It's Good.

So, there I was. On my last Miller High Life with my friends from Undergrad on a Friday.

It was 230 a.m.

This was highly unusual for me. Not back in the day, but now, for sure. These days, 230 a.m. was a strange environment as Fridays were most often ushered out with whatever member of the Nightline tripartite cast was hosting (don't check, it's usually Terry Moran), followed by letting Duncan (our chocolate lab) out for his "quick pee" at the end of the evening.

It was Guys' Night. A group of undergrad friends who finally got together for some time in which shots get swilled and talk is generally restricted to: a) funny, and/or, b) inappropriate. We began at a lounge-y bar, followed by a lounge-y Italian restaurant and thereafter with a distinctly unlounge-y visit to the local Country and Western bar, Carol's Pub. Staying out late was extremely compelling due to the rarity of these evenings (never) and a visit from a friend who works for our US Government in Afghanistan; read, you have to soak this stuff in.

Soak we did. At the reckoning hour, the siren call of a burrito lured me next door and I cabbed it home. A lovely sight I would be for my awaiting wife.

But this was not my awaiting wife, it was my awaiting pregnant wife. And I knew it.

It is hard to say when a confident feeling comes over you about something you know has happened or is happening actually happens (the feeling, that is). But for some reason, I felt all evening that I was not in a relationship only anymore, I felt something deeper. I suppose it began with looking at my wallet twice before buying rounds for everyone; there was just a slight tone of reluctance in my doing so. That lasted a second. What lasted longer was a weird warmth and it wasn't the slaps in the face and body by my friends Jim, Jack and Jose'. It was a visual. I was actually kind of seeing but more kind of feeling like I could see my wife feeding our child.

This visual had no Hallmark movie overtones. There was no light film of fog, my wife was not dressed in anything angelic, and by no means was "Dream Weaver" playing. It was just kind of a seeing and feeling combination, like when you feel like you have eyes in the back of your head and you can see the bourbon bottle that an ex-girlfriend wings at your head even though you didn't actually see it, so you can get out of the way (yes, that happened).

I just knew my wife was pregnant. Sure she was late, but not very. I just knew. Right then.

So I came home and saw my wife asleep, and she awoke briefly as I looked at her. She said, lovingly, "you smell like a bar." And I did. But I ate my first burrito as a dad and enjoyed the quiet of Chicago at 300 a.m., a time I really love because when I am up (almost never) it is just my burrito and our neighborhood crack dealers. We share a reluctant truce bound and consecrated by late night food.

And then I went to bed. I was asleep very briefly. I awoke to hear the combination of laughing and crying. It was my wife, who had just peed on a stick that told her something good. We were expecting.

She ran in with the stick in hand to roust me and tell me what I already knew. Our lives would never be the same, all for the better. Just like when we met, when we walked down the aisle, when we bought our first home, and when we shared our first family holidays. Progression. I rolled over, my face as wrinkled and contorted as that of a shar-pei and kissed her. We shared some moments that I will keep in my head up to and until the point I hear the last blip of whatever monitor is keeping me alive in my old age and I see our nineteen grandchildren for the last time.

For some reason I also envisioned the start of a ride. That point where they tell you to strap in and keep your hands inside the car; well this was it. It was and is going to get interesting.