Hospitals Suck

As you know, we are in the hospital. Since there is not a whole lot to do, I will write. First of all, I'm glad that nothing is happening right now. Carrie isn't having contractions like she was a few hours ago. That is a good thing. I'm also happy because the boys are above average in size.

Having said that, I would like to say that hospitals suck. I have to admit that this time around things are better. I brought an Ethernet cable so we have Internet. Our room is bigger than last time which is also good. There are a few things that could be better.

First of all, we are in a delivery room. The bed that Carrie is lying in is meant to deliver babies, or a baby if you are normal, which we most certainly are not. The mattress on the thing is like two inches thick. It's not even shaped like a normal bed, as it sort of gets narrower as you go down towards the foot of it. It has every sort of stirrup and leg holder thing you can imagine. This is for obvious reasons. My point is, the bed is not made for sleeping. It's made for labor, which thankfully, Carrie is not in. She is having trouble getting comfortable which is understandable. We are in this delivery type unit just to be on the safe side. They say they will move her to a normal room if things continue to stay stable.

She is also hooked up to two IVs and a contraction monitor. Each time she has to get up we have to go through a giant production of unplugging the contraction monitor and unplugging the power to the IV unit. It switches to battery power automatically. This unit is pretty high tech. Speaking of high tech, what is not high tech is the cable television system. I think that the remote control unit is a leftover from something that was popular during the Richard M. Nixon administration. It takes like two years to switch channels or turn the volume up and down. The lone speaker for the television is on this remote control unit that I am currently staring at. On second thought, I think that the remote control might have been on the Mayflower with the pilgrims. Yep, I bet the pilgrims used this remote to watch football during the first Thanksgiving. It's one of those remotes that is attached to the wall with a big thick cable. There isn't quite enough slack in it to pull it over to where I am. It's all analog. Don't they know about touch screen technology? It makes me wonder if they are going to use a hacksaw for the C-Section and a ball peen hammer to knock her out. Right behind Carrie I can see the contraction monitor screen. The contraction monitor itself looks like something made by Fisher Price. I think that Fisher Price also made the fetal heart beat monitors. They tried to use those earlier. They can only use two of those at a time, and it was impossible to tell if they were getting the heartbeat of Triplet A, B, or C. Actually at times the fetal heart monitor would pick up Carrie' heartbeat and sometimes I think it was picking up mine and I wasn't even near it. They finally gave up after they swore they got good readings on all the boys. I don't know how this was possible because on the sonograms they were all doing back flips and giving each other high fives.

Carrie said her food was good. I went down to the cafeteria where I had some pizza that wasn't bad and they had good coffee. I have my guitars here which is good. They won't let the dog in the hospital which I think is bunk. She is clean and she just lays there. Besides, Carrie really loves the dog and I think that having the dog here would extend this pregnancy by at least two weeks. Hospitals are notorious for having staff infections and all kinds of other diseases running rampant up and down their hallways. What's one dog going to do to contribute to that? Not much as far as I'm concerned.

I'm also staring at the couch/foldout bed that I am going to be sleeping on. People stay overnight at hospitals all the time. You think they would be prepared and have something slightly comfortable. This thing look like a torture device they would use in a Turkish prison to keep a person up all night during interrogation. They just gave me a pillow which is a one inch thick cotton pad wrapped in blue paper. This thing has about as much in common with a pillow as a chunk of oak. The couch thing is also very short. I'm not very tall, and my legs will hang off the end. The chair I'm sitting in has a leg rest that will not stay up. I can't really lean it back or I will tip over and slam my head into the wall behind me. It's sort of a strange balancing act to sit in it at all.

Hospital art is another thing that is weird. Where do they get these paintings? The one on the wall in Carrie's room is of a house with some roses in the front. It looks like it was painted by a frustrated hack who bought a paint by numbers kit and tried his best to be Monet. The painting is so bland and ridiculous that I am offended every time I look at it, and I'm not even really into art.

The fact is, we have to hunker down here for quite a while. I mean quite a while if we are lucky. I will be driving back and forth from Austin to Temple with great regularity. It's pretty much 50 miles from our house to this hospital. I have driven I-35 countless times and I already know the road well. That didn't stop us from getting lost on the way to the hospital this morning. Why wouldn't we get lost? It makes total sense that we would. I thought I remembered what exit to take, and it turns out I didn't. Hopefully I will remember my way back to Austin tomorrow.

Finally, our Doctors are great. They come in and I know that they really care about us. Having said that I am amazed about how perplexed they look when they are talking to us.

Doctor: Have the contractions gotten more intense?

Carrie: Yes, today they have been different.

Doctor: (stares at ceiling) Hmm. Well.....it could mean one of two things. One, you could be in pre-term labor. Or you are not in pre-term labor.

Wow! It took 8 years of college and 4 years of residency to come up with something so profound?

In all honesty, there is no way of knowing what is going on. Each body is different and no matter how much they know, anything can and will happen. They call it practicing medicine for a reason. I know we are in the right place no matter how much the beds suck, no matter how bad the art is, and no matter how much the remote controls suck. Carrie is willing to do ANYTHING to make sure the boys are safe. I will be more than happy to drive that stretch of I-35 as many times as it takes.

I promise you one thing. If this goes on for more than a week or two, I WILL try and sneak the dog into see Carrie.