The Assessment Center
We are now within a week of the 12/7 due date. Yesterday afternoon, we headed to the assessment center at the hospital to see if my wife’s physical symptoms were a sign that labor had begun.
Signing in at the front desk is a frustrating five minutes. There are about ten signatures needed on various consent forms even though we “pre-registered” and signed these very same agreements. Apparently if you come in a different door, it is as if that registration never happened. Fortunately, that’s pretty much the worst part of the experience.
Shortly after sitting in the waiting room, a lovely worker arrives through the double doors with a wheelchair to take my wife upstairs to begin the evaluation. The room we occupy is quite large with a window overlooking the hospital’s quiet pond. As my wife takes her place on the hospital bed, I move to the very uncomfortable low-back couch. The nurse records vital signs, then hooks her up to fetal monitoring to chart the baby’s heart rate. Following a physical exam, it becomes clear that this was probably a false alarm and that the baby wasn’t going to be born today.
Just to be thorough, the doctor wants to see an ultrasound. So, after being wheeled to another wing of the hospital, my wife is on yet another table with a wand moving over her belly through cold gel. The scan reiterated the baby’s good health and unwillingness to leave her comfortable home.
After returning to the labor and delivery room, we recieved discharge instructions and were sent home. I felt good knowing the baby and mom were both healthy and we just need to wait a bit longer. One way or another, she’ll be in our arms very soon!
So long for now!
-Felix