It happened to us during those in betweens. In between inching forward on those kilometric lines leading towards the Vatican Museum. In between gliding through the Hall of Mirrors in the Sun King’s summer palace in Versailles. In between drifting down on a gondola along the snaking Venetian canals. She happened to us in those in between moments that were sweet and sweaty and Catholic church-approved.

Then, during an atypical dreary London morning, my wife nudged me awake from a feverish West End-dream.
“Not this morning, love.” I grumbled, “Don’t you want to buy those half-price tickets to the Lion King before lunchtime?”
My wife rolled her eyes and exhaled. She reached over to her side and handed me a small kit. “You are my Lion King.” she grinned. “Look at this.”
I brought the kit closer to my face.
“Oh my God.” My eyes bulged from their sockets. “Is this for real?” I half-smiled, half-sneered. “You must be joking me. It’s too soon, my love.”
And suddenly I realized how emasculating it was to have a pregnancy kit shoved up a one-way orifice.

Our hands were clammy as we first plodded into the clinic of the obstetrician-gynecologist. “Are you ready, guys?” the doctor grinned while my wife clambered onto the examination table. As the doctor slathered KY Jelly all over her stomach, I stroked my wife’s hair and planted several kisses on her forehead. “This is it, my love.” I squeezed her hand. “I’m so glad your dad removed that chastity belt before the honeymoon.”

The doctor pressed the probe against her stomach, and green-tinted images started to flicker on the ultrasound monitor. “Can you hear that?” the doctor said as a jackhammer noise filled the room. “That’s the heartbeat of your baby.”

My wife’s eyes sparkled. “I told you I was pregnant! But you didn’t want to believe me.” She said as she cupped her hand on my face.

“I’m sorry love, I will never doubt you again.” I said as I helped her up from the table. Then I turned to her doctor. “I know this is an unusual request.” I murmured. “But can you help extract a pregnancy kit from my butt?”

That was the official start of our baby’s voyage over the salty sea of my wife’s womb, a voyage that started off with dizzy spells, early morning food raids of the refrigerator, and an immediate ban on all forms of male grooming products. You see, the pregnancy blessed my wife with the mutant ability of heightened sensory levels. This meant I had to forego the use of my mouthwashes, anti-perspirant and deoderants and colognes because it made her more nauseous than watching a televised congressional hearing. My new hygiene-free regimen kept my wife (and to a large extent, myself) happy. Unfortunately, everyone who could inhale me from a thirty-foot radius of me was not.

As long as my natural odors kept my wife in an amiable disposition, this was all that mattered. As long as she carrying one half of my DNA, my wife’s job was to be captain of the good ship Ledesma. Meanwhile, my job was to continuously scrub off any seaweed, barnacles and underwater sea monsters that would imperil her maiden voyage.

I belatedly found out that it is not enough that I fulfill my contribution to the biological imperative and then go back to watching cable tv and reading comic books. Something I discovered this as I was engrossed in the latest issue of All-Star Superman.
“My love,” she said in her syrupy tone while caressing her stomach. “Do you want to attend pregnancy classes?”
“Hmmm?” I mumbled. “Can’t we just catch some documentary on Discovery Channel? Or Animal Planet?”
She grumbled ever so slightly. “Love, there are books about pregnancy that have sat on your night table for several months and you haven’t touched any one of them.”
“But the books are just soooo boring to read.” I groaned. “Don’t they have any comic book versions of these books? Preferably with Wolverine in it?”
Her tone fermented into vinegar. “After I give birth, I might go into post-partum depression once they stick me full of catheters and they put our baby in the maternity ward. Then you’ll be asking so many questions about what is going on because you failed to read any of those books.” She started to foam at the mouth. “And in a flash of hormonal blind rage, I just might decapitate you with my fingernails. I will be very sad our child will grow up without a father, but I will keep your pickled head on the family altar. So, please read the books.”
Sigh. I never found out if Superman escaped Lex Luthor’s kryptonite death trap.

Without any prodding, I joined my wife for several childbirth preparation classes. And, lucky me, the first several classes were about breastfeeding. I tell you, I had never seen so many breasts in my life that have been totally bereft of movie classification rating. I saw plastic see-through breasts. I saw animated breasts. I saw onscreen and off-screen breasts (but purely for demonstration purposes). And I saw and tried on stuffed toy breasts with Velcro peel away layers (but purely for demonstration purposes). And I have even saw wooden pelvises. But let’s not get into that without some counseling.

