Harder, Carter!!

This week's highlight--by far--was the long awaited hospital tour that was part of the 6 weeks of childbirth classes that we've been going though. Now that I type this, I don't think that saying the tour was the the highlight is actually correct, though. Sitting in the main lobby of the Vanderbilt Hospital was actually the true highlight.

Our class instructor has us all there -- about eight, visibly pregnant couples all sitting in a section of the lobby -- getting ready to start off, when a really visibly pregnant woman comes in through the main doors. This woman is also visibly in labor. She's walking with a purpose between stops to grab at an inanimate object for some support on her journey to the bank of elevators that none of us will ever forget must be taken to the 4th floor. Well, a couple minutes later, the apparent father of the future child comes into the lobby -- looking confused, like he's lost his very pregnant wife or something. (We think that he must have been getting their things from the car and handing the keys to a valet to get it parked -- he wasn't gone long enough to have parked on his own and he didn't look in much of a condition to be doing any more driving either.) Well, he (unfortunately) found her still waiting by the elevators, and their reunion was marked with a serious onslaught of screaming. Something that was either, "I don't care! Harder!" or "I don't care, Carter!" was the most recognizable part, along with some animal-like cry/moan and the number 4.

So, caring more than his wife did at that point, we named the dad-to-be Carter, since that might be what we heard.

Poor Carter must have eventually secured an elevator for his lovely wife and gotten her up to the 4th floor because by the time that we got up there 20 minutes later, she'd already produced the goods. Our tour group learned that these are called "stop and drop" or "drive by" babies.

Call me crazy, but if I'm getting charged for labor and delivery services, you can bet that I'm going to be at that hospital long enough for there to be some people coming and checking on me a few times and for them to be bringing me things that I think that I need. No sense letting them off that easy if I'm as miserable as Carter's wife.

It was sort of like the scene in The Wizard of Oz where the Wizard is commanding them NOT to look behind the curtain -- this might not be the picture of labor a hospital wants you to see. But, it served as a nice wake up call about the reality of labor: it will come calling, and it will know your name (and your husband's name, too, even if you don't care anymore).

And, if that excitement wasn't enough, after the tour we got to watch a video on circumcision. If the dads had blanched at the first birth videos, this went a step beyond. A whiter shade of pale. I do know how to quiet down the men during NCAA tournament season now, and it only takes a 5 minute video narrated by a medical professional. Well, leaving the highlights for others should they wish to watch one of these gems of medical procedure marketing, I'll just say that even with a little injection of local pain killer (ouch to that, too) it looked like this hurt. The fact that our doctor-narrator kept insisting that the baby was not in pain despite the fact that he was 1) naked on a metal table, 2) in arm, hip, and leg restraints, and 3) covered with some of that creepy surgical drape stuff -- not to mention the actual how-to of the surgery -- seems unlikely at best, and rather Tooth Fairy-esque in terms of believability at worst. Last I checked, most babies aren't actually able to tell you if they're in pain -- except by crying -- and there did seem to be a good deal of that. From the baby, that is. The dads-to-be in the room, well, they looked defeated and pale, but no visible tears were shed.