Little Matt, Alex, and the Plastic Hoo Hah (CTL 16)

Countdown to Laughter

Issue 16

Monday is our last scheduled baby shower, so come Monday at 5:00 p.m., we are ready to get the show on the road. At Nancy’s doctor appointment Friday, they told her that if she goes past the due date, they will set up an appointment to induce. Nancy decided she would rather have it a surprise. The logic is, right now, the birth date is still nebulous. As soon as a date is set for induction, her mindset will change, and as those of you who know Nancy well know, she will plan and fret until the moment she hits the doors at Women’s Hospital. She is really at peace with everything right now, and to have a deadline looming would put her into stress mode.

Here comes the science……They induce pregnancy by introducing hormones via an I.V. drip that starts the uterine walls to contracting. There are also quite a few folk medicine methods.

There has been a bit of controversy over the “Castor Oil” method of induction. My mother in law says it didn’t work for her, but my sister swears by it. My cousin Erin sent a recipe that works “9 out of 10” times that involves eating as much Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with A-1 sauce as possible. The baby will come in 24 hours according to the website (and when has the internet ever been wrong?). One of the more common methods of natural induction is to engage in sexual intercourse. Well I guess if it’s for Nancy’s peace of mind, I’ll try any crazy method. Sort of a “farewell party”.

Matt and Alex came down this weekend, and we had a pretty terrific time doing all the things I’ll never get to do again once the baby arrives. We played music together (Little Matt on mandolin, Alex on banjo, and I played guitar), drank beer, played golf, saw a couple of movies, played X-box, and went out to a baseball game. We laughed a lot, ate a lot, and got very little sleep. It was like a really short intense vacation, and I feel ready to move on to fatherhood.

One of the funniest moments this weekend was on Friday night, Nancy, the guys and I were talking about the delivery process, and Alex said that he still didn’t get how it all worked. Luckily I had a visual aid, a slightly larger than life size plastic model of the female reproductive system I had bought at a museum garage sale. When I presented it to the guys to explain, Matt exploded with laughter, Alex could barely look directly at it, and Nancy, being used to this sort of thing, just rolled her eyes.

After the guys left for D.C. I got out the video camera and charged it up to do a technical rehearsal (not that it will come within a Nancy appointed half mile radius of the delivery room). We’ve used our camera twice, and I’ve never actually filmed anything at all with it. Once we filmed our friend Scott’s baptism, and once it was used to film an “Amazing Race” audition tape. I just wanted to check out the camera before it was “showtime” I got a few seconds of footage of Nancy and pre-birth Isaac. Nancy has been a little camera shy since she started showing, but there is now video proof.

We are ready.

Big Matt