Thursday, August 26, 2010
Yoga!
This week I found out that there is a yoga studio about 5 minutes away from our place that offers prenatal yoga. The class is on Sundays from 3-4:30pm - much more convenient for me than the weekday classes offered by other yoga studios in town. I am excited to start classes, but I feel a bit like an impostor since it is still impossible to tell I'm pregnant based on my outward appearance. On one hand, I'm enjoying not having any problems fitting into my clothes. On the other hand, I can't wait to see some changes!
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Go Tell it On the Mountain
Secrets are an incredibly interesting concept unique to humans. Even our closely related primate species, although intelligent and capable of abstract thinking, don't have this concept. Apes don't care if Bobby hooked up with Sally the day after he hooked up with Sue. In fact, I am sure Bobby and Sally probably hooked up in public, in plain view of all of the other apes-Sue included. For some reason, mostly because we humans like to over think everything, we decided that we would conceive a game that involves withholding information until precisely the right time. Now this can be fun when you are the one with the secret, but it can also be nerve-wracking. No matter what the case, secrets are unnatural and can cause a great deal of added stress and emotional confusion. If you don't know me or cannot tell by my tone, I am not a man who has many secrets. Although I will say can be trusted with them as I understand the reasons for keeping secrets.
Learning that Emilie was pregnant was one of the happiest moments of my life. I was in Orange Beach, AL on our annual beach training camp making final preparations for the state tournament with my girls soccer team (16-16 year old girls) and 4 mothers acting as chaperons. In fact, the beach house came with a separate guest house that the mothers referred to as the 'honeymoon suite' so that Emilie and I could work on our baby making. Unfortunately, Emilie wasn't able to come this year because that same weekend, she left for Texas for two months. As the mothers hinted at the prospect of Emilie and I having kids, it was extremely difficult to keep from telling them that Emilie had just sent me a picture of the positive pregnancy test she just took. So I did the only thing I knew to do. I told them goodnight and went and thought about it alone in my suite. I'll tell you that was a joyous moment, but it was very difficult because I wanted to share that with the person I love the most. At that point, I would have shared it with anyone.
The two months that we kept our pregnancy a secret continuously created emotional confusion for me. I wanted to stand on top of a mountain and yell to the whole world my incredible news and how amazing our baby is going to be. However, with so much still uncertain, it wasn't the right thing to do. This confusion began to manifest in common daily situations that I was previously oblivious to. I totally began to feel like a woman. I would see a mother with an infant in the supermarket and these weird feelings were erupting inside of me. I would get excited and start thinking about what our baby is going to be like and that pretty soon I will be doing that. This was all very new to me, and I am sure it was very creepy to the mother I was staring at with wide eyes and a huge grin on my face. As I encountered more similar situations, it became harder and harder to keep my secret. One afternoon one of the women I work with brought her son into work. As some of my co-workers and I were playing with him I wanted to say "I can't wait until mine is born". I was encountering these situations more and more and it was starting to wear me down.
To deal with the added pressure of the wonderful secret I was having to keep, I began to tell my secret to strangers, bystanders, and acquaintances. I found a good outlet was a haircut session with a new stylist I never met before. Based on an early evaluation of her performance I knew I wouldn't be seeing her again. I gave myself the green light and I talked for the full 20 minutes about how excited I was that I was going to become a dad. I began to tell the checkout people at stores and restaurants. For a while it was enough to hold me over, but I was itching to tell the people I truly care about.
I learned that one of the positives of keeping a good secret is that the reward of revealing your secret has a direct positive correlation to the difficulty of keeping it. The harder it is to keep, the better it will feel to reveal. I mean it was incredible getting to tell my family and friends that Emilie and I will soon be welcoming the next Garcia to the clan. I still have not told everybody, but each day I tell someone else, it makes my entire day. It brings me so much joy just to tell people this news that I can only imagine the joy I will feel when our baby is actually born. I think this whole secret experience has already changed me. Initially, I wanted to know the gender of the baby as soon as we were able to find out. Now that Emilie is pregnant and I already love our baby. I don't care what the gender is. I think it will be awesome for the baby to keep that a natural, wonderful secret until the day we get to meet him or her.
Learning that Emilie was pregnant was one of the happiest moments of my life. I was in Orange Beach, AL on our annual beach training camp making final preparations for the state tournament with my girls soccer team (16-16 year old girls) and 4 mothers acting as chaperons. In fact, the beach house came with a separate guest house that the mothers referred to as the 'honeymoon suite' so that Emilie and I could work on our baby making. Unfortunately, Emilie wasn't able to come this year because that same weekend, she left for Texas for two months. As the mothers hinted at the prospect of Emilie and I having kids, it was extremely difficult to keep from telling them that Emilie had just sent me a picture of the positive pregnancy test she just took. So I did the only thing I knew to do. I told them goodnight and went and thought about it alone in my suite. I'll tell you that was a joyous moment, but it was very difficult because I wanted to share that with the person I love the most. At that point, I would have shared it with anyone.
