theparkerfamily

the lady sparkler’s had a busy week of interviews. la madre de la sparklet has been shopping for a new baby doctor ever since he/she/it announced, “oh, by the way … I don’t deliver babies anymore.”

mental note: add that to the list of things you could have mentioned three months ago …

it’s a little early to be doing dry runs to the hospital, but all the practices that baby mama interviewed were out of sibley memorial hospital here in DC and we had only the faintest idea as to where that was.

and, knowing that i was going to be the one driving her raging hormones around in case of emergency, i convinced her that we might want to discover whether we can actually get to this uncharted hospital in a hurry or not.

what can I say … I’m a planner.

it turns out that “we” have picked the farthest-away hospital in the District (at least that doesn’t involve crossing a river, thank god).

to be more specific, there are six hospitals that are closer — though admittedly two of them you could go in pregnant and come out missing a kidney.

I digress…

so, we took a little drive to sibley. I offered to strap a watermellon to her waist and dump a gallon of water on her lap … you know, for authenticity.

she declined — unless I let her wail hysterically, dig her fingernails into my arm while I drove, and leave at three in the morning … you know, for authenticity.

I declined.

so we hopped into our little jetta, and meandered our way west through the city: Cleveland park, van ness, tenleytown, American university, spring valley. (we passed like 200 churches, which I think is a good sign.)

five miles, twelve stoplights, three stop signs and a traffic circle later, we arrived at sibley.

the lady sparkler announced that the trip went “pretty good.” I announced that she better be planning to be induced at a time of our choosing.

it only took 12 minutes, but it felt like thirty … and that was without sparklet trying to bring an abrupt end to his/her claustrophobia.

oy.