Bridgette and I went through the toughest few months of our marriage last fall when we suffered a miscarriage in September. In no way am I pretending that this was worse than the terrible pains that so many people experience, but the experience of grieving that loss and coping with the accompanying fears and deferred hopes was a struggle for many weeks. For me as a husband, it was particularly difficult to see my wife, who for so many years has wanted nothing more than to be a mother, suffer so much and not be able to make it all go away for her. Here is a song I wrote during the experience, offering probably a better description of the entire experience than I can work up now. Suffice to say, we were comforted immensely by our close friends and church community at the Rock.
Now, seven months later, I am so, so happy to tell all of you that we’re thirteen weeks pregnant. Lord willing, we’ll have a baby this October. I’d be lying if I said that this pregnancy has been a carefree one thus far. In truth, it’s been filled with a tremendous amount of anxiety and guarded hopes. It’s only been in the last couple weeks, upon hearing our baby’s heartbeat and getting through the critical first trimester that we’ve finally been able to talk about this as if it’s actually happening, as opposed to the big might. It’s not that we haven’t been able to trust God, it’s just that our wound was still fresh enough that it took a little work to let our hearts go there again. Little by little, however, conversations have turned to baby names (Slobodan McWiggles Welle has already been cruelly dismissed), and the logistics of becoming parents. It’s been an exciting few weeks, made even more so by the announcement that Dairy Queen has made Chocolate Truffle the Blizzard of the Month for April.
To all of you who worry that this news somehow bodes ill for the JLP. Fear not – I will remain true to my pledge of old. The John Larroquette Project will never become a horrible baby blog where I share cute stories and cute pictures and say cute things and post once every eleven weeks. I will continue to spend 6 minutes most weekday mornings making this site the bastion of obscure historical trivia and pagan goat-feasts you have come to tolerate. I will delight in animal hoarder stories. I will make fun of joy and kindness and other human emotions that make me uncomfortable.
Well, maybe I’ll blog about our baby sometimes. I’ll just try to keep things even-handed by writing about the awesomeness of corn dogs the next day.
Congratulations Mama and Papa Welle! I have a few baby name suggestions, since Slobodan McWiggles is unworthy:
Fortitude Cluster Welle
Baby Gender Welle NOT “Baby Boy” or “Baby Girl”)
Stem Cell Research Welle
Hercules Explosion Welle
Charles Philip Arthur George (no “Welle” surname)
Flavius Josephus Welle
Our Lady of Inscrutability Welle
Bowflex Jacobsen Welle
Lightswitch Franklin Welle
Freedom Patriot Welle
Windows Vista Welle
Brock Hugearms Welle
I hope this list helps! Maybe others can think of additional appropriate names.
Forget Dairy Queen. We’ve made Ham and Cheese the Sub of the month.
How ’bout John Wilkes Welle? You know, named after the malt distiler born in 1725. I really can’t forsee any issues, or nicknames stemming from a distinguished name such as that.
congratulations to you both good sir!
i think you should go with Brogan Franklin Welle. the power of Brogan, and the statesman brilliance of Franklin. even if it’s a girl!
I shall delight in your banal stories about things that every baby does that are somehow special when your baby does it. Actually, I shall delight more in your complaining posts about how you never get to sleep anymore and Bridgette never lets you out of the house anymore to “hang out with the guys.”
No, seriously, congratulations. I know what a long, hard road it was to get our beautiful girls so I can empathize. We’re praying the rest of the pregnancy goes as smooth as possible and that you deliver a healthy child.
So Slobo was getting a bit cranky, and that can only mean one thing: Time for a diaper change. But as Bridgette was changing the diaper, he pooped again. GROSS! Then, five minutes after changing his diaper, he pooped again. So we went through three diapers in ten minutes.
Gee, parenting sure is challenging sometimes. But with God’s grace, we’ll persevere.
I’m going to copy and paste that for later.
My baby name suggestion:
Flock of Seagulls
I like Tim’s suggestion. Maybe Husker Du for a middle name. You could go with the nickname Fos.
Oh yeah…congratulations.
How about combining both of your names?
Breter
Pedgette
See, they’re beautiful.
Fatherhood!!!!
Fatherhood! I’m coming your way!
I FEAR NOTHING!!!!!!!
We are SO happy for you friends!
And, I’m sure your baby stories will be extra-ordinary….knowing the baby’s father.