I already knew what she was going to say. No more than 5 min earlier we had mentally prepared ourselves for another month of “trying” and we had accepted it. They always say it will happen when you least expect it. It didn’t seem like it was ever going to happen; and then it did.
Unfortunately the celebration was short lived that morning.. we both had to go to work. It was probably my least productive day ever. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Everything I thought I knew and prepared myself for, for this exact moment suddenly made no sense. I started crunching numbers, wondering if we make enough, if we were going to have enough room, what kind of father would I be, what if they get sick, how big are they now, are they gonna play football, basketball, baseball or hockey. Will they live healthy lives. The list went on and on.
As the day went on, Jackie and I shared emails talking about just how wonderful it is. We couldn’t believe we were going to be parents. When I was on my way home, Jackie sent me a text message stating she wanted to tell her family now. So we made the rounds around her family and told them. This was really good for Jackie because she needed someone to talk to about the pregnancy, things I just wouldn’t be able to answer. I started to think how I was going to tell my family.
I always thought I had the perfect idea, but with Aletha moving to Peoria, and I found out my brother was dropping their kids off at my parents house to go out with Sarah, I thought I wouldn’t be able to tell them and I just simply couldn’t wait any longer. Luckily my mom didn’t catch on and said she would just bring the girls with. Well we ate dinner the next weekend and I cooked Baby Back ribs (yes 10 hours over the smoker.. this was a big deal), baby red skin potatoes, baby lettuce, baby cucumbers and baby carrots. We had babies breath on the table and we thought it would be obvious. It wasn’t. I asked them if they picked up on the theme. I listed off all the food and my mom was like “Oh.. yep.. a baby theme”, then Ron says “O.. My …. God!!” and my mom followed with “Oh oh oh!! Congratulations!!”
The next day we stopped by Rick and Sarah’s house and told them, then I called Mike, because he is too busy as a college student now, I called Aletha then Tonya to spread the news. We told everyone we told not to tell anyone because we weren’t ready to tell everyone else, we wanted to wait.. we had only known for 2 weeks. It was still early. With the still chance of a miscarriage, we didn’t want to have to spread the possible “bad” news to everyone as well.
Right now… we are very happy. Couldn’t be happier.