The day I turned 18 weeks with this rainbow baby is a day I will never forget. I had tickets to see one of my favorite artists, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, in Houston.
When I purchased the tickets (on pre sale, no less!), I had 3 friends in mind that would enjoy the show. It turned out to be the same weekend as one of the friends' bachelor party so all 3 of them were in New Orleans for the weekend. I could have seen them about an hour North in Oklahoma but Houston is a great hip hop city and I knew the crowd would be better.
I ended up making plans with an old friend from growing up. I've known her since elementary school, when we were in Girl Scouts together, we had all of our GT classes together throughout high school, and then lost touch during college. Post college I would look her up on Facebook and never found her, until she showed up there one day and then came to the SCOPE Walk last March. Essentially, I made plans to go to the concert with a stranger.
A couple of weeks before, we confirmed that we both still planned to go but didn't make any concrete plans until the day of.
I couldn't sleep the night before because I was worried about (in no particular order):
1. Standing up the entire time- what if I got too hot? What if I passed out? What if there was a fight in the crowd? What if I got claustrophobic for some reason? What if there were people smoking and I couldn't get away?....
2. Getting to the venue- where is it located? What's the parking situation? Who drives? Are we having dinner first?....
3. Will it be awkward? Will she be weirded out that I'm pregnant and she didn't know? Will she drink a lot and what will I do then? Will I be up all night because everyone knows that the headliner doesn't go on until 1-2 hours after the opener?
So I sent her a Facebook message at 8am the day of the concert letting her know I was leaving in an hour and gave her my number to call me whenever she could to iron out the details.
My plan was to drive in, have a fancy 'ladies who lunch' lunch with my mom (and surprise her by paying for the whole thing), meet up with my friend for dinner before the concert, and then drive home the next morning. Shoutout to my awesome Bean who suggested this plan and has no problem when I need to do crazy things like drive 4 hours away for one night.
Bean, Abs and I had a delicious breakfast of donuts- very rare. As I was leaving I noticed my gas gauge was at a quarter tank. I decided to drive until I couldn't anymore and use it as an excuse to get out and walk around. For the record, I can drive to and from Houston on 3/4 tank. If I fill it up, I can get around town while I'm there.
Two hours into the drive- exactly halfway- my gas light turns on and as soon as I pull off to get gas I realize...
I LEFT MY PURSE AT HOME.
With my wallet. Money, credit cards, and drivers license too.
Also I drive fast. And the cops on 45 have snagged me more than once. That's rebellious right there- driving fast without a license. But I have never in my life been so absent minded as to leave my purse at home.
I tried not to panic and pulled into a gas station. I couldn't get anywhere else without gas. I did have my phone luckily, so I called Bean who calmly suggested that I go inside and ask if I can buy gas with a credit card over the phone.
Understandably, I was told no- it's a big security issue. So I went back to my car and called my mom to let her know what was going on. Bean was at the office so it would have taken him 2.5 hours to get to me with my purse. As I was filling mom in, I heard a tap at my window.
😳
I'm pregnant and all alone, so many scary things could happen at this point.
I get out and there's a guy not much older than me wearing hunting clothes.
"Hey, I'll get you some gas," he says.
I was stunned and have never felt so humbled and grateful and... Base. That's the only word I can think of to describe it.
He asked how much gas I had, and I told him the light was on. He asked where I was going and I told him I was halfway to my destination.
I joked about how luckily it's a small tank and gets good mileage. Meanwhile, he's putting in his credit card info and setting me up to get the gas pumping. He tells me to fill it up and before I could shake his hand or get his name, he walks off saying, "Be safe! Have a great day!"
I only put in $20, which is about 3/4 of a tank. I figured that was more than generous. The lady who worked there came out and asked if he paid for my gas, then told me he was a regular and overheard me asking to pay over the phone. I asked her to please tell him thank you again from me.
I felt so relieved. So I can either go home to get my purse and skip the concert, or head down to Houston and potentially still miss it. But this friend is meeting me there and I have her ticket (along with mine) lovingly folded and placed in my bag between layers of clothes. But I have no ID or money for dinner.
