Despite the giant pink (or in our case, powder blue) elephant sitting in all the reception halls where I’ve been spending my past two weekends, I actually kept my phone tucked away deeply in one of my camera bags; away from sight and buried haphazardly among my assortment of doodads and wires. All of our brides were very well aware of the possibility that our second kid could share his birthday with their wedding anniversary (thanks to my unnecessarily generous servings of pregnancy updates). From the very beginning, I reassured them that through sun, rain, sleet or snow (or baby!), I was going to finish the night for them. At the rate in which Karis delivers babies (I’ll get into that in a minute), I wouldn’t have gotten to the hospital in time anyway (half of those weddings were at least 2+ hours away from home). Of course, there was a bit of irony in our unique situation. Because you see, both Karis’ and my father were not present when we were born either. It almost seemed like destiny that I would somehow be MIA for the birth of our second child.
I would turn on my phone at the conclusion of every wedding to check my messages, only to confirm that Karis had not gone into labor, and bring some sense of relief to my couples that their wedding night did not cause me to miss out on the birth of our second child :).
Fast forward to 9/11, the lil guy’s due date. It came and went without a hitch (phew!), but most importantly we didn’t have to voluntarily hold in a baby till after midnight!
I think I was dreaming about cupcakes, tuxedos and stationery when I received an abrupt smack on my foot which literally sprung me from the bed. I also believe I ran around all three levels of our house before realizing that I still hadn’t brushed my teeth and that I was still in my underwear. Meanwhile, Karis was standing in our bedroom (rolling her eyes, likely), wondering why there was a frantic, half-dressed man running around in her house.
Contractions started around 4:30am. Karis took a shower, napped for an hour or so, and woke up again at 7:00am. She smacked me out of lala-land at about 7:05am.
By 7:30am, we’d arrived at the hospital.
The nurses looked at the charts and checked her dilation. My crazy wife was 9 cm dilated when we arrived.
Someone pressed the panic button and an army of nurses and doctors all magically appeared.
Three contractions later, Grayson Kai was born at 9:35am; coming in at exactly 8lbs and exactly 21 inches long.
Up till 10 weeks ago, the poor kid had no name. But what would we name Lil Monster’s sidekick?
Only the most awesome and famous sidekick of all time of course – Robin aka Dick Grayson!
(Dick Lau doesn’t really have the same ring as Grayson Lau, IMHO.)
The whole labor/delivery took less time than what I spend on my runs, even with time to spare for breakfast.
Lil Monster 2.0
We seriously thought we had the easiest and most uneventful delivery for our first child two years ago. Then comes along this kid, who made it seem even easier. My mother-in-law concluded that Karis’ body was made to crank out babies, at least five more! The nurses and doctors here at the hospital also had the same assessment. I think we’ll leave the baby factory alone for the time being :).
As for us here at Ben Lau Photography, we now return to your (ir)regularly scheduled programming. We’ve got lots to share with all you guys!
Happy Thursday ya’ll, and thanks for all the well-wishes!
Ben & Karis (and Lil Monster and 2.0!)
