We Find Out Tomorrow
Tomorrow is the big day.We'll roll into the hospital around 8:30 and my wife will submit her abdomen for another ultrasound.
In the past two weeks the wife has barely gained any weight, which means the baby is also not gaining weight. Perhaps if all of her minimal weight gain is due to the baby's growth, then everything will be ok. If not, the doctors will suggest inducing labor right away.
Our OB is on vacation until Sunday night, so it's likely they will delay the birth until then, unless a delay may harm the baby.
I've got approximately 9657 things to take care of at work, but it's hard to concentrate sufficiently on the location of error logs, batch parameters, and XML syntax errors.
If I could, I'd partition my brain to work within small, rigidly defined parameters. 6am to 8am I'd operate in cooking/cleaning mode. 9am to 6pm I'd operate in geekdom/whistlewhileyouwork mode. 7pm to 11pm I'd be in cook/clean/paint/built/buy mode.
But my mind is a spilled box of legos, ...paralysis by plastic.
One of the things they (the pregnancy experts at the hospital) told us we needed to do was to find a pediatrician. When I was a kid my doctor was the best. Dr. Atkinson. A tall, handsome, awkwardly funny Swedish guy. His face looked like Harrison Ford, his hair was thin and graying-blonde. He had that stuttering, self-effacing comic style where he would tell a joke, pause, smile, and then everyone else would get it and laugh. I completely trusted him, which made our visits that much nicer. I didn't dread going to see him, I liked his jokes, and that made me an easy patient.
I saw him from birth to about 14 when we switched health plans and I went into one of those all-encompassing clinics. My second doctor was a real riot. A joke a minute, that guy. Saw him only twice. I had two more doctors before my latest one. Each was nice when we first met, then seemed put-out by my questions and visits. Each seemed like they had better things to do than tend to me.
Dr. Pierre is my new doctor. He's confident, smart, and listens to my problems. He's also really easy to deal with.
Anyway, I've got to pick pediatrician, so I go to the website and look at all the doctors at the hospital. I narrow the choice to 3 doctors. 1 is the chief of pediatrics. I nix her because she will probably have the least amount of time for my daughter. Another is a matronly, grandmother-type. I nix her because she is probably not up to date with modern treatments. Another is very young, probably younger than me. I choose her because she's been a practicing pediatrician for 4 years, so she's not completely new and not behind-the-times either.
I call to see if she is accepting patients. She is. They transfer me to "scheduling". They ask for the patient's last name, I tell them. They ask for the first name.
"Uh, we haven't decided on a first name yet."
"Well, it's kinda difficult to schedule an appointment without a first name."
"Well, they told me I needed to pick a pediatrician before the baby was born. So, I was just calling to set up my child as a patient."
"Well, ...we do getting acquainted visits with new parents before the baby is born."
"I guess that's what I need then, huh?"
"Ok, ...well it looks like you already have an appointment with another doctor tomorrow at 5pm."
"Ummm, no. We haven't made any other appointments."
"It says so right here."
"This is the first time we've called here."
"I spoke to your wife on the 1st. She called and made an appointment. So, you want me to cancel this one?"
"I'm telling you the honest truth. We have not called there. That appointment was obviously made for someone else and accidentally placed in our file, so I don't think you should delete it."
tap-tap-tap
"I took care of it."
How do I know that was the sound of an appointment being deleted. I almost want to be there at 5pm tomorrow when someone comes in for their now-deleted appointment. Then I can jump out and say "HA! I TOLD YOU SO!"
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