07/21/2025
THREE OF US BECAME DADS IN THE SAME DAYāBUT ONE TEXT CHANGED EVERYTHING I donāt even know where to start. Honestly, it still feels unreal. Me, Mateo, and Idrisāweāve been fighting fires together for almost six years. Same shifts, same station, same inside jokes. We always joked about how synchronized our lives felt. But nothing prepared us for this. All three of us found out we were gonna be dads within months of each other. My wife, Noelle, was due mid-March. Mateoās girlfriend, Callie, was expecting literally any day. Idris and his husband had just finalized the adoption papers for their newborn son. What no one saw coming was that all our kids ended up arriving within 24 hoursāsame hospital, same floor, all our partners in neighboring rooms. Nurses were laughing, saying theyād never seen anything like it. We even took a picture in the hallway, holding up little ones wrapped like burritos, still wearing our station jackets. Everyone kept saying how perfect it wasālike something out of a movie. But what people donāt know is what happened about two hours after that photo. I was grabbing coffee from the vending machine when I got a text. It was from Callie. Mateoās girlfriend. Short and sharp: "I need to tell you something. Alone." At first, I thought maybe she was freaking out about new mom stuff. But when I glanced at Mateo through the glassāhim sitting there cradling his daughter, totally obliviousāsomething in my stomach dropped. I havenāt responded yet. Iāve been sitting here, staring at that message, wondering how much one conversation could mess up everything weāve built. I keep thinkingā¦ should I even open this door?ā¬ā¬
