kid a

I wake up to a dark room, the only light source in the entire room is the small pulsating white light on my Powerbook. The sun has started its daily mission of cracking the night sky yet the birds were singing their wake-up song signaling the start of the new day, I desperately tried with all my strength to lift up my arm and check my watch.

"Six-thirty," I thought to myself. "I'm going back to bed."

A few hours later the morning sun shines through the tiny slits of the vertical blinds of our bedroom window and hits me directly in the eye. My eyes spring open and I realize what day it is. Today is our second visit to the doctor and today we're scheduled to hear the baby's heart beat for the first time.

I get out of bed at around 10:30am and realize that I have nothing to do for the next five hours except wait for time to pass by until 3:15pm. I decide to pass time by going to the gym and work out for a while and hopefully calm my nerves while passing time.

I sit on the edge of the coffee table in the front room and tie my shoes, my mind is a million miles away. Lila walks by me stops and kisses me on the forehead and smiles at me, her big hazel eyes (She says they're brown, but they're more hazel. I should know, I look at them all the time) look in to my eyes and we know this is perhaps the most important day of our lives.

I drop Lila and Patina off at the office and I drive for what seems like forever to the gym. The gym is filled with the same people I've seen the last two days. The slightly chubby college student, the old man who just had gastric bypass surgery, the middle-aged woman who can run five times faster and longer then I will ever be able to in my entire life.

I hop off the treadmill and look at the huge clock on the wall. "Two-fifteen, shit!" I think to myself as I pull the earbuds out of my ear and wipe the sweat from my forehead as I begin to painfully jog back to my car.

I drive back home at 129 miles-per-hour and make it back home in whats seems like three minutes. I toss my ultra smelly gym clothes in the washer and take a shower at the speed of light. My foot barely has a chance to touch the green bath rug in front of the shower door when I hear the phone ringing. I finish drying myself off and race to answer the phone. It's my mother.

"Are you almost ready?" She asks me.

"Uh... Yeah, I just have to put on my shoes," I tell her.

"OK, I'll be there in ten minutes."

"OK, see you in a few minutes."

I hang up the phone and finish getting dressed. It's 2:45pm and I'm starting to get anxious. I feel a swarm of butterflies crashing around in my stomach as a million thoughts run through my head.

Will the baby have a normal heart beat? Will the baby be in the right place? Will it even have a heartbeat?

It's 2:55pm and I'm standing outside of my car waiting for my mom to pick me up. She's taking way too long.

It's 3:10pm and we've just picked up Lila and Patina.

Oh man, we're going to be late and they're not going to let us hear our baby's heart beat.

Much to my relief, we make it in time and they seem happy as ever to see us, we've only been there twice, yet they're always warm and welcoming to us. I suppose I'm used to urgent care doctors who are always in a rush and just pump you with drugs.

A nurse peeks her head out from the hallway in to the waiting room and calls out my name.

"That's me," as I raise my hand as if I were in third grade.

"You can come back in the room now."

I stand up from my chair and look at my mother as she half-reads some parenting magazine. I can only imagine the thoughts that are going through her head, the emotions she's feeling at this particular moment. I know she's probably just as nervous as me. She looks up at me and smiles and I can see her barely holding back the tears.

The nurse and I walk down the narrow corridor to room two and I lightly push open the door, Lila is standing nervously looking around the room, when our eyes lock we both smile. I walk toward her and take her in to my arms and kiss her, the two of us giggling like school girls.

Lila sits on the table as I pace around the room like a father waiting for his child to be born.

“Hello?" I hear from behind the door.

"Yes come in," Lila say to her.

The doctor comes in like the ball of energy she is. She's a short Asian woman with a very heavy Asian accent, it's very hard to understand what she says most of the time, but her laugh is infectious and I end up laughing with her and I don't know why.

"Are you ready to hear the baby's heart beat?" She says to us.

"Yes!" Lila and I exclaim in unison.

Lila lays back on the table and the doctor pulls out what looks like a tricorder from Star Trek and jabs Lila deep in her abdomen with the strange blue device.

OK, that's stomach noise, no heart beat yet. Yeah, Lila you have to relax. More sloshing sounds, but no heart beat. OK, I'm freaking out!

Ta-thump-Ta-thump-Ta-Thump.

“That my baby's heart beat,” I say to my self as I start giggling uncontrollably and hoping around in the tiny little examination room. I look at Lila and she is smiling and laughing.

Ta-thump-Ta-thump-Ta-Thump.

My eyes are fixated on the little blue microphonic device as my eyes being to water, my eyes shifting between Lila's face and the blue tricorder.

"My baby has a heart beat," I think to myself. "Thank you!"

The whole process last less then three minutes and the doctor is gone, on to the next expectant couple awaiting their first child, or maybe their fourth. I don't know. Lila stands up and we embrace and touch foreheads and smile from here to Texas. We're going to be parents. I made a baby!

The nurse at the window says her next appointment will be in four weeks and that she should get plenty of rest and to call them if we have any questions and we're on our way.

The air is hot outside, the sky is clear and I'm the happiest man on earth. I look at my wife, who's still smiling and I look back to the sky.

I turn to Lila and she looks at me and I think to myself "Thank you."