Andrea and I are planners. We had planned when we would conceive, when the baby would be born, what we would do for the first few years, how we would handle child care, etc.

Of course Mother Nature has her own time line. We started in December last year with hopes of having a kiddo around the same time as our birthdays, planning to make September our super month of celebration. (Andrea’s b-day is in the beginning of the month, mine in the middle and our anniversary at the end, not to mention ACL fest, Labor Day, etc.) I also thought it would be good to have some dual citizenship history so we did make an effort for the bean to get started in Oregon. My thinking was that she would have claim to two great states that way… conceived in Oregon, born in Texas. But nature didn’t cooperate or just wanted to let us know who was boss.

By late February we were getting a little nervous… we had been trying for 3 whole months! Yes, un-realistic but like I said, we had a plan damn it. Then, Good Friday morning, as A and I slept in a bit and began to get prepared for her Dad and his partner to arrive from Portland Andrea cuddled up next to me in bed. She woke me out of half sleep and whispered, “We’re having a baby!” with the most excitement in a whisper I’ve ever heard. We were both giddy but wanted to be sure so we zipped off to HEB to get a “fancier” pregnancy test, cause the cheap one just might not be accurate. Finally after trying to act nonchalant we tested again to be absolutely sure.

Of course in preparation for being parents we had already read lots. And in those tomes of knowledge it was repeatedly said, “Don’t tell anyone till the 2nd month.” Well that was just ridiculous. George & Mary were in town from Portland; Barney, my dad, was coming up with my niece, Kennedy, and my brother, Otis and his wife Pam. We were going to tell everyone! We figured that if Andrea had a miscarriage we wanted everyone to be sad with us this time around.

So on Easter Sunday we had everyone over and announced the existence of the future bean. Andrea and I were still reeling from the news but we were just giddy. Granted we were terrified at the prospect of psychologically damaging it, doing everything wrong, not being responsible enough, etc. But right then, we just basked in the future, anticipating getting to know our uman bean.