Babytummy.

My best friend just had her second baby.

Her firstborn (age 5) affectionately named the baby "Babytummy" in utero. I loved it so much, I decided I'm going to call the baby by this name for his whole life.

It was an emergency C-section. Our other best friend and I spent the majority of the night in the hospital with her after the surgery. We tag-teamed with her mom who had been up with her and by her side all day.

Being a C-section baby, he had a couple mucus plugs. As the nurse explained, babies born vaginally get that final squeeze on the way out. Babytummy, like many C-section babies, would just have to cough it all up.

I ended up being the one to hold him through his first night on this side of the uterus. I stared at him... long and hard, from every angle. Most babies look like rats to me, truth be told, but Babytummy is perfect in every way.

I stared, in complete awe at the thought that he had been smushed up inside my best friend just hours before. I was fascinated by the thought that nine months before -hopefully- he was a mutual orgasm. I reflected on how a couple months before that, a year or so ago, ...he wasn't even a dream.

I was disgusted with myself as I recalled having told my best friend only a few weeks before we found out she was pregnant how I thought a baby was the most horrible thing that could possibly happen to her in her life right then.  And on the surface, my concern made perfect sense.

His dad is now MIA, just another stupid fucking kid running from real manhood, from his life vocation. She's in the middle of a custody battle with her ex-husband over her firstborn. He's with his dad in another state until the next court date. She has no money, while he and his new squeeze are raking it in.

Fun fact: Babytummy was born on the day I was supposed to be getting married.

These and a million more thoughts as I watched his little heart beat under the bundle of blankets helped me to appreciate how amazing God is.

Our lives do not play out in that ideal way we hope. Babytummy's daddy should have been there in my place that first night of his life. I should have been consummating a marriage vow. On the surface, our lives are pretty messed up. God knew, though, that Babytummy was to be born on August 19th, 2011 and that he would be everything we each needed. Everything.

I'm grateful God does things His way.
I'm grateful Babytummy was the male with whom I spent the night of August 19, 2011.