Lately, I’ve been thinking about joining a Polar Bear Club—you know, those maniacs who load up on Bloody Marys, strip down to nothing at the North Avenue beach, and hop into the freezing lake for charity. Then I heard about Sean Cooper.
After waiting in our basement for two weeks, my parents leave tomorrow. They will miss the delivery, assuming it ever happens. This bums me out, and I know they’re frustrated that their whole visit was for naught, though they’re far too diplomatic to say so. It was never clear to me what exactly their role would be during the delivery, though my wife continues to maintain—even after spending 11 days with them—that she wanted them in the room when she delivered. I just don’t see it…
When Hillary Clinton was growing up in Park Ridge, the town—like most of suburban Chicago—was emphatically Republican. Her youthful slide from right to left previewed by three decades
a similar, remarkable shift among Illinois voters.
Still nothing. Now we’re just pissed.
My parents leave in two days.
In our Bradley class, which seems like a distant memory now, Denyse encouraged us to write up a “birth plan.” I didn’t get the concept at the time, figuring the plan was: Give birth; go home. How could we possibly develop a plan for the most complex, unpredictable moment of our lives, when the experts should be calling the shots? It seemed ridiculous…
We’re not sure why, but Leap Year intrigues us so.
Well, mostly it’s the fact that all of the babies born today won’t get to celebrate their actual birthdays again until 2012. We at Snap wonder if there are any parents out there who deny their children birthday gifts and parties on this technicality. That’s what we’d do if we had children, leaving them to seek consolation from…
The late Mayor Daley’s donated documents are still nowhere in sight at UIC.
The Supreme Court may shoot a hole in Chicago’s gun ban
Just got off the phone with Sarah. Very excited. Still no baby, but here’s a transcript of the call—which I pray no one overheard:
Me: Hello?
Sarah: You sitting down?
Me: Yeah. What’s up?
Sarah: I passed my mucus plug.
Me: (excited) Really? Your mucus plug? What did it feel like?
Sarah: I didn’t notice. I went to sit on the pot, and…
My parents have been living in the basement for a week now, and Sarah’s womb has been painfully quiet the whole time. Every time I go downstairs, Tom and Lois are sitting on the couch, eating peanuts and watching Law & Order. And every time Sarah goes down there, they jump up with excited anticipation, and when they realize she has come to simply put in a load of laundry, they sigh. Audibly. They don’t mean any harm—they just want to meet the baby, too—but their presence seems to have spooked Sarah’s cervix. The pressure is overwhelming. “I feel like every day I don’t produce a child, I’m letting everyone down,” Sarah said…
Every time my phone rings at work, I think, Here we go. I look at the calendar: This is the day. I look at my clothes: This is what I’m going to be wearing in all the pictures. Usually, it’s someone calling to ask my least favorite question: “Has the baby come yet?”
No, it hasn’t. Thanks for reminding me.
It’s easy to forget that Sarah’s due date was an estimate—not an appointment. In most cases, post-term pregnancies aren’t really “late”; they stem from miscalculations of the time of conception…
