Two of my closest girlfriends are pregnant right now, both of them due around the same time: late May/early June.
You already know one of them – my best friend Ro. And guess what? Her baby girl (Mia) is due on Henry’s BIRTHDAY: June 5. How’s that for timing?
It’s killing me to not be in New York right now. The last time I saw Ro she was 48 hours pregnant (I’m exaggerating) and supervising my kid at a park while my father and I went about the serious task of testing climbing the park’s playground equipment. Even then it was obvious she exhibited better parenting skills than myself.
Her baby shower is the day before St. Anthony’s Triathlon, thus I am unable to attend. ANOTHER MAJOR BUMMER. Consequently, it is possible that my best friend will fully gestate and I will never see her baby bump in person. UNFATHOMABLE. Fifteen years ago, when I filled three pages in her high school yearbook, I never imagined we’d BARGAIN SHOP without each other much less give birth to babies on opposite ends of the Eastern seaboard. Kvetching over the phone about the marvelousness and shiteousness of pregnancy is not the same as seeing it happen before your eyes. I’ll never get to feel Baby Mia kick Ro in the ribs – at least not in utero anyway.
Ah. But such is life. I signed up for this when I left Buffalo nine years ago. (NINE YEARS AGO?! WHAT?) After a decade away from home your absence no longer goes missed. It simply becomes a matter of fact. You miss Christmases. You miss birthdays. You miss pregnancies. You miss babies being born.