However, knowledge of nipple latching alone wouldn’t have been sturdy enough to keep the good ship Ledesma afloat. Pregnancy also requires the husband to demonstrate a higher level of sensitivity to his wife, a level of sensitivity even higher than that of the Justice Secretary’s. For example, without much prompting, I had to constantly remind my wife that she was (and is IS!) a sexy, gorgeous creature, to ensure a homeostatic flow of hormones through her system. Future first-time fathers, please note: failure to compliment your wife during her pregnancy will result in emotional blackmail, debilitating injuries and a return to self-help. Just try to your best to ignore her seventy-pound weight gain (I say this for humorous purposes only. My wife never gained a pound over twenty-five. I promise). And there is also an upside to her weight gain: Certain body parts swell out of proportion. For some husbands, this swelling could be a good thing. But if the husband mentions swelling in the wrong body part, he will feel a swelling as well on his lip.

After the swelling on my lip subsided, I also spent quality time bonding with my wife and your soon-to-be born. I spent many a night with my wife reading the riveting tale Good Night Moon to an engorged abdomen, hoping that there were good acoustics inside her uterus. After reading the book, I would trace the thin brown line that ran the length of her stomach, waiting anxiously for our passenger to undulate by the width of her belly. And after stroking her belly long enough to see that three second flutter run across it, I would smother my wife’s stomach with kisses and whisper, “I can’t wait to see you”.

Since our voyager would hit land in the next few months, the doctor explained to both of us (in rather vivid detail I might add) the entire delivery process and used her fingers as faux scissors to demonstrate how an episiotomy worked. The discussion would have been really insightful if I was conscious for most of that discussion.
“Doc, is there any way we can do this pregnancy where no blood or pain or drugs will be involved?’” the doctor took in a deep breath before launching into a thirty minute discussion over alternative medical treatments.
“Great!” I proclaimed. “Now what can we do for my wife?”

Nine and a half months of impregnation stretched on to what felt like an eternity. How much longer would we incubating our little sailor? Everybody was growing impatient: budding grandparents, expectant godparents, an overly makulit daddy-to-be, and, most of all, a very ripe mommy-to-be. Meanwhile, my wife’s tummy had grown so humongous that she could register as her own barangay, that getting up from bed had become a cardiovascular exercise, and that her gait had finally resembled that of a sumo wrestler’s.

But before we could send in a SWAT team to get that baby out, my wife’s mucous plug came loose which sent our household into a frenzy (For those who have never been expectant fathers, this has nothing to do with a runny nose).
“O, let’s review what we learned in the child birth class.” my wife huffed. “What’s the first thing you grab when we leave for the hospital?”
“My comic books?”
“You will feel the strength of my contractions if you don’t answer the next question correctly.” My wife started to breathe harder. “Where do you take me once we go to the hospital”
“Uhmm…Floating Island restaurant.”
“I’m not sure you’ll be alive to see the birth of your child.” My wife snorted. “Do you know what you are supposed to do when my contractions are five minutes apart?”
“Call Yaya Cora.”
And that’s when her water broke.

A contraction, I was made to understand, is like pulling your lower lip over your upper lip. Then all the way over your face. My wife wanted to use my lips to demonstrate, but she was too busy concentrating on her breathing. But I could tell how powerful her contractions by how deep her fingernails had dug into my skin. By time she had clawed her way into my bones, we thought it was a good time to administer the epidural.

“It’s time.”
Those two words hit me like a tsunami as the doctor wheeled my wife into the delivery room. I clutched tightly to the rosary beads in my pocket. I had ran this delivery room scenario hundreds of times in my head, and in all of these scenarios I never managed to remain conscious. Then my wife squeezed my hand.
“Be strong for both of us, my love” my wife uttered. “Because if you faint and miss this wonderful experience, I will kill you.”

“Push!” the doctor wailed while the residents rhythmically counted down from ten. My wife lifted her head, grunted, clipped her chin to her neck, and grimaced. I gripped her hand tightly. She tore off of my left arm. “Push!” the doctor wailed again. My hands shook uncontrollably. “Come on, my love! You can do it.”

And after forty weeks, two days, and five pushes, infinity came sloshing into our world. I looked at the deep pools that were my wife’s eyes and knew that she was the sexiest, most gorgeous mom in the whole world.

I looked at the gurgling bundle of joy that the doctor held up in front of me and my lips trembled. “My baby!” I exclaimed. Then I kissed my wife full on the lips. “Thank you, love.”

Welcome to the world baby Fortune. You have made our world bigger in the space of a jackhammer heartbeat.