Hospital, Husbands, and Happiness

Last night Chris and I went on the hospital tour. We were supposed to do this weeks ago as part of our childbirth class, but since we are childbirth drop outs, we signed up for an independent tour. I was pretty excited. I am a visual person. I need to see where I’m going to be. To see where the baby will be taken. To see the waiting room that will theoretically contain my parents (and as there were no bars and/or locks on the waiting room door, I am convinced they will be totally uncontainable…). And I loved everything I saw.

They showed us where we will park and where we will check in. They showed us the labor and delivery rooms, which were just beautiful! And the lighting in there was better than candlelight at an Italian restaurant. I’m totally going to look hot and glowing-y in all my pictures thanks to their strategically placed recessed lighting and 25 watt light bulbs. Clearly, this room was designed by some poor woman who has pictures of herself after her delivery all sweaty and sticky under fluorescent lighting. She came out of the ordeal and announced that she would change the world by changing the lighting in delivery rooms. Props to that Saint of a Woman.

After labor and delivery, they showed us up to the maternity floor where the rooms are all private and they all have windows and they all smell good. Again, there are no locks or bars on this floor and so there is nothing to contain my parents, but that’s the hospital’s fault and the nurse staff will just have to deal.

The whole time we were on the tour, I really kept my eye mostly on Chris. I wanted to see how he reacted and what he thought about everything. He was pretty funny actually. I wish I’d had my camera. I could tell he was really concentrating and processing things because he was walking about four feet in front of me, and he only remembered I was there when either a) a door he was holding hit me in the face or b) the tour guide mentioned there was Wifi in the hospital. Both of these times, he sheepishly turned back and gave me a thumbs up. Other than that, the kid could have been on the tour by himself. He just kind of looked around, poked at things, peeked in doors. He reminded me of our black lab, Molly, when she doesn’t think anyone is watching her. She just meanders until someone calls her name. That’s how Chris was. He just floated through the rooms, checking everything out, not saying too much.

When the tour was finished and we were walking back to our car, I waited for him to speak first. Just to hear what he had to say.

“That was pretty cool,” he said. And then he grinned and took my hand. “And we’re gonna have a baby.”

For the rest of the ride home, he talked 90 miles an hour about people that would be visiting us, where we would park the car, who would let out the dogs, where the baby would be, how we got the baby home. It was like someone just flipped on a light switch inside him and suddenly he understood everything.

This caused me to say the following prayer before I went to bed last night:

“Dear Lord, thank you for my husband. And thank you for the patience it takes every day to not kill him because sometimes its really nice to have him around. Amen.”