I guess before I start talking about my son, I should talk about the long path my Lisa and I had to travel to have him. There a lot of ground to cover, so to save some time on my part, I suggest going to Wikipedia and just read up on things until you get until where I come in with a story about trying to have a baby.

You back? Good. The pre-Cambrian explosion was pretty impressive, wasn’t it? And how about that Eli Whitney and the way he totally crushed inventing the cotton gin?  And because you just get sucked into things on the Internet, you probably clicked a link at some point and ended up on the article about Lobot on Wookieepedia. Kind of scary someone spent all that time writing down all that information about Lando Calrissian’s assistant, isn’t it? Don’t even think about clicking on the entry for the guy who said “Two fighters against a Star Destroyer?” to Princess Leia on Hoth. That way lies madness.

Anyway, here’s how it usually goes when a couple tells me they’re going to try to have a baby.

Some couple: Guess what? We’re going to try to have a baby!

Me: That’s cool.

A couple of months later –

Some couple:  Guess what? We’re having a baby!

Me: What strange manner of witchcraft be this? Woman, how is your womb so bountiful? Tell me weary travelers, what news do you bring from the eastern lands? Does Hrothkali, the one-eyed king who waits in shadows, still rule the enchanted realms?

Or, I just say something like “Congratulations!” and get on with my day. But you get the point. I know it’s normal, but I’m still completely blown away by it. For most people, getting pregnant is not particularly difficult.

In our case, it didn’t work out like that at all. We started trying and nothing was happening. It was incredibly stressful, and to make matters worse Lisa and I were arguing a lot over a child who hadn’t even been conceived yet.  For example, Lisa was insistent that our child would only be allowed to watch TV shows from when were kids and nothing from the present day. I was insistent there was no way in hell I was going to go to the trouble of finding episodes of Square One  just to inflict them on our child.

Also, my wife went out and bought a onesie. Not for herself, as that would be weird, but for a baby. I’m not a superstitious person by nature, but I believe that having baby clothes in the house before it was entirely necessary was nothing but bad luck. As it turns out, my instincts were correct.

We tried for a year with nothing to show for it except a lot of hurt feelings and bruised egos. I’m glad we didn’t start on a baby blog like this, or else it would have been really embarrassing. I remember being really concerned at this point that my wife secretly hated me because I couldn’t give her a baby. She didn’t, of course, but that’s where my mind was at.

We went to the doctor to find out what was going on. It wasn’t long before my wife came home one day and announced that she had a unicorn uterus. I remember being completely confused by this, wondering how my wife had something that sounded like she had to roll a d20 to determine damage to her fertility.

After I asked for clarification, I learned that what she actually said was that she had a unicornuate uterus, which basically means that half her uterus is missing. She was born that way; it wasn’t stolen by the Dukes of Hazard or anything.  To further complicate matters, the doctors also found my wife only has one kidney and one ovary isn’t attached to anything.

This was obviously not good news, but we weren’t ready to give up hope yet. There’s a whole host of reproductive technologies available, so we were going to become parents with the help of science and technology.