Honey It's Time: Rushing to the Hospital!

Lucy: Ricky, this is it!
Ricky: This is it!  This is it!  This is it! 

Hilarity and delirium ensues!  Ricky, Fred and Ethel run around like headless chickens.  They all simultaneously try to call the doctor, hail the taxi cab, and retrieve Lucy's hospital bags.  They run out of the house leaving Lucy behind, before coming back to get her. Classic comedy gold! They then all proceed to rush Lucy to the hospital.

I've been told this was the first "television birth and delivery (1950s TV style)." Thus, television's first "hurry up we have to get to the hospital, the baby is coming" moment.  Perhaps we have Desi and Lucy to thank for this fallacy.

The third thing we learned in the my labor and delivery class was that we could let go of that preconceived idea.  There will probably be no need to "rush" to the hospital.  Under normal circumstances, you will have hours, not minutes to get mommy safely to the hospital.

(That went double or quadruple for me, since the hospital is only 5 blocks away - maybe a mile a so.  In fact, we could have used to the walk to help jump start cervix dilation, if that was a good idea.  And if you read my previous post "Contractions Starting! Don't Go for a Walk!" then you already know it's not.)

An Expectant Father's Thoughts Nearing the Finish Line

(At 38 weeks and 4 days)

Waiting for the egg to hatch

You ever played baseball? Right now, the birth of my first son is imminent. Each minutes feels like standing at home plate against a hard thrower wondering what pitch he's going to throw at you.   Is it going to be a fastball again or an off-speed pitch?   Inside or outside? High or low? You know something is coming, but you're not exactly sure what it's going to be like when it happens?

Maybe it's more like waiting for a jury to return a verdict: waiting for your fate to be decided and it's no longer in your hands.   You also don't know when they'll return and you'll have a very short notice when they do. Either way, things are going to be very different.

I'm waiting for the most important package I'll ever receive, but I don't know when the package is going to be delivered.  I've been given an expected delivery date, but it could arrive sooner or later than expected.

My beautiful big bellied wife looks like she's about to pop.   The bun is baking, but not yet ready to come out.

I woke up this morning after a crazy dream.  I rubbed my wife's belly.  As I did, she said, "I guess things are going to be different around here."  "They sure are," I replied.

          - Clark's Dad