Being pregnant with my first child was one of the best periods of my life.

Yes, I am and always have been a dude, but with both of our children, Cindy and I were unabashedly pregnant together. She stopped drinking and started eating for two. So did I. I even quit caffeine, which for me is only slightly less painful than surrendering sunlight.

Our daughter had her name within a few days of us knowing we were pregnant. Like most things between us, it took Cindy and I little more than a minute to agree. We had two names decided; one for a girl and another for a boy.

We did not, however, have any desire to know the sex of our child.

Keeping the gender a mystery was non-negotiable for us. We loved playing pretend and what if?, but that was merely shaking a box beneath the tree. We never truly wished to know what was waiting inside. My grandfather declared Cindy’s swollen belly a girl, approximately sixteen seconds after he saw it for the first time. Most everyone else was certain our first born would be a boy.

Mia Maxwell, as she was instantly called, was our constant companion and we included her in many conversations throughout each day. We sang her songs, read her stories and loved her with every molecule we had. Beyond the constant adoration, we fed our daughter well.

Cindy and I love to share food. We courted one another across many a restaurant table and have always considered breaking bread as one of the best possible ways to strengthen our bond. Pregnancy, for us, was a first class, guilt free ticket to a nine month long buffet.

We were married in Vegas. Even though our daughter attended the wedding, we figured she probably couldn’t hear too well from her side of Mommy’s tummy, so we told her all about it over chocolates later that evening. We also told her how we said “I do!” in a gondola, and about the nice people at the restaurant that afternoon who had given us half of our check, in addition to a rather large and completely free desert. We told her about the Cirque de Soleil performance at the Bellagio, how the dancers took our breath away, and all about the Krispy Kremes we had in lieu of wedding cake.

We became legally one in the final week of summer, a couple of weeks before Cindy would return to school with a new class of students, this time as Mrs. Platt. We would watch the season change just one final time before we would be Mommy and Daddy out loud.

We did all we could to prepare for our baby, both emotionally and with all the necessary and unnecessary things which first time parents do to baby-proof their homes and prepare for their new lives. Yet there is nothing that anyone can truly do to brace themselves for the inevitable seismic shift that comes with being a parent. Not really. No matter how many things you read, hear or see, nothing can truly prepare for the endless fatigue and euphoria which comes with nurturing a new life.

On some level, I believe this is something most every new parent understands. It is not merely the discomfort of the swollen belly which makes it so difficult to truly relax.

Imminent fate followed us like a shadow. We were eager for our new dawn to break, yet every day seemed to harbor more gravity than the one before. Months of preparation had readied us only for uncertainty. Avid enthusiasm coalesced with a slight sliver of melancholy as we marinated in the thought that life as we knew was nearly over; a unique feeling we would not experience again until the weekend before the birth of our son.

That final week drifted by in a fog. We held hands tighter, slept harder, and spoke softer.

Then, one bright winter day when the year was still fresh, we welcomed Mia into our world.

“You’re pregnant!”

“No, I’m not.”

Though I was only 10% sure when I first started to chastise Cindy, I was 100% right in the end. Pink lines tell no lies, at least when they materialize in the middle of white boxes.

I had been adamant that she was pregnant, but more for grins and giggles than anything else. Cindy denied it, but only because it seemed impossible to believe. Though we had many times discussed the inevitability, neither of us felt we were quite ready for a child. Though our daughter was planned, she appeared in our lives about two years earlier than expected.

When I met Cindy, she was working out of a research laboratory in Seal Beach, California. She had been working there about a year, transplanted from Texas after being honored as Teacher of the Year for the Houston Unified School District. A cutting edge reading curriculum, based out of Johns Hopkins University but with limbs all over the nation, was looking for her precise skill set. They recruited and quickly moved her out to the Gold Coast.

Eventually, Cindy found her way into my family’s flower shop. We met, flirted, and fell in love. In that order and all rather immediately. Less than a year passed before we were living together in a tiny corner lot of our own happily ever after.

