It's been a while

I can't really say why I haven't posted in a while, it isn't for a lack of exciting things happening in my life. I guess once the cancer was gone, and Obama was elected, I no longer had a sense of urgency. As I think about it, I realize I have mostly used this blog as a kind of cathartic tool - I was worried about the cancer, and after that, I was worried about the election, and writing about these things helped.

But, when we got the big exciting news in November, the news that Mathilde was pregnant, a lot of people couldn't understand that I didn't post it here immediately. I think by now, most of you know Mathilde is pregnant - for those of you who don't, well, Mathilde is pregnant :-) The baby is due June 6th.

In a post many months ago, I explained how at the end of last summer (2007) we decided we wanted to have a third baby. We tried for a short time, but soon discovered that instead of Mathilde being pregnant, I had cancer. We knew at that point, that with the effects of chemo, we'd probably never have another baby. We didn't completely give up hope. In fact, before I started chemo, I made an embarrassing and somewhat pathetic visit to a "fertility clinic" (Incidentally, I am still wondering what kind of jerk steals the magazines from the box of magazines at a fertility clinic, leaving nothing but a crumpled picture of fat guy sunbathing in g-string).

Despite the little bit of me frozen away in a cup somewhere, we resigned ourselves to the knowledge that we probably wouldn't have another child. For Emily and Anna, this was the most devastating part of my illness. They thought it was simply UNFAIR.

Anyway, it turns out that life isn't so unfair after all. When this sumer turned to fall, we had begun to the put the the cancer behind us, and started to look forward. We decided to try again for a child, aware that probably nothing would become of it. Well, to make a short story shorter, we essentially had the golfing equivalent of a hole-in-one - which surprised the hell out of us! And thrilled us to know end. I think telling the girls was the most fun of all.

For some reason, I didn't really want to write about it here at first. In the beginning, I was actually pretty nervous. I was nervous in the beginning of the last two pregnancies too, but I think the fact that I just came off 6 months of cancer treatment escalated my fears. We have been to two scannings now, though, and the baby is doing great so my fears have been put to rest, and all I have left is excitement.

We were at the second scanning yesterday, and it was SO much fun. Emily and Anna came along to see their new sibling and to hopefully find out if it is a boy our a girl. They weren't disappointed.

Below is a video of the scanning. If you move your mouse away after pushing play, the video controls will disappear so you can see the subtitles.


Baby makes five from Kevin on Vimeo.