Legal Quandary

Happy Birthday Baby Zoom!

Lil Q is officially 3. We nicknamed her "Baby Zoom" almost from the time we first knew of her. Though we had various reasons for doing so, a lot of it had to do with a game EC used to play, "The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis." (Which I highly recommend, btw.) At random points during the game this voice would just boom out "ZOOMBINI!"

Since we didn't know her gender at that point, we thought Zoombini was a great nickname. Eventually it just got shortened to Baby Zoom.

Which, as it turns out, was an apt name for her.

We were in the process of moving into our house in TVPNM (sort of a theme with us Quandaries), and it was EC's 3rd day of school. We'd gone out to a fabulous dinner the night before, but I wasn't feeling so great. It probably didn't help that I'd insisted on walking EC to school (2 miles roundtrip), but hey - I wasn't due for another 3 weeks. By the time I picked EC up from a playdate* that afternoon, I had to stop to catch my breath every couple of minutes.

It didn't dawn on me until Mr. Q came home, that maybe we should time some contractions. 20 minutes later - after getting EC started on her homework and fiddling around with God knows what else - he comes upstairs. At this point, I can't find any comfortable position to sit, stand, or lay down in. While we were waiting for the doctor to call back, Mr. Q tried to call his dad (an MD), but ended up talking to his mom instead. Who tried to convince him to do a pelvic exam on me. She had 6 kids - and delivered the last 3 at home, but...ummmm...no.

When the doctor finally called back, Mr. Q described what was going on. We were determined not to be the people who got sent home with false labor, but the doc said "What the heck, why don't you come on in."

The next door neighbors took EC for the night on about 5 minutes notice. I stood in the driveway and shouted while Mr. Q gave exacting instructions about bedtime, breakfast, school, and after school. I kept shouting the entire way to the hospital. And as Mr. Q pulled up to the emergency entrance to the hospital. Where the attendants said we couldn't park - until they heard me shouting. They finally said Mr. Q could park at the curb, but LEFT ME STANDING THERE SHOUTING while someone got a wheelchair. They wouldn't even let me in the ER because they thought I would scare people.

And about 10 minutes later, Baby Zoom arrived. It's a good thing there wasn't much traffic on the way or we would made the evening news.

* A word I despise.

posted by Legal Quandary at 20:52