Didnt see that C section coming.  I had such a great start to the day and was in the best of moods…this was going to be a great day.

Then I found myself looking into the eyes of my anesthisiologist, in an operating room about to have major surgery.

Recovery was painful, but with enough pain medication, I found out that you look at life a whole lot differantly.

I couldnt wait to hold baby Cole in my arms, to see his face, to meet the one who had grown with me for the last 9 months…..

He was so precious that I was almost sorry for all of the nasty ” stop kicking me” comments.

I got to play the “Mommy” role for 2 whole days and it felt great…..this is what I had wanted, and I knew the parents where so happy and couldnt wait to take him home.

I have to give my husband all the kudos in the world for being so great, so understanding.  He has taken care of not only me and was by myside the whole way through but to add house and home on top of it…is just amazing to me.

Husband.

Familys of surrogates, take care of the husband too. They work just as hard and are probably looked over for all of thier support, errand running, emotional support and general keeping everything together all the while watching thier wives go through pain and agony.

I can never repay my husband for what he has gone through with me but I will have the rest of my life to keep trying. 

No, urged him… Strongly urged.

No, that’s not right. I flat out DEMANDED that he get the hell out of Dodge. Or whatever we’re calling Michelle’s belly these days.

It had no effect. The round mound remains.

And as the days go by, my eternally cheerful, glass-half-full, happy go lucky Michelle has transformed into… Well, I think the picture below spells it out:

So I’m appealing to my readers — both of you — for ideas. How do we move things along?

One of my co-workers suggested some good spicy Pineapple salsa.

I thought maybe placing a speaker on her stomach and blasting some Wayne Newton songs might encourage him to leave.

I’m also guessing that going horseback riding is out of the question. (Poor horse).

Ideas, anyone?

Dear Large Rib Kicking Being Inside Of My Wife,

Look kid: don’t take this personally but: It’s 37 weeks now, so……..

Get. Out.

It’s all over. Finished.

Scram! Hit the road! Take a hike (crawl)!

You’re done, son. Cooked. Baked. Ripe.

The checkered flag is waving. The final buzzer has sounded.

The Fat Lady has sung.. (ah, sorry that wasn’t about you, Michelle).

There is absolutely no reason why you aren’t out here with the rest of us, breathing, eating, pooping, trying to get a job, paying taxes and complaining about Congress.

You have officially overstayed your welcome. Consider this your eviction notice.

Cordially,

The Guy Who Is Not Your Father But Is Married To The Vessel You Are Residing In.

Sent to my co-workers today:

Our 9-month long adventure is just about over. Thank goodness, too, because this devil spawn kid is on the verge of overstaying his welcome. Given the 24/7 demolition derby going on inside Michelle,  I predict his future career choice will be:

A)     Blacksmith

B)      NASCAR driver that likes to swap paint

C)      Crash test dummy

D)     Philly fan who enjoys running onto the field during a game

 So this is a heads up that I’ll be tethered to my cell phone, on alert for the ‘It’s go time’ call. When you hear my new ringtone of the song ‘Having my Baby’, well you’ll know what’s up.

 (Hey: Can I get that song at CD Baby?)

 This afternoon I’m out around 2:15. Going to watch her Doc do one of these amazing 3-D ultrasounds. I understand you can see every nook/cranny/detail of the child-to-be, including his preference for boxers or briefs, Coke or Pepsi, and future political leanings.

Yet another blatant theft generous sampling of passages from the instant classic best seller, What To Expect When You’re Expected, by America’s newest funny man David Javerbaum. It’s already a must-read for every developing fetus out there!

MONTH 8 — ALLOW 6 TO 8 WEEKS FOR DELIVERY

In a little over a month, you will have the monopoly on cuteness in your family. (Older siblings? Their charm mortgage forecloses the second your head pokes through.) But for now, your parents are adorable! You should see them together in your room — painting, planning, arranging itsy-bitsy furniture,  having ‘serious’ talks about ‘budgets’ and ‘sharing the responsibility.’ Just like real grown-ups! And the things they come up with! Just now, Mommy said, “You won’t complain about alternating night feedings, will you?” And then Daddy said, “Of course not. I will relish that bonding time.” Oh, if only they could stay that naive!

BEST WEEKS EVER 32-35

Week 32

You are a goddamn lazy-ass. Look at you, sleeping 90 to 93 percent of the time. When are you going to do something with your life? Mommy’s ribs ain’t gonna kick themselves.

