Guest Post by the Hyphenated Husband
It’s Friday night, August 7th and I’m at Arlene’s Grocery, a rock club in New York’s East Village. The weird thing is that I’m in a New York club to check out a Chicago band. It’s amazing that family life can be so hectic that it takes a trip all the way to NYC to see a home town artist. On top of that, I walk into the club to find out the doorman/bartender is a guy I used to play rock shows with back in Chicago years ago. It’s a small world and it’s even smaller if you spend any time involved in the arts. So this was clearly shaping up to be a fun and cheap night out.
So I give TFB a call to share my interesting news and she happens to be on the toilet at a bar. My timing tends to suck because every time I call her she’s in either the bathroom, or wiping up baby shit, or catching one of our crazy toddlers as they stage dive off the dining room table. So I try to make it quick call, and she tells me she is taking a pregnancy test. I think nothing of it since I’ve been bombing at my attempts to knock her up for 8 months now. The connection went to shit and I couldn’t understand what she said next so I figured it was nothing important and said “OK” to move the conversation along. I know, I miss a lot of information due to this bad habit. She then yells, “Did you hear what I said?!?!” and I said I didn’t because of the bad connection. “It’s Positive!!” she’s says. I can’t remember what I said next, but it somewhere along the lines of “NO WAY!” or “SHUT UP!” (in a positive tone of course).
I was blown away. This day and this entire trip to NYC could not have been any better. As it happens, she was just over in Soho with her bloggy friends at a private party. She did a little celebrating with the ladies with some help from Shirley temple shots while I caught the short set of my friend’s band. I would have snuck out of there immediately but I was the ONLY one there to see him. I’m not joking when I say I was the only one in there, even the bartender stepped out for opening duties.
However, as soon as I heard “Thank You, Good Night!” I was out the door and running full speed to Soho to meet my beautiful, pregnant wife. She was standing outside glowing and looking gorgeous. Just knowing she was pregnant reminded me how much I loved her and how attracted to her I am, and always will be. I love that she is going to give us another baby, and add to that the 8 months of anticipation, I was ecstatic! All I could do when I finally held her was hug her and tell her I loved her. Even that doesn’t effectively illustrate how I felt then, or how I still feel now.
Now this bring us to the next part — the far more exciting part — home birth. I can’t tell you how excited I am that we can finally prepare to welcome our child in the comfort of our home; in a peaceful environment without the intrusion of inept medical staff; without the pressure of the ticking clock. I’m so excited that TFB and I can share this experience together and place all our focus on the birth. No worries about fighting off nurses and doctors. No uncomfortable beds, no machines, no bright lights. This is the experience we’ve been hoping for, and it’s the experience TFB and this baby deserve. Am I at all scared about home birth? Of course. It would be odd if I wasn’t at least a little nervous. But there is no way I would subject my wife and child to a cold impersonal hospital again. We’ve done our homework and we are set to beef up even more with HypnoBirthing and Bradley classes. We’ll be ready. More so than most.
Finally… finally baby #3 is on the way. Thank you TFB — I love you.
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The Hyphenated Husband is Gina’s husband of nearly 5 years, and the father of her (soon to be three) children. He is a teaching student, an IHSA certified reffing official, and the World’s Biggest AC/DC fan. He is the only son of two Chicago Police Officers, one Mexican, one Irish, and considers himself a “recovering Catholic” after 13 years of parochial school. Soon, he hopes to turn high school sophomores into history lovers through his passion for teaching. One day he hopes to play guitar in a band again – but not until his kids are big enough to jam with him.
My boyfriend says "okay" to move things along all the time, but this was classic. Yay HH! This was an awesome supportive post!
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