My Chemical Romance

As many of you know, I was a bit "concert-deprived" growing up. Before I married Ry at age 23, I had only been to one concert, Debbie Gibson. :) That's right, go ahead, have your laugh. Well, a lot has changed for me since marrying Ryan and my concert attendance is one of them. Bless his heart, he's brought me along slowly. From the beginning he always said he was gearing up to get me to a real rock concert. To date we had been to Diamond Rio and Faith Hill/Tim McGraw, country, dang fun, and easy going. After seven years, I finally felt I was ready to go to a real rock concert and knowing how much he loves the band, My Chemical Romance, I gave him tickets to their upcoming concert for his birthday.

April 8th was the big day. The concert was to be held at the Crystal Ballroom downtown, a well known venue for rock concerts, with standing room mostly. Well, the day arrived for us to attend and so did some serious pre-term labor contractions—apparently Sydnei was excited to go the concert too. But where were we at 4pm of the day of the concert??? Right! We were in Labor and Delivery at OHSU on a fetal monitor and having contractions. I kept telling Ryan that if the doctors confirmed that I was definitely NOT having the baby then (at this point I was 29 weeks) we were going to the concert...there was NO WAY we would miss it!

The concert started at 7pm with two warm-up bands playing. At about 7:30pm, the doctors received some test results back that gave a 98% guarantee that I wouldn't have the baby for at least two weeks. By about 7pm, the contractions finally had dwindled and were less painful. I looked at the nurse and told her about the concert. She encouraged me to go home and rest. I said, "okay, we'll talk about it," rolling my eyes as she left the room. Of course, there was no way on earth we were missing the concert! I had told Ryan that if there was a problem, we would leave, and if I needed to sit down, I'd do that as often as necessary. We discharged from L&D at 8pm, picked up some food, and then headed to the concert. He wanted me to go home and rest as he was concerned but this was my chance—a real live rock band, and My Chemical Romance no less. If I was fine, the baby was fine and wouldn't be born pre-maturely, then we were going to the concert, dang it!

When we arrived at the venue, I, of course, had to stop at the bathroom. When I went to wash my hands my belly kept me from squeezing between the garbage can and a woman at the sink next to the one I wanted to use. I looked at her and said, "excuse me" and then explained that unless she wanted me to take her out with my preggo belly, she would need to scoot over a bit. She complied and proceeded to ask me what I was having. She and her friend each had two boys and they couldn't stop talking about how much they each wanted a girl. After we finished discussing that they both decided they need to rub my belly like a Buddha for good luck! So that was that, I walked out of the bathroom with huge eyes, looked at Ryan and said, "this is going to be an interesting and entertaining night!

The beauty of our arrival time to the concert was that My Chemical Romance hadn't come on yet and did 15-minutes after we got there. They played for nearly two hours, the perfect amount of time for me to stand, sit, stand, and not feel exhausted or as if I had over done it. This concert was part of the Black Parade tour. I really like this band and the theatrical side to their music and performance; it's intriguing to listen to and interpret. I loved seeing Ryan "in his element" a true rocker at heart. We had such an awesome time. I was blown away by the range of ages in the concert attendees.

One young (maybe freshman-sophomore in high school-age) couple stood by us the entire time. But they weren't just standing there...they were SLOW DANCING the ENTIRE time! Seriously, who slow dances at a rock concert? For crying out loud, the girl had her back to the stage the whole time! It blew me away and I mean it when I say they slow danced for the entire two hours the band played. Geez! If anything they belonged at a Debbie Gibson concert slow dancing to songs like "Lost in Your Eyes" not the Black Parade!

The concert ended with my favorite song, "Helena." It's a song written about Gerard Way's (the lead singer), grandmother. It was awesome and incredible to hear live. Wow...there's nothing like hearing the best songs played live. Thank goodness Ryan saved me from my concert deprived life, I'm sure he'll continue to bring me along slowly. :D Thanks, Sweetheart!