CONWAY — I get to tell my brother, “I told you so.” That doesn’t happen very often.
He’s so smart. Always has been. Even though he’s my “little brother.”
He just became a dad. Shane and his wife, Lesley, had their first baby, a little boy, on Tuesday.
It worked out perfectly, he said. She’d been having contractions all night, but she wasn’t sure (you know how that first baby is — you can only learn so much from that dog-eared baby book.)
He was about to leave for the medical clinic he holds out of town once a week, but he decided to wait until 6:30 a.m. to leave. At 6:24, her water broke.
Miss Organized had been packed for weeks, so it’s not surprising that it all went well.
There was the one glitch when they got stuck in the hospital elevator. My brother said they rushed in, and the patient elevator that he and other doctors use was open, so they got on. There were three other people on it, including the doctor who delivered my first son.
The lights blinked, and the elevator went up to the sixth floor and stopped between floors. Shane said they were stuck about 10 minutes, and Lesley said she was starting to really hurt. He was starting to really panic.
(I personally think it would have been a great story for the kid to have been born in the elevator, but someone took a crowbar and pried the doors open.) Shane had to help Lesley step down to the floor below them, and off they went (the others may have perished, but Shane wasn’t stopping).
Her doctor was already there and Shane suggested to his wife that, no pressure, but the Hogs were playing in the Sugar Bowl at 7:30 that evening.
My mom was giving me text updates as I tried to write a story. I’d interview a city official, get a text that said, “She’s at 8 — yea!” Interview a business owner, get a text that said, “Pushing and working hard!”
Then I got the picture and text that Seb Robert Smith had arrived at 3:07, weighing 7 pounds 4 ounces, and my brother won the pool nailing the exact weight.
“It was so abstract. Now he’s here. He’s Seb. He’s a good-looking kid,” Shane said, sounding like a proud father.
I’ve tried to explain to my brother a couple of times how much he’d love his baby. It’s not like any other love, I told him. The wanting-to-protect-him-at-all-costs love. The I’d-step-in-front-of-a-freight-train-for-him love.
Shane asked a friend a few weeks ago how he felt when his baby was born. The guy said, “You’ll feel terrible about how you treated your parents.”
My brother said, “I treat my parents great!” The guy said it didn’t matter, once you realize your parents loved you that much, you know you couldn’t do enough.
Shane didn’t really get it. I don’t think he believed it would happen to him.
When my brother called, I asked, “So, are you crazy in love with him?”
He said, with a sound in his voice I’ve never heard, “Oh, I can’t even describe it — you know.”
Yes, I do. I told you so.