Oddly enough, all three things in the title are related. True story.

This past weekend The Wife™ and I were graced with the presence of some great friends, people that inspire me and who are entirely too talented and intelligent to be hanging out with my sorry ass. We spent our time eating, playing board games, watching the Slam Dunk Contest and rocking out with unparalleled zeal in all-night wine & absinthe-fueled marathons of Rock Band (okay, perhaps I was the only one drinking the green stuff). All in all two truly great days.

Unfortunately, the weekend ended on a more stressful note, with The Wife™ having an emergency ultrasound to check for the possibility of a blood clot in her leg. And while everything seems to be fine (no explanation for the odd, unilateral swelling), it didn’t stop us from silently freaking out.

For the first time in this pregnancy, it all seemed more real. While I think that there wasn’t much danger of the baby being at risk with a clot, it didn’t stop me from feeling protective of both her and the child for the first time. I’ve been at odds with myself since October about the fact that the pregnancy has really been a rather abstract concept for me, something not entirely real to me yet. But after seeing The Wife™ in a hospital gown and hooked up to a fancy machine with a trackball, it suddenly was all too legitimate.

The only thing that kept me sane was having my friends with us in the ER. I don’t know of too many people that would freely give up six hours of their weekend to not only hang out in a waiting room with us, but to turn it into an adventure as if it were something we had planned to do. We spent the better part of the afternoon together watching Seth eat crackers off the floor creating stories out of the other waiting room guests, completing a cast of characters like SARS man, Bitchy Migraine/Unibomber Lady, and the old faker who brought a prop wheelchair and oxygen tank to get admitted faster. And besides the comfort of having someone with you in a place that you hate, they helped us cope with the stress of it all with their laughter and smiles.

And apparently my wife has chops as a drummer. Who knew? Maybe the swelling in her leg was just a result of rocking too hard.