Plans

It wouldn't come as a surprise; we knew the day might come when we left the sanctuary of everything we knew, packed up our things, and traveled to destination unknown for Nicole's doctoral program. We had been planning on this potential move for four years. I would work and get her through school. Then in her fifth year of the program, she would find an internship somewhere, and we could start a new adventure in a distant land. I would be able to explore the area and possibly find work in our new place while she completed the internship thus earning her doctorate degree. It was a perfect plan. We were not planning on Michelle coming into the picture.

"Surprise! You're going to be a daddy!" Those are not the words she used. Nicole had never expected to have kids. If anything, she had always thought she would adopt. And that would be after she finished school, and after we had our lives figured out, and at that rate, only after we started receiving our social security checks would we be ready to have kids. We had always played it safe, and after four years of marriage, quite enjoyed supplanting children with our dogs.

Surprised we were. But the scene that played out was by no means the congratulatory cliché we like to see on our feel good TV shows. We were in between houses and living with my parents. I got home from work and she took me aside. "I have to tell you something. You are not going to react, or smile or say anything to anybody." She then opened the bathroom linen closet, reached back behind the towels, and pulled out a ziplock baggy. Inside was a stick with a plus on it. I’ve watched enough of these silly commercials to have a general idea of what this meant. "Is this what I think it is? Are you serious?" was all I could stammer out, a big stupid grin on my face. What she didn’t see was the ice-cold bowling ball in my stomach, which was keeping me planted on the ground instead of jumping with joy. This wasn't part of our plan. It was exciting, but a stretch from anything we had ever considered prior to that moment. Funny how quickly plans can change.

The fortunate and unfortunate thing is that I married a stubborn girl. Nicole was going to finish school. We were in agreement about that. We’d devoted way too much time, energy and money for her to stop now. It would just be a little more work. The fact was, the baby had picked its timing perfectly. Nicole had front loaded her schoolwork, and was way ahead of her requisites. Had the baby arrived any earlier, it may have made it more difficult for her to put in those 90-hour weeks. Had the baby come any later, and it may have compromised her ability to get a good internship site.

The question then was “what are you going to do?” This was directed at me. If we were to move across the country, I would have to quit my job. However, I now had a different role to play in this team. Where I had once had ambitions of finding a new job in a new land, or making coffee at some random coffee shop; pursuing my own internship, or just playing songs on the street corner for all I knew, all that was out the window. I was now tied to a person I’d never met before. There wasn’t a question of what I’d be doing during Nicole’s internship. I was going to become a domestic dad.