It's fitting that I launch this weblog at the same time Elisa has started exhibiting pregnancy symptoms. We have known for almost two weeks that Elisa was pregnant, but until yesterday, it didn't feel real.

Elisa and I had been trying to have children for almost four months. She kept a chart tracking her body temperature to better pinpoint those times she was fertile. However, after a couple of months of charting, she didn't know whether she was doing it right. So she asked our resident expert, Amy, to check the chart.

Amy took one look at the chart and declared that Elisa was pregnant. She was about six weeks late, but she had been irregular in her periods. So, a week or two of lateness wouldn't mean anything to us. But Amy pegged it right from the start: "take the test."

Conveniently, we had a home pregnancy test handy. The wait was somewhat excrutiating, and the result was less than clear, but it seemed to confirm that Elisa was pregnant. My first thought:

"I'm not shooting blanks!" Not only did I think it, but I proclaimed it loudly to Amy and her husband Will. I was quite proud of myself.

(My second thought was "shit".)

Guys have a certain set of hardwired fears -- and being sterile is one of them. Once my fertility was confirmed, I had to face the fact we had a new member of the family.

But that could wait for another day.

And it was easy to put off. Because believe it or not, Elisa was not exhibiting any pregnancy symptoms. Even after we went to Elisa's ob/gyn I wasn't sure. Sure, he said he was 99.99 percent certain she was pregnant, but I had lingering doubts. And sure, two home pregnancy kits tested positive. And, let's not forget Elisa was now seven weeks late. Fact of the matter, she wasn't exhibiting anything that would indicate pregnancy -- no morning sickness, no tenderness in the breasts, no mood swings, no weird cravings (and yeah, I know those come later but whatever).

So it was easy to be in denial. Not that I wasn't happy -- I've wanted children since I was 18. Just that nothing seemed to change, so it was hard to pretend that everything was different.

That is, until yesterday. Our refrigerator blew its fuse overnight, and by the time we noticed mid-afternoon, much of the produce in the fridge had wilted and started emiting a less-than-enticing odor. One whiff, and Elisa was retching. (She says she feels the same way around the San Francisco homeless...)

She had some pretty nasty dry heaves, and she did go to the bathroom about 27 times last night.

So she really is pregnant. And I'm really going to be a father.

And it was time to launch this site.