Mush and Awe

I'm not much for mushy. Or public declarations of love and fidelity. Sarcastic and withering are much better colors on me. On the inside though, I'm just a big pile of squish that cries at anything.

Frank and I are both this way, although him not so much with the crying. We're not big on being affectionate in public or gushing about each other to people. We don't even hold hands in public that often. A lot of friends and family - and strangers - sometimes don't get our relationship and I think this is at least part of the reason why. When we were engaged I never called him my "fiance" - there is no more annoying word on earth. We were only engaged for a couple of weeks anyway because we are so averse to sharing private stuff with people, we hopped a plane and got married in Vegas, just the two of us.

This is all to say that I'm about to take a moment and expose my squishiness and lay on a big pile of mush, so I'm giving you fair warning to skip this post if you're not in the mood for a gushing love fest.

When I found out I was pregnant, it wasn't like the movies. If I'm being honest, I was very upset and not a little depressed. I cried trying to figure out how to tell Frank, cried when I told him, cried when we came home from the first prenatal visit. I was in a total panic. I felt like a stupid teenager who got herself knocked up and lost her scholarship. There was no consoling me. All of this was not about the baby. Babies don't scare me. Rather, it was that our entire life was about to turn upside down and it was my fault because I ruined everything.

For over 3 years we've been living rent free (and utilities free) in an apartment provided by my boss. It's a one bedroom, 900 square foot deal with a garage right in the middle of the ritziest part of downtown Philadelphia. Needless to say, we've been having a lot of fun these past 3 years without much responsibility. I work long hours and he works crazy hours but still, it's been pretty awesome. We took a lot of vacations at a moment's notice and bought a lot of fun toys (for him) and shoes and handbags (for me) and saved up some money. Like I said though, the apartment is a contract stipulation of my job, which I'm most likely going to lose/quit because I can't/don't want to do this job with a baby at home.

That means I'm going to need a new job and we'll need somewhere to live and it all has to get done before a baby makes his/her grand entrance in about 5 months. I was consumed by terror, guilt for creating this situation, and did I mention sheer terror? I kept crying and apologizing and crying and freaking the eff out.

I fully expected Frank to join me in the freaking out, but he never did. At least, not to me. Instead, he sprang into action. He put up with approximately two days of my freaking out and then told me that he didn't want me to be sad anymore, that everything would be okay and that it was time to be happy about it.

We decided that the best thing to do was buy a house so we went looking. We both fell in love with the first house we saw so we made an offer and they took it. The whole process took a week. Holy everything happening so fast! He didn't want me to stress out about the whole home buying process so aside from giving me some papers to sign, he handled the whole thing by himself. Also, my credit isn't the greatest so it was better to leave me out of it anyway. He even went to settlement the day of the Phillies parade. The house needs some work so he's calling contractors, meeting with landscapers and electricians, even getting the house inspected for termites. All on his own, all on the first weekends he's had off in 3 months. He's getting up in the morning to scrape wallpaper and rip out paneling before going to work the night shift, or he's going to work at 4 in the morning and then going to work on the house.

I'm sure he's worn out from the stress and the worry and the running around on top of his work schedule but he never complains. He tells me not to worry about anything , he's on top of it. He doesn't want me worried about anything but work and being pregnant. If he could find a way to stop me from stressing out at work, I'm sure he would.

In the midst of all of this, Pregzilla hasn't been that much fun to live with recently. While I've escaped most of the nastier symptoms of early pregnancy like nausea and puking, the hormones have knocked me sideways. I'm an emotional disaster area and this too Frank bears without blinking. He lets me complain and be grumpy and snap at him without taking it personally and he does his best to distract me by making me laugh. He comes to every doctor's appointment, reads my pregnancy books and websites, and even rubs my belly when it hurts - all without asking.

I've never been much of a damsel in distress. In fact, I've always been pretty independent and have always insisted to do things myself but I'm blown away by this. Frank has always been the guy who stands up so others don't have to. It's the quality that led him to first join the army and then the police department. I've known him since I was 14 and I've always known this about him, but I'm still amazed by his insistence to be in charge of everything so that I don't have to worry. To me, it speaks to a level of devotion to our relationship and growing family that leaves me in awe.

It's not new behavior for him. This is the guy that gave me the key to his place and made room in his closet after only a few months of dating - at his suggestion, not mine. The guy who brought me to his house and fed me chicken soup when I had strep throat even though he was working the graveyard shift. The guy that I married after dating for 8 months. Even so, I'm falling in love with him in a totally new way as I watch him do all of this for us. I wish there was a better way to tell him how much it's appreciated.