Week 35

You’re feeling cramped in there, and no wonder. You’re five pounds of carne in a three-pound empanada. And a lot that meat ain’t exactly lean. You’re up to 15% body fat, and you’re getting chubbier by the hour. But your brain is developing at an astonishing rate. Putting all your energy into your mind and not your body, huh? All right, Poindexter. Just don’t come crying to us when the jocks release greased pigs in the Tri-Lam frat! NERRRRRRRRRRRRRD!

PREGNANCY AND THE INTERNET: THE WORLD WIDE WOMB

The internet is a miraculous parallel universe in which every conceivable fact or opinion is simultaneously true, false, and related to Katie Holmes. This is certainly true in the field of obstetrics. A few short centuries ago, women’s understanding of pregnancy derived largely from what little alarmist, contradictory, spiteful hearsay they painstakingly pieced together over the course of their lives. Now, thanks to the miracle that is the World Wide Web, all that hearsay can be found at the click of a button.

Here are some common  Pregnancy Chat-Room Abbreviations:

IVF                 In vitro fertilization
OMG               Oh My gynecologist
TTC                 Trying to conceive
TTCHSB         Trying to conceive, husband shooting blanks
SHJWIDTHWTSF     Shit, he just walked in; don’t tell him what that stood for
SAHM           Stay at home mom
WAHM         Work at home mom
RAHM          Obama’s chief of staff
LOL               Lots of lactating
LMAO          Lactating my ass off
ORTFLMAO   Rolling on the floor, lactating my ass off
IMHO          I miss having orgasms
2wp             2 weeks pregnant
2mp            2 months pregnant
2yp              I am an African elephant
TWDB          Typing while delivering baby

Three places I never ever EVER expected to be in this lifetime:

A) Sharing a bag of pork rinds with Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace.

B) On the pitchers mound of Citizen’s Bank Park, World Series Game 7, Bottom of the ninth, two out….

C) Touring a maternity ward as a 50 year old guy with my pregnant wife.

And yet there we were last weekend at our local hospital, St. Mary’s, getting the lay of the land. Preggo Land, that is. I can report that not a whole lot has changed in baby-delivering technology or aesthetics in the past 14 years, or so it appears to me.

(A long aside:  I was about to refer to myself in the sentence above as…this expectant Dad. But that’s not right. That’s not my title here. I’m neither the Dad. Nor am I expectant.

So as I’m typing this, I ask Michelle across the room: What the hell am I. Her response.

“You’re my… Labor Coach. My Number One Supporter. My Number One Cheerleader,” she said. Obviously she’s having a hard time coming up with my role.

“You are….making sure the job gets done. You’re seeing this to the end! You’re…..” She gave up. Gotta come up with something. And soon!)

Back to the tour: Michelle and I inspected the place on a recent Saturday afternoon. St Mary’s is about 5 minutes down the road from us and was the obvious choice for the big event. The hospital gives tours only once a week, so we were herded through the rooms with two other Moms-to-be and their entourage. All of us looked a bit weary, especially the rotund females. All of them, including Michelle, looked like they were ready to drop their loads right then and there.

While the facility itself seems a little dated, the attentive staff members we met more than compensated for a less than state-of the-art feel of the place. They happily answered every question tossed their way, including my wife’s one and only question:

“Is alcohol allowed in the delivery room?” 

For the past few weeks, Michelle has been focusing on getting through the rigors of labor by visualizing having a glass of very good champaign after the deed is done. “None of the cheap crap,” she’s told me. “No ‘Andre’ or ‘Cold Duck’”.

If that’s how she keeps her eye on the prize….so be it.

For the record, Michelle got the anwer she was looking for.  The nurses on duty said champaign would be fine….”as long as you share with us.”

It was a pretty brief tour — the materity ward was almost full up that weekend. Everything seemed ultra organized and arranged in logical way, with the birthing rooms just steps away from the NICU, C-Section Operating Rooms, and just a short walk to the Post Delivery rooms and, finally, the  nursery.

It was at that final stop that I’ll remember most about this Saturday afternoon. The nursery was almost empty — all the babies had been taken to be with their Moms. But there was one tiny little child still in the unit, and the nurse on duty rolled her over to the windows for the group to view.

I looked over to see Michelle’s eyes welling up with tears.

Uh oh.

OK, even I had to roll my eyes over that one.

