October 2nd 2007

10:47 AM and I’m waiting with my phone in my hand in the back of the conference room at work. You see, I’m in a class learning all kinds of fascinating things about plastics and how to use them affectively in designs for high volume mass produced consumer electronics products. Kristy is supposed to pick me up at work so I sat in the back of the room near the door and I put my cell phone on vibrate and made sure I kept it in my hand so I wouldn’t miss her call letting me know that she was right out front waiting for me. I was actually expecting the call like 10 minutes ago, but evidently she is running a bit behind the schedule I created in my mind and didn’t tell her about.

Flash forward a bit and now we are in the car. Carter is not joining us today; he is playing with his buddy across the street, Matthew. I’m excited, this time we are meeting with Joy, who delivered Carter and who will be replacing Jill this time around.

Ladies and Gentlemen… The return of Collete. That’s right, she’s back in my blogs. She was there this week and this time she had a name tag. I sat down, scanned the magazines and then got my pen and paper ready to take blog notes like I always do. Collette let out a big Yawn and said “Oh, excuse me, I just keep doing it!” She seemed a little more subdued that usual and she had a little bit more grey in the hair. Kristy double checked, “bag’s are in the bathroom, right?” and Collette said yes. Kristy went to the bathroom because she was about to explode (her words).

There was a gentlemen waiting across from me and he was watching the jungle book on the TV in the kid’s book area, then Collette started fast forwarding it for some reason. I think the guy wanted to finish watching it but just sat there and started looking for something to read. I sat there too, waiting for Kristy and the nurse to call her name before she got back. Then a few seconds later the nurse called for Kristy and just like I thought; Kristy still wasn’t back. So I told the nurse she was in the bathroom and she said okay.

Then the nurse (Toni) went over to Collette and they started talking about Collette’s flowers. Toni said that she tried to clip them the other day and Collette said they were Irish Bells. She also said that they pricked her, so she got “ticked off” and she threw them out, that’s were the yellow ones went. Then she showed Toni the scripture she sent out via email and then Kristy came walking out. I said Kristy Ray is right there and pointed and Toni said, oh, she brought me a present (brown bag present).

We went back to the scale for Kristy’s weigh in and I noticed that there used to be a little seat that I would sit in right next to the scale, but it was gone. It was replaced by a small cart with a TV/VCR combo and some women’s health video tapes. Kristy weighed in at 136 pounds this time and her blood pressure was 104/62. Then Toni led us back to our room and gave Kristy the third installment of our Kaiser “What to Expect/You Are Going Through” pregnancy hand out.

Once in the room I got to practice some Spanish by reading the flyer across from me but now I think I regret it? The NovaSure brochure in the holder read “Controle El Sangrado, Recobre El Control De Su Vida”, it was a women’s health thing and I’ll just leave it a that.

Joy came in shortly after and started talking and then I think she recognized us and asked if we had met before and Kristy told her that she delivered our son about a year and a half ago. Then she looked at my little paper and my tiny writing and asked what I was doing. We told her about the blog and she expressed interest in reading it. I was going to tell her that when Kristy delivered she was sideways on the bed, to help spark her memory of us and that she was in love with Carter’s lips, but I didn’t say anything. I thought I would save it for this blog and if she reads it then maybe it will spark a memory.

Joy said I needed short hand, what she didn’t realize is that I was using my own form of shorthand that helps me capture a ton of detail. I right town key words or phrases and they trigger precise memories and then I write about them. Kristy studied this in one of her psychology classes I think.

Everything went by really quick, she told us some stuff, asked us some stuff and then said it’s time to listen to the hear beat. She busted out the Doppler listening device; put some nice cold gel on Kristy’s belly and right away we heard it. Of course we could all identify that first sound we heard as the heart beat because of our veteran skills, Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Joy has heard thousands of these before and I was surprised how acutely my ear was tuned and remembered the sound quickly and I could tell by Kristy’s face it was the same for her. It was about 150 beats per second, nice and fast like it should be.

It sounded like something from Battlestar Galatica, if you happen to watch that TV show. On the show they are all advanced with all this advanced equipment and then when they talk over wireless communications it sounds like they are talking with two tin cans connected by a string. That is the one thing on that show that bugs me a bit, when we talk on our RAZRs or iPhones it usually sounds pretty good, not like shouting to each other from opposite ends of a tunnel. Returning from my great divergence, it sounded very hallow and somewhat faint but it is a very unique sound none the less and one that brings great joy to your heart.

There was no belly measurement for Kristy today because she is still too small and we wouldn’t get any usable info from it other than she is a fit trim mama. The next visit we could have the optional Quad Screen (we knew it as the Multiple Marker) if we wanted it. She reminded us to call and setup the ultra sound appointment again and then turned us loose with Toni to setup or next appointment.

We went back to the nurse’s station and we noticed Toni still had some 4th of July decorations that were in a basket she said she was getting ready to finally take to her car. That made me think of these people in our neighborhood that had their Christmas tree up until like May and they just moved it to the garage, it’s still decorated and I see it every time their garage is open. It’s fake of course! I also noticed there was a ton of Dell stuff at the nurses station, I’m sure their jobs would be much easier if they were outfitted with HP stuff!

So we setup our next appointment for November 6th at 12:15 PM. Kristy also asked about her due date, which I thought was confirmed for April 12th 2008. Toni consulted the magic paper wheel it said April 12th or 13th and Kristy was not reassured because the precision of the date still isn’t good enough for her. She wanted an early ultra sound to get a more precise date, she is annoyed that she has to live with a +/- 5 day window. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, Ingrid measured her and by that measurement her due date was April 11th, but by the info from Toni (which is only 1 day off mind you) her date is in the range of the 11th or 12th, but that is too much unknown for Kristy because she likes to countdown the weeks and she needs a the exact day to roll the week over. And all of this folks means a ton because she’ll probably deliver a week, maybe more earlier and we have no idea when that actually is. Oh what to do!