Strange Territory

The longer this month drags on, the stranger it gets. I find myself dealing with emotions and situations I have not experienced before. I am referring to, of course, the Cubs being in first place in the Central Division this late in September. Just kidding. As exciting as it is watching my beloved Chicago Cubs have a shot at the post season, I am pre-occupied with the baby growing rapidly inside my wife.

I thought that by this point in the pregnancy I would have settled down. Not true. I have become a worrier. I worry about the health of the baby. I worry about Shannon feeling okay. I worry about labor and delivery. Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking about things that could go wrong and wonder how I would handle the situation.

(Watching season three of Grey’s Anatomy on DVD probably wasn’t the wisest choice.)

Last week Shannon had a doctor’s appointment. It included another ultrasound and the results of her Glucose Tolerance Test. I took the afternoon off from work and went with her.

Driving in to the hospital parking garage I was wondering where I needed to go when the big day (or D-Day as I am now referring to it) happens. “Do I go to the Emergency Room when you are in labor?” I said. I can just picture myself flying into the drop off area on two wheels, tires squealing. “No” Shannon said. “I am pretty sure we just go to the hospital admissions desk.” I am thinking to myself “What?...I would think having a baby would surely qualify as an emergency!”. (It does in my book.)

So we are sitting in the waiting room before the doctor's appt and I am feeling a little nervous about the test results and ultrasound. I’m always afraid we will get bad news. To take my mind off of things I begin reading an article in Super Parent Quarterly or whatever the magazine was called. The article was about negotiating with your child about who is boss. It basically says that children become discouraged when parents make all of the household decisions. Occasionally you should let children be the boss. My response to that is the same as my father’s response to me. “You don’t like it? Well, when you get to be the Dad…you can make the rules” he would say. Now that I am going to be the Dad, I am not passing up my opportunity to make the rules.

Anyway, the article worked. I was distracted. Soon enough we get called back to the ultrasound room. I am excited. Maybe this time I can see what they are talking about. No such luck. The images on this ultrasound were just larger and fuzzier than the first. “The doctor will be in to see you shortly” the ultrasonographer would say.

She lied. The doctor was trying to deliver a couple of babies that day. It was back to the waiting room for us. “I hope he says nothing is wrong” was all I could think. Not even the parenting magazines could distract me this time.

After 45 minutes of watching As the World Turns on the tiny waiting room TV, we were called back again. Straight from delivering a baby, the doctor flew into the room with Shannon’s chart. (I half expected him to be covered in blood and gore like a zombie in a horror movie.) He flipped a few pages, looked at the ultrasound pictures and measured her belly. He said Shannon’s blood sugar was a borderline high in two of the four samples and suggested she meet with a gestational diabetes specialist for some diet and exercise advice. The boy is also about ½ a pound bigger than he would expect him to be at this stage. He weighs about 3 ½ pounds. Both mother and baby have good heartbeats. Shannon’s blood pressure is great. “Everything looks good,” the doctor said, “you are right on track”.

I could relax.

Of course, last night I watched In The Womb on the National Geographic Channel in High Def. Here we go again…