The Baby Is Coming, The Baby Is Coming

Well, the time is finally here. After months of waiting and anticipation, we are finally in the last week of this pregnancy, even though my wife is a full two-and-a-half weeks shy of her due date; the baby is measuring two weeks past due and has been measuring big for the entire pregnancy. At the doctor's appointment last Friday, she was already dilating effacing like crazy, so while the plan is to induce on this coming Friday, I'm crossing my fingers for a spontaneous labor.

Maybe it is because I watch entirely too much TV and way too many movies, but the fact that our previous two children have both been born by appointment leaves me hoping for that exciting, middle-of-the-night "my water broke" moment followed by a mad-dash out of the house and into the hospital. Heck, I'd settle for it happening in the middle of the afternoon.

I have the whole exciting thing pictured in my head:

"Nathan! I'm in labor!"

Like an action hero, I spring into action. I strap on my bluetooth headset like the ones they use on Burn Notice and call our neighbor to come watch the kids until my mother-in-law can make the trip to relieve her. Then, with my hands being free on account of the bluetooth, I call my mother-in-law with the alert while simultaneously getting dressed and loading my wife's bags into the van. I grab the laptop, video camera, digital camera, and iPod loaded with relaxing baby-having music. Then, with the strength of a thousand men, I effortlessly carry my wife to our awaiting transportation.

She looks up at me as I rush her to the van and says, "You're my hero!"

Praise like this is common for an international man-of-action like myself, so I simply nod and continue on my mission. I strap her into the front seat so that stinking bell doesn't ding as I drive through our sleepy town like Jason Bourne en route to the hospital. I dial the number for the labor and delivery department as I squeal around another corner and blast through a perfectly placed vegetable stand. "We've got a hot one!" I scream to the groggy nurse on the other end of the line. "ETA: Two mikes!" That's minutes for you civilians out there.

I hang up just in time to pass dangerously through a red light without hitting any cars speeding through on the green light. Man, who knew a Chrysler Town & Country could kick this much butt.

Oh no! There is a bridge out up ahead. There is no time to detour. I push the accelerator through the floor and tell my wife to, "Hold on! We're going to see if this Stow-n-Go can fly!" We fly through the air in slow motion with A-Team music playing in my head. The van crashes down safely on the other side just as my wife goes into another contraction.

Soon, we are barreling into the hospital parking lot. I perform a perfect one-hundred-and-eighty degree braking stop at the curb to the Visitor entrance, jump out of the van, grab my wife, and toss the keys to a weary-eyed security guard and say, "Keep it close for me, Scooter!" as we run through the automated doors.

Not wanting to waste a minute waiting for the elevator, my adrenaline racing, I rush my wife effortlessly up two flights of stairs and burst through the doors, exclaiming, "We've got a baby coming, people!"

We get to our room, and I can see the baby crowning. My wife says, "I've gotta push!"

The nurses are screaming, "We need the doctor! You've gotta wait!"

I look at them with steely determination and calmly say, "There's not time. I'm going to deliver this baby." I put on a pair of rubber gloves. "I'm going in."

A few minutes later, I'm handing our sweet little baby to its mother and taking off the gloves as the nurses and other patients stand and applaud.

Yeah, I figure it will either go something like that, or the baby will wait until Friday, and everything will go nice and easy like it did the first two times. Either way, I can't wait.