The two months that we kept our pregnancy a secret continuously created emotional confusion for me. I wanted to stand on top of a mountain and yell to the whole world my incredible news and how amazing our baby is going to be. However, with so much still uncertain, it wasn't the right thing to do. This confusion began to manifest in common daily situations that I was previously oblivious to. I totally began to feel like a woman. I would see a mother with an infant in the supermarket and these weird feelings were erupting inside of me. I would get excited and start thinking about what our baby is going to be like and that pretty soon I will be doing that. This was all very new to me, and I am sure it was very creepy to the mother I was staring at with wide eyes and a huge grin on my face. As I encountered more similar situations, it became harder and harder to keep my secret. One afternoon one of the women I work with brought her son into work. As some of my co-workers and I were playing with him I wanted to say "I can't wait until mine is born". I was encountering these situations more and more and it was starting to wear me down.
To deal with the added pressure of the wonderful secret I was having to keep, I began to tell my secret to strangers, bystanders, and acquaintances. I found a good outlet was a haircut session with a new stylist I never met before. Based on an early evaluation of her performance I knew I wouldn't be seeing her again. I gave myself the green light and I talked for the full 20 minutes about how excited I was that I was going to become a dad. I began to tell the checkout people at stores and restaurants. For a while it was enough to hold me over, but I was itching to tell the people I truly care about.
I learned that one of the positives of keeping a good secret is that the reward of revealing your secret has a direct positive correlation to the difficulty of keeping it. The harder it is to keep, the better it will feel to reveal. I mean it was incredible getting to tell my family and friends that Emilie and I will soon be welcoming the next Garcia to the clan. I still have not told everybody, but each day I tell someone else, it makes my entire day. It brings me so much joy just to tell people this news that I can only imagine the joy I will feel when our baby is actually born. I think this whole secret experience has already changed me. Initially, I wanted to know the gender of the baby as soon as we were able to find out. Now that Emilie is pregnant and I already love our baby. I don't care what the gender is. I think it will be awesome for the baby to keep that a natural, wonderful secret until the day we get to meet him or her.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Introduction to Garcia Family Rundowns
In case you aren't as big of a fan of The Office as we are...in Season 5, Michael Scott leaves Dunder Mifflin to start the Michael Scott Paper Company and he is replaced by Charles Minor (an outside hire - gasp!). One day, Charles asks Jim for a client rundown. Being the dutiful employee he is, Jim says he'll get it done. In reality, he has no clue what a client rundown is and he is too scared that if he asks, Charles' already poor impression of him will worsen.
Hence, the title of our blog is a nod to our favorite show, The Office. Gabe and I plan to provide updates on our life here in Nashville, particularly related to our growing family.
As you all know by now, I'm pregnant! I'm about 16-ish weeks along. Therefore, we are expecting the baby's birth to fall sometime between the last two weeks of January and the first two weeks of February 2011. The timing really couldn't be better. I graduate in December after which I will be studying for my certification exam. I will take this exam in late December or early January. After the baby is born, I plan to wait about 6 months before starting my first job as a certified nurse-midwife (CNM).
This past Tuesday we had our first prenatal visit at the West End Women's Health Center (http://www.vanderbiltnursemidwives.com/). We met with Elaine Moore, a CNM who works part-time at this clinic. The best part was hearing the baby's heartbeat! Our next appointment is scheduled for Sept. 22. We also have an ultrasound scheduled that morning to look at the baby's anatomy. At this point, the plan is to wait to find out the baby's gender.
We are so excited (and also frightened!) to become parents. Considering that we are so far from all our family and friends, we hope that this blog will keep us a bit more connected. I'll also post pictures as my belly grows (so far it looks exactly the same).
Hence, the title of our blog is a nod to our favorite show, The Office. Gabe and I plan to provide updates on our life here in Nashville, particularly related to our growing family.
As you all know by now, I'm pregnant! I'm about 16-ish weeks along. Therefore, we are expecting the baby's birth to fall sometime between the last two weeks of January and the first two weeks of February 2011. The timing really couldn't be better. I graduate in December after which I will be studying for my certification exam. I will take this exam in late December or early January. After the baby is born, I plan to wait about 6 months before starting my first job as a certified nurse-midwife (CNM).
This past Tuesday we had our first prenatal visit at the West End Women's Health Center (http://www.vanderbiltnursemidwives.com/). We met with Elaine Moore, a CNM who works part-time at this clinic. The best part was hearing the baby's heartbeat! Our next appointment is scheduled for Sept. 22. We also have an ultrasound scheduled that morning to look at the baby's anatomy. At this point, the plan is to wait to find out the baby's gender.
We are so excited (and also frightened!) to become parents. Considering that we are so far from all our family and friends, we hope that this blog will keep us a bit more connected. I'll also post pictures as my belly grows (so far it looks exactly the same).
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