Despite our ups and downs — with a few loop-de-loops thrown in for good measure – we’ve beaten the odds and made it almost two decades as man and wife. Which begs the age old question:

What’s the perfect anniversary gift for the woman who was made pregnant by another man? (And another woman too, if you’re keeping score at home)

Anyone have a suggestion?

And so begins the most politically incorrect — possibly borderline rude — post to make onto Guestwomb.com thus far.

At least I hope so. I’ve typed out other, even more controversial posts intended for this space. Here were a few of the working titles/topics:

Baby, Space Alien or Human Turducken? You make the call.

Back to the bargaining table? Michelle’s surrogacy fee didn’t cover MY pain, suffering and sacrifice,and how am I gonna cover the hookers, ‘blow and bail money for those last few weeks of her pregnancy when I’m in Vegas?

19 Bizarre Habits of Pregnant Women, and the Men Who Start A Secret Blog In Order to Write Rude Insensitive Comments About Them.

“I have NO idea who the father is? It could be one of a dozen guys….” – rib-splittingly funny ways to shock complete strangers about Michelle’s pregnancy.

Sadly Michelle, the official blog censor, squashed each and every one of them.  She’s just not a good sport about such things.

But I digress:

This post concerns one of the two most sensitive topics to every woman on the globe. Age is one of them, but I’m not going there. (Yet.)

A lady’s weight is the other. I think every man knows these are quicksand topic areas, and should do his best to avoid discussing at all costs. But am I just any guy? No. Way. 

I just have to weigh in here, truly awful pun intended. First let’s set the record straight: By all apparent and not so apparent signs, Michelle is having a normal, healthy pregnancy. The alien baby is growing right on schedule, already 12 inches long, well over 2 lbs himself, all signs good. Thumbs up, everything AOK.

And outwardly things look…well normal. I’d like to phrase this next part most delicately: As she’s now just starting on month 7 of this pregnancy, Michelle is beyond just ‘glowing’, and having that cute little ‘baby bump’ that everyone talks about.

So let’s speak the plain truth. She is now…ripe.

Bountiful.  Abundant. Temporarily Zaftig.

Parentally Plump. She’s a SBABW — Semi-Big All Beautiful Woman.

Michelle has a bun — plus three cupcakes, a prune Danish and quite possibly a bundt cake — in her oven.

I think I’ve made my point here. There is roundness which cannot be denied.

Enter the magic.  Our truly magical bathroom scale. Because despite all outward evidence to the contrary, our trusty scale has only moved a couple of pounds north for her. In fact less than five. FIVE POUNDS?!?!

Each time she exits the bathroom and proudly announces her weighty findings I paste a happy smile my face and utter something profoundly supportive such as:

“Oh, no way in hell,” or something else endearing.

And yet I’ve seen it for my own eyes. It’s truly magical. Maybe even a miracle. I’m wondering if her wet foot prints are somehow forming the silhouette of Mary and Jesus when she stands on the scale pads, and that could be a contributing factor.

Michelle has her own theories, some of which she’ll allow me to share with this blog. “Every pregnancy is different,” she maintains. As for her…uh…measurements, that is very true.

With our oldest Emma, M gained a grand total of 45 lbs. With our youngest Sara, that number was down to 19. I’m thinking that the way these numbers are trending, she could launch her own diet plan empire.

I mean if Taco Bell and Subway can really market their crap as being part of a healthy weight loss plan, would it be so crazy to make this claim:

Surrogate Away Those Unwanted Pounds! Michelle’s “Have a Kid and Lose The Weight” plan — Guaranteed results in 9 months!

As for me I’ll go with the magic theory. And hope that a little her witchcraft and sorcery can rub off onto my OWN weight struggles.

(Writer’s note — let it be known that Michelle did listen to me read this draft and approve of its posting. The fact that she was barely awake as she listened has nothing to do with her approval.)

As a result, I’ve really labored (Ha. Labored. A pregnancy reference! See, this is what I mean about my problem of sticking to difficult topics. And being too easily amused.) at recording this little bump in the road.  So the last couple of nights have consisted of: Write, delete, write, edit, delete, play an online game, read ESPN, read about Conan and Leno…… And get nowhere. I even fail at describing accurately her latest situation above. It’s not a ‘setback’ or a ‘bump in the road’ at all. It’s a…..

Ah, to hell with it. Let Michelle tell the story and I’ll just get out of the way.

When I had been pregnant before (Ha, in the last century! Alright, that wasn’t fair. Or helpful. And I’m supposed to stay out of it.  Let’s start over.)

