Writing from high atop the stratosphere

You'll excuse me if I'm a little too up today.  Today is D-Day, or FOIWAHABOAG-Day: "Find Out If We Are Having a Boy or a Girl." 

And indeed, we have found.  In a little over four months, we are having a son!

I would have been fine waiting until the birth to know if we had a son or daughter, but Kristen wanted to know, and she's carrying the little bugger, so why not?  So now we know: a boy it is, and we couldn't be happier. 

And now that the revelation has been made, I have to admit that I really, really, really, really wanted a boy.  I would have been absolutely fine with a girl, of course.  I like girls.  I know a lot of outstanding females and I am confident that if we were having a daughter that she would be so as well.  I would not be disappointed if there had been "nothing" where instead there was "something" this morning.

I was on top of the world before.  Now I am above even that.

I wanted a boy because now I can look upon my life and say that I have (and will) shared the same experiences as my father.  I think if he were still alive I would not be as caught up in the gender of our baby, but since his death I tend to examine my life in terms of his.  It's not that I want to be him; it's that I want the chance to have what he had, so that I can be what he taught me to be.  I learned from my father how to be everything: a student, an adult, a friend, career-oriented (fell of fthat track, yes, but I'm in the process of getting back on), a husband, etc.; all that is missing is a father.  And since I am his son, I only know the father-son experience from that perspective, and that is what I want to experience now from the opposite view.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I will know what my son is experiencing as we go through his life, at least from what I remember.  I know things change and it is much more different being a child than it was three decades ago, but I had a bond with my father that through everything, good and bad, only grew stronger, and it is as strong today as it has ever been.  Death cannot break what is meant to last forever.  My son and my father have a bond now through me.

I am my father's son, and I get to be my son's father.  I feel the circle beginning to complete.  This is what I had hoped for. 

Of course, I make this sound like it is me and only me who will go through this.  My son is lucky because he has a great mother.  He's not even born and he's already won the mommy lottery (would they call that winning the "mother lode"?  BA-ZING!).  I don't mean to sound selfish, like the gender of the baby affects only me.

The oddest thing about this whole pregnancy experience has been wondering when that feeling would hit, that "oh-wow-we-are-really-going-to-be-parents" shot across the bow.  Well, it took four and one-half months for it to arrive.

It's here now.  Oh boy, is it ever.  It was a direct hit that has sent us flying higher than we ever thought was possible.  And I'm pretty sure we will never come down.