Week 29_Please Keep Hands and Legs Inside the Ride

This week, Teresa and I toured Atlanta's monument to fertility Northside Hospital, also known as the "Baby Factory". This hospital churns out kids like cars rolling off an asembly line. They have the whole process down to a science. Pregnant mom goes in one door with frantic father and out the other door comes un-pregnant mom with kid and frantic father trying to figure out how to put the car seat in for the first time.

Since we don't want to throw off their whole system, we were encouraged to take one of the 8 daily tours of the Baby Factory to find out how the whole process works. The tour begins with.......parking. Yes, they start by telling you where frantic father parks the car on the big day. Right by the front door with flashers on to drop off mom. This doesn't seem that important to many, but to me it could be marriage saving. I am an absolutely horrible parker. To cap it off, the one thing in the world Teresa has the least patience for is bad parking. Lets just say it has been a source of friction in the past. So, I studied every detail of the parking situation, took photos and measurements and paced off the distance to the door. I HAVE to get this right the first time. One wheel up on the curb or having to circle the parking lot twice would get the whole labor thing off to a bad start.

So on to the Labor and Delivery Room (or LDR). Let me tell you, these rooms are bigger than my first apartment and come complete with flat screen TV, full bath, and a bench-like bed for me (which I am told I will use at my own risk during delivery). The LDR rooms look like upscale hotel rooms with ornate wood furniture and soothing pastel colors. I could kinda get used to this. True to the factory's reputation, they don't have just a few of these rooms, but 40 segregated into 5 "pods".

Finally, on to "Family Care". This is where you go after delivery to spend the first couple days with the newborn. First up? A photo op with the roaming family photographer. The rooms in Family Care aren't nearly as nice. Why? Well their job is over, they just want you out now. Just like McDonalds furniture is intentionally uncomfortable to get you to eat and run, the Family Care rooms have just a little touch of "just let us know if you need help getting your things out to the car".

All in all, quite a top notch operation. Oh, don't want to forget. Teresa had her first Braxton-Hicks contractions this weekend. Basically false contractions intended to get her some practice before the real thing. Of course, she had no clue what was going on because somebody didn't pay attention in Baby Birthing Class (nor had she apparently ever seen an episode of ER). Thankfully, I paid attention and told her what was going on. She is now a real pro at the contraction thing after going through two rounds over the weekend. She is doing great and continues to amaze me at how well she is handling this.

And for the curious, yes we have officially picked out the kid's name and no we aren't telling you!