When I had been pregnant before  there wasn’t as much information available about tests, ultra sounds, diseases etc as much as there is today.  It was easy to think that everything was going to be fine, picture perfect becuase you were a little more in the dark. Ignorance was bliss in my case. I just assumed all was well. And it was.

But 14 years can make a differance.  There have been great strides in medical testing so that you can know everything about your baby, defects and all. And I mean everything.

Along my journey these last few weeks, there have been a couple bumps in the road (Oh, maybe it IS a bump in the road. I stand corrected.) starting with a blood test that came up a little  high for spina bifida.

So I did that natural thing, just retest……it too came up a little higher than normal but not by much. So additional tests were conducted.

The results were that all was well with the baby, No spina bifida was seen on an super 3-d ultrasound, but now they might have seen a placenta previa.  That is where the baby plants itself near the cervix opening or right on it, making it difficult to deliver later on. This will be confirmed later this week. 

So far there has been a lot of worries and stresses that I had never experienced before….I had always assumed that everything was going to be fine, and they were.

I am older now and have to come to terms with that, even though I feel 29. I am more than halfway through this pregnancy and feel very hopeful that all will be well, but am also being well cared for, cautious and informed. (Maybe too informed?)

The gift of life is just that, a gift….there are no guarantees in life, for life.  I dont believe in perfection, the perfect baby or perfect pregnancy.  I believe in being healthy, carrying a healthy baby and experiencing a healthy pregnancy. 

That is what I hope for now.

We’re now well into Month 4 of Michelle’s life creating project. To give you a glimpse of what’s going on inside her world — literally –  I’ve chosen some more passages from the new book “What To Expect When You’re Expected”, by hilarious funnyman David Javerbaum.

The book is available at every single bookstore in this world and many others, including the internet ,and is a bargain at twice the $15.00 cover price. (That plug should be enough to spare me from the author’s wrath in borrowing his material.)

Here’s what Mr. Javerbaum has to say about what’s happening these next few weeks:

Week 14 – The baby is “really moving now — flexing muscles, wiggling fingers and already demonstrating a broader range of motion than Richard Gere.

Week 15 – ”This is when it gets really hard to tell what fruit you’re the same size as. Some say apples, other tangerines. It’s impossible to say for sure as these vital comparisons have become yet another victim of the ongoing “turf war” between obstetricians and the produce distributors…”

Week 16 – ”Well, well well…look who’s creating urine! Mazel tov on the excretory system. But word on the street is you’re peeing every 45 minutes. Slow down there, Tinkly — this is a uterus, not a urethra.

Next, our new fav author goes on to discuss Michelle’s next big decision – finding maternity wear. Because…putting it very delicately…she’s beyond the ‘oh wow that was an amazing all-you-can-eat-hot-fudge-sundae-bar-I’ll-diet-tomorrow-and-lose-it, temporary adjustment time period. Thankfully, this amazing book is full of great advice:

“Today’s woman can choose from a variety of stylish and comfortable looks that are at best form-fitting, and at worst not form-mocking. More practically, many of these clothes will adjust as you and Mommy grow bigger, thanks to a well hidden array of straps, bands, buttons, bolts, hinges, clamps, clasps, hasps, knobs, levers, pulleys, ratchets, industrial-strength flanges and steel girded support beams.”

“Of course these clothes will only fit Mommy for a short time. To save money, she might want to consider staying 40 lbs overweight for the rest of her life.”

“Another option is asking to borrow maternity clothes from friends. This she should do without guilt. She will then loan them to some else next year, just as someone loaned them to her friends last year. In fact, it’s an open secret that the same 100,000 maternity dresses have been circulating around the world for the last half century.”

Finally, he wraps up this chapter with some pregnancy factoids from around the world, including:

In Australia, unborn babies are called “bludgeroos’; pregnant women are ‘tammywobbles’.

In Cuba, new fathers, mothers AND babies smoke cigars.

Meanwhile in Israel, fetuses are continually hounded by mothers for ‘never calling’.

In Nambia, all ultrasounds are FedExed to Brangelina.

Girls in the womb in Saudi Arabia are forbidden from “kicking suggestively’.

Panama birth canals are exceedingly long and owned by the government.

And finally, new pregnancies in Vatican City are greeted with a mix of shock and covert pride.

Thanks again to Mr. Javerbaum for allowing me/not noticing that I’m using his rich material.