At this point, with prospects of a 2008 debut dashed and the weekend half over, I figure I'd almost rather just work most of this last week and have Cal 2.0 wait until our induction date (Friday, January 9th) to meet us. There are a couple of reasons for this, foremost of which is the fact that while the hospital at which we are going to deliver is pretty close to our house (a fifteen minute walk as a matter of fact, close enough that my preferred mode of transport home after my OB appointments is on foot), it is pretty far from the hospital where I work. If something happened while I was at work, I have been assured by many that someone would be freed up somehow to drive me into L&D, but the fact of it is that I have no concrete contingency plan, and that such an event would require some scrambling and confusion and juggling of personnel, none of which I would want to perpetrate on the busy OR staff the week after coming back from the holidays. (I told them that my original plan was just take a cab, but the resulting reaction to that suggestion was roughly the equivalent of the reception that Bush got at that Iraqi press conference where he got shoes thrown at him.) Joe said that I should just call him in case of emergency so that he could dash in and drive me to the hospital, but that would just take twice as long--requiring him to extricate himself from work, drive all the way out to where I work, getting lost, driving all the way back intown, which--no. So for that reason, not going into labor during the week, at least not during the day, would be the wisest option.
Secondly, if we make it far enough to go in for our scheduled induction this Friday, we get two extra weekend days tacked on to Joe's paternity leave, which, given that he only has a week off, is significant. But either way, what will be will be, and if nothing is going to happen this weekend, I'm ready and eager to get back to work on Monday, because all this sitting around and waiting is driving me crazy.
Again, from the front, looking...OK-ish:
And then from the side, grievously regretting the optical effect of the horizontal stripes. I look like one of those topographical illustrations that mapmakers use to depict the mountainous outcroppings of Appalachia:
So, how this induction will supposedly work is this: we have an appointment for 7:30am on Friday. We are to call L&D two hours before to confirm bed availability--which sounds early, to wake up at 5:30am just to call in, but that's about the time that I'm usually leaving for work anyway, so it should be no big change from usual. Barring the influx of eighteen pregnant ladies overnight going into spontaneous labor and yet all failing to deliver by morning (fairly unlikely, but as someone who has worked the floors of L&D, I know not entirely out of the realm of possibility), they will tell us that we still have our spot and we can head in to start our morning of Pitocin, amniotomy hooks, and bad daytime television.
But anyway, there's no point in thinking about it anymore. It's just good to know that there's a defined endpoint. That said, if we call in at 5:30am on Friday morning and they tell us that we should just stay home because there are no beds, I may scream.
We got a big box in the mail yesterday afternoon from Joe's sister, addressed to [the baby's name that we picked out]. After some deliberation with Cal as to whether or not we should open it now or stick it under the Christmas tree, we decided to "help" the baby and open the box now. I'm glad we did.
So now we have an actual Ling Ling to keep the baby company after he's born. And until then, at least to keep the crib warm for him.
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