A Tale of Two Babies

I have had the privilege of being the Best Man at two weddings in my life. I think that is a pretty good number, and I don't expect it to increase too much in the coming years, but you never know how circumstances will foist you into strange situations. My first chance to enjoy this honor was with Mike M and it must have been almost 11 years ago. He got married in Alabama (one of two weddings that I attended in that state) and my fondest memory of that wedding was the preacher or reverend or priest or whatever he was that married them that day. He was an absolute riot and for two days during the rehearsals and the ceremony, he just absolutely cracked me up. He used to be an offensive lineman for the Buffalo Bills during the OJ era (yes, that OJ) and I can just remember the absolutely ridiculous size of his hands. He shook my hand when we first met, and my arm suddenly stopped at my wrist--my right hand just disappeared into the abyss that was his grip.
When Dan D got married a couple of summers later, we went to Scotland and they wed in a tiny chapel in St. Andrews (those of you not familiar--the birthplace of golf). Now, while it was no Alabama, it wasn't a half bad place to get married either. I had lots of memories of that trip, but probably the thing that sticks with me even today (aside from trying to get a ball out of Hell's Bunker with a pint of Guinness, a Cuban Cigar and a sand wedge at three in the morning in an absoute drunken stupor) was forgetting to mention Dan's mother in my toast, pretty much ensuring that both he and I would be left out of the will. I don't believe she has forgiven either one of us still--I really am sorry, Ma.
Both of these guys have been close friends of mine for the better portion of my life. I have known Mike since third grade, and as our lives have gone in different directions for the majority of those years, we have always kept in touch and have always shared in the key moments of each other's lives. He is a regular contributor to the comment section of this blog, and his postings are among the most entertaining feedback that I enjoy. I met Dan on the first day of 9th grade. He was actually the first person I met in High School, mostly because it seemed that he was in every one of my classes. You keep seeing the same goofy blonde guy over and over again and sooner or later he starts to stand out. Dan has been my roommate on several occasions, and our lives have been intertwined for the most part for over twenty years. Over the last few years, he has gotten more and more difficult to keep in touch with, but there is nobody I have ever known who has been more influential in helping me make life altering decisions or whose opinion I value more.
While I have been on writer's sabbatical for the past two weeks, both of these guys decided to go off and have a son. I find this to be an incredible coincidence, Dan's kid Matthew was born on January 25th and Mike's son Aidan popped out the next day on January 26th. For Mike and Lori, this was their second child, and Dan had the chance to experience childbirth for the first time. For the record, Lori decided to forego the epidural (I have no idea why on earth anybody goes this route, by the way. Kim had Hunter without an epidural--fear of the needle, I assume, and then had Lauren with the epidural. I remember her in the birthing room when she got the damn shot in her spine and the Anaesthesiologist--wrong spelling, I know, I know--said "Now, you'll feel some pressure" and the next thing you know he is taping the damn thing on and Kim is still sitting there clenching her teeth waiting for the needle to penetrate her spinal column, not realizing that it was already done and that the lower half of her body would soon be numb to any pain. She dropped Lauren out like she was lubed up with Crisco. Hell, she was cracking jokes until the last push. Why the hell would anybody go through the absolutely most excruciating pain known to woman instead is beyond me, but Lori decided to do so. Hats off to you, but in my opinion, you are a freaking massochist) and I don't know if Danielle did the same. The information was not offered to me, and etiquette requires that guys don't ask each other those types of questions no matter how close the friendship might be. Aidan was born in a hospital in Jacksonville, Florida and Matthew was born at some undisclosed location in the New Hampshire woods by a midwife.
We knew that Aidan was on the way for a good six months. Generally, people don't share the "We're pregnant" news with others until they have gotten through the first trimester. Too much can go wrong in that time and there are few things more difficult than telling people who were so happy for you that you have had a miscarriage. This has happened to a number of my friends, and it is just an awful thing to experience. Over the course of the past six months, every conversation that Mike and I shared at least touched upon how Lori was doing and how the pregnancy was going--how was Andrew going to do as a big brother--you get the idea.
Dan also didn't tell me about the kid on the way during the first trimester. You know, now that I think about it, the information didn't exactly come during the second trimester either. I'm going to have to recount the way it works (and I may be completely wrong here), but I'm not certain he even shared the fact that there was a bun in the oven in the third trimester. I'm no rocket scientist, but I am almost positive that most gestation periods represent three total trimesters. I mean a Tricycle has three wheels; Trident is delicious gum, but I believe that in Anchorman when Brick killed a guy with a trident, it had three prongs; Triathletes compete in three regimens; Triples represent three bases, so it would stand to reason that Trimester has three mesters (whatever the hell a mester is). Because once the kid is born, I believe it is actually too late to mention to somebody that you are pregnant. I don't think that you can be retroactively pregnant--once he's out, he's out. The phrase changes from "Danielle's pregnant" to "I'm a daddy."
So when I was speaking to Matt D, Dan's brother and off the cuff, he remarks that he is going up to New Hampshire to see Dan's son, I found it rather difficult to comprehend. In fairness to Dan (far more than that weaselly prick deserves by the way), I haven't spoken to him too often in the last nine months. He has been busy, I have been busy and getting more than a ten minute conversation in during this period has been nearly impossible. Somewhere in one of those nine minute chats, however, I am quite confident that he could have piped up with some comment like, "Oh yeah, we're due at the end of January." or "Do you know any good boy names?" or "We're almost done decorating the nursery." You know, some kind of hint that there was this child on the way. Instead, I gotta find out like some kind of shmo.
Either way, it was a pretty awesome week. Dan is Dan and I think it amuses him to keep the world in the dark--better shock value that way. I couldn't be happier for him and I couldn't be happier for Mike either. Both babies are healthy, and while I know that this is critical information to all of you out there, I don't generally care a whole lot about their stats--length, width, height, weight, time of womb exit, etc. Is the kid healthy? Is the Mom doing OK? Are they sleeping at night? Pretty much beyond that, everything else is pretty much just chatter. For the record, we'll say that both of them were somewhere between 7 and 8 pounds and seem to be acclimating to life pretty damn well. I probably won't get a chance to meet either one of them for at least several months and probably close to a year. During that time, they will both go through incredible transformations and Dan and Mike are going to be the lucky bastards who get to enjoy every moment.
I sent Dan this blog site recently, so he may actually check it. I know that Mike comes on with some regularity to check out my blather. If any of you have any comments for them, I am sure that they would love to read them here. For my sake, congratulations to both of you (and probably more so to Lori and Danielle). I can't wait to meet your boys and they are both incredibly lucky to have you as their dads. Someday down the road, many years from now on a lazy Jacksonville afternoon on Dr. M's driveway, there's going to be one hell of a game of one on one. I just hope that I get a chance to watch it. I love you guys.