My best friend is having her baby today! Her water broke last night and she's been laboring, naturally, for nearly 12 hours. I woke up around 4am and couldn't get back to sleep because I wondered what was happening. Did she have the baby yet, I wondered? Probably not, I reasoned, since it's her first. Still, you never know. My mind raced into the early morning hours as I laid in bed and pondered what she was going through and remembered the bittersweetness of my labor with Delaney and her birth.
This dear friend and I have been through everything together over the last 21 years: Honors English class projects; practicing for plays in theatre; being each other's alibis so we could sneak off with some guy we thought was worth it (and they never were). I taught her how to smoke when we were 16 (oops, my bad) while sitting in my parents' car outside of some high school party we shouldn't have attended. We've seen each other through happy, crazy, sad and poisonous relationships. We hung out for a few years at a pool hall where she waitressed in our 20s and later, when she became a homeowner, we'd sit in the nook of her kitchen and drink wine and wonder what life had in store for us in our 30s. I helped her through a divorce and she helped me when my psycho, controlling boyfriend tried to kill himself in my garage (good times!). We've both been lucky enough to marry the loves of our lives and our husbands both happen to be previously divorced with two kids apiece which gives us even more common ground to talk to death. She's like an aunt to Delaney and was the only person other than family I wanted to visit me in the hospital when Delaney was born and we were so sick.
We've driven each other crazy, gotten into fights over nothing, and something, and reconciled like two lovers who can't stay mad at each other no matter what. And we never run out of things to talk about. We've made lots of choices over the years, some good and some bad. But no matter what, we've supported each other.
And now, she's becoming mother too. I'm thrilled and excited and so happy that her long-awaited baby girl is coming today! I can't wait for her to experience the depth of love, the joy and the sweet, conflicting turmoil that being a parent brings. And I especially can't wait to be able to talk with her, mother to mother, about the precious kids we'll love with all our hearts who'll, no doubt, drive us crazy for the rest of our lives.
Welcome to the world, Baby M!
You are SOOOO sweet!!
Love from Grandma of Baby M
Posted by: Pat Mask | July 26, 2007 at 06:18 AM
Happy Happy to you and your friend. You must share photos if you get the chance. I am in full blown I want #2 mode here.
Posted by: Emily | July 26, 2007 at 03:07 PM
Congratulations to your friend, and to you. I've had the same best friend for more than 30 years and she's like a sister to me. I think it's wonderful to have that one person with whom you can share any and everything.
And isn't it uncanny how your lives seem to mirror each other's. It's like that for my friend and I in a lot of ways.
Posted by: Queeny | July 27, 2007 at 10:40 AM