Bean to the rescue again! He tells me to call him when I'm at my moms so we can figure out the closest place he can wire some money to her because you have to have an ID to have money wired to you.
And he texts me the phone number to the concert venue so I can ask what I need to gain entry into the concert.
I continue down the road and about half an hour later the venue opens. I called and asked if I had to have an ID to get in.
He tells me I don't need it to get in, only to buy alcohol. I joke that I'm pregnant so that's not a problem and he doesn't think it's funny. He made sure to ask if I already had my tickets (if they were Will-Call, I would have needed an ID), and I described how they were lovingly placed in my bag. He still didn't think it was funny.
The rest of the drive was uneventful. I laughed at myself, only because the situation had mostly resolved, and I couldn't believe how absent minded it was to leave my purse at home. I called a friend and she was in sheer disbelief at the fact that I was going to the concert with this old friend AND that I had left my purse at home. What a rebel!
Bean called when I was almost there and asked if I could just borrow some cash from mom and pay her back. He'd discovered that it cost $50 to wire any amount up to $2k. He was only planning to send me $100 to get through the night! Clearly not worth it.
So mom and I went for a fancy lunch, and bought some shoes, both of which she paid for. Then she got some cash and we relaxed at her house until it was time for us to leave.
My friend ended up driving, but we had both had big lunches with our moms so we skipped dinner. We stopped by Starbucks for some caffeine and cake pops before heading downtown. Getting to the venue was super simple. We chatted easily the whole way there. Parking was a breeze and we were in line to get in around 7:30.
At one point, an employee went up and down the line telling everyone to get out their IDs. We looked at each other and I had a flash of panic. What if....??
Turns out they were just trying to get them checked early for people buying alcohol to get wrist bands and keep the crowd moving.
Once we got inside, we got comfortable in our spots and waited. The crowd surged forward at one point- there was a fight behind us- but my friend is in the Army so she knows about protection. She moved me in front of her and then told the dancing people I front of us if they were going to fall, to fall forward because I'm pregnant. A little strange, but it worked!
The opener went on at 8, played for 30 minutes, and was good. Then when he was done, the show started!
That arrow is about where we were. You can see Macklemore on the stage to the right. It didn't seem like there were that many people behind us or around us. It just felt exciting.
The two straight hours they played made me forget all about everything that had happened that day, and I was completely in the moment I was in- like doing yoga. It's a gift to feel so present in the moment.
My highlights included his acapella version of Otherside, and when he did Growing Up, everyone that had had their phones up recording the song before put them down, so I was able to see really well. I almost cried, it was so emotional being there with my baby.
I got some confetti during Irish Celebration and the crowd surged forward again during the last song- it was cool and didn't feel dangerous, but as soon as the lights went up, I groaned inside thinking, "great- I'm in a crowd full of people and we all want to get out of here right now." It was like when you wake up from a great dream.
We made it back to the car and headed for home. I was extremely thirsty from all of the dancing and singing so we planned to grab some water from the first gas station we saw.
We were stopped behind a few cars at some train tracks when the arms came down. After the train passed, the arms never went up. We waited about 10 minutes and noticed the cars on the other side across the street had a place to make a u-turn and most were doing that. We could also see a gas station not even a block in front of us.
I decided to get out and walk over since we were locked in with traffic all around us. I got some water and asked the guy if there was someone to call when the train signal is broken, and he wrote the phone number and intersection code on a small paper bag for me.
By the time I got back to the car, all the traffic behind us was gone- everyone had backed up and gone a different way, and even most of the cars in front of us had taken their turns getting out one by one.
I tried to call the number but couldn't get anyone to answer and by that point, we had water and were on our way so I gave up.
I was in bed by 11:15! It so cheesy but I felt that Macklemore respected his fans time by not making us wait forever. It was the icing on the cake of a great evening.
At the end of the night I realized that it was also exactly one year since I had my D&C. The perfect full circle experience.
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