Cindy spent her days either traveling across the country, visiting an endless stream of schools, or behind a desk in a mahogany office overlooking the verdant green grass of a golf course just a mile from the sea. What she had once considered a rather glamorous life had turned into a ball and chain which pulled her far from our cozy existence for about two out of every five days. And those times when she wasn’t in a far off hotel room missing me, she was stuck in her office nursing the dull ache of no longer having a classroom of her own where she could spend nine months bonding and bettering a single group of children.

Her new career had great pay and even better benefits. But still, the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. So Cindy said sayonara to the posh office and landed a position teaching 4th Grade at a small elementary school about a mile or so from my flower shop.

Though the birds and the bees were still responsible for our baby, it was the change of hives which made the honey happen. More specifically, it was Tigger, the cat.

Tigger was the unofficial mascot of the school, and fell under the fierce protection of both the majority of the faculty and the administration. Yet, Tigger and Cindy were ultimate foes from day one. Cindy has asthma and an allergy to cats, a set of soft spots which must have hung like a scent in the air, for Tigger played on her weakness at every opportunity.

The cat would saunter into her classroom, undaunted, arrogant, and entirely dismissive of her reprimands. He’d pace the room waiting to capitalize on the first opportunity to launch himself onto her desk, bookshelf, or overhead projector. Though she would try to shoo him away, nothing worked. Sometimes Tigger would hiss. Occasionally, Cindy would slip into a torrent of wheezing.

Despite her difficulties, the cat was a permanent fixture. Even after Tigger sank his teeth into the arms of a student and animal control was called to carry the cat away, it returned to a warm reception in no time.

About midway through Cindy’s first year at the school, her allergies grew so bad that she had to leave school early one day, a closed throat and swollen eyes sealing the deal. Being the new girl on campus made her mute for any sort of change, so she made an appointment for the allergy doctor instead. It was a new doctor, three freeways away. I got off work early so we could drive to the office together; vibe on some good music and awesome conversation.

We held hands as the doctor diagnosed Cindy, mumbled a prescription and, without so much as glancing up from the clipboard, said, “This medication will dim the effects of your birth control.”

We looked at each other and smiled, each remembering our side of the previous evening’s conversation. “Okay,” we shrugged our shoulders and said.

A few hours passed and we were pregnant.

Then, six weeks later…

“You’re pregnant!”

“No, I’m not.”

The back and forth had been going on all week. Cindy was sick as a dog… and somehow different. I had no true frame of reference of early pregnancy outside of television, film or the pages of a book. I’d never actually seen it up close. But I’ve always enjoyed teasing Cindy and pregnancy for some reason seemed like something especially funny to rib her about.

“You’re pregnant!”

“No, I’m not.”

The final time I said it was just a few seconds before we’d both know for sure. It was five after six in the morning. I was already late for work. “Are you scared?” I said.

“Terrified.”

“Me too.”

I held the answer in my hand. I looked down, then at her. I swallowed. “We’re pregnant.”

A swollen face detonated in tears; a sudden, heaving torrent. Because I did not know what else to do, I joined her. We cried together. For five forever feeling minutes, we did nothing else. We wept with happiness and fear and hope and panic and joy and fright and elation and worry and anticipation and angst and bliss.

We cried, but we were truly happy.

“We’re pregnant,” she finally echoed.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Are you ready?”

“No…” she shook her head, then started to hack laughter through her tears, “…and yes. Are you?”

“No, and yes,” I said, not only matching her sentiment from the moment, but from every time we’d played What if? during the preceding few days.

I lifted her chin and stared in her eyes. Cindy’s eyes are enormous, especially early in the morning before they are covered in contacts. I stared, slightly dizzy. “This is perfect,” I said. “We’ll go to dinner tonight.” I squeezed her hands. I may have bruised them. “This is exactly how this is supposed to happen.”

My heart beat double time for the rest of the day. I left work early to pick up the engagement ring I’d had custom made a month earlier. Fortunately, the jeweler had called the week before to tell me it was ready.

We live our lives waiting on the extraordinary. I was lucky enough to live through a day where I discovered I’d be a daddy and a husband, all between sunrise and sunset.

Sean Platt is an author of books about life and professional ghostwriter.