Lyrical Poetry

     Aside from its well known definition as the words to a song, Lyric can be used as an adjective to describe a form of poetry that expresses the writer's deepest emotions. I find this to be a lovely name for a little girl.
     We are 29 weeks into the pregnancy today and all is well.  Hilary's check-ups go routinely perfect and the two of us feel like old pros at this baby-making thing.  I'm almost certain that this feeling will change once the labor starts, especially if we are forced to throw our Birth Plan out of the proverbial window.  I learned that the first time around as my ex and I had to settle for an unplanned C-section. I'm praying that won't happen, but I know very well that sometimes things don't go according to plan.  Hilary wants to have a smooth labor and natural delivery like she did with her 2nd child Avery and I want only what she wants. That is our only plan, just like every other awaiting mother and father. I'm excited yet very nervous to see a normal, natural delivery.  I know that I can handle it but I have no idea what to expect.  It's this aspect that makes me feel like a first-time father again, and that's very exhilarating.  I don't have any idea how to be supportive to a woman going through such a feat.  The thought of it being me scares me to death so I guess I'll just take that feeling and go from there.  Hilary is strong though and even if I didn't already know that she had been through it twice, I would be 100% sure that she could do it. I'm just hoping that when the time comes that it's not her that has to do all of the supporting. That's a joke, I think.

Going to the Chapel

     Believe it or not, there was a time in my life when I honestly didn't think I would get married. Lo and behold, it happened to me at the ripe age of 30. More surprising is that here I sit at age 37, about to do it again. Yes, a date has been set for Hilary and me. On May 1st the two of us will become husband and wife.  We've chosen to do it in a courthouse, with a backyard reception of friends and family in the near future. "'Cause we've been there before, and we're never going back again, not again."  I'm not referring to a big wedding when I say this, I'm speaking of a successful marriage. Unhappiness is not an option.  This is a new life indeed.
     Some may be amazed that it's happened so quickly, but not to those the closest to us.  That day in Carolina Ale House something happened in two people's lives that couldn't be predicted, nor reproduced.  Hilary and I went from hurt people to whole people, and that's precisely where I feel we still are today. We are parents, we are individuals, and we are a team. Through the thick and the thin, I trust her with all that I have.  After all, this woman carries my baby while positively affecting my own son's life.  She is a strong woman... a rock in the wake of tempestuous noise.  Her children are my own, and mine is hers....we've built a strong family from a simple stack of wood.  I never would've thought all of this possible that day in Ale, not in a million years. But, one thing remains constant and I learned it on Day 1 with Hilary.  In this bubble, there lies two souls with potential.  Two that have been hurt and have gotten back up, two that want the same things in a relationship and also in a family, and two that haven't given up on fate nor love.  That was the magnetic attraction to her that night.  She made me feel hope, she made me feel alive.  Now I sit here, with a woman I love in the next room, and our children upstairs asleep....as I look around a house that we've just bought, in a town that we love. And it makes me wonder, where will this ride take me next?