The Best Laid Plans…

So, after Rabbit was born I may have hinted at a crazy-ass story regarding his birth. I am not sure how crazy-ass (word of the day) it is in the grander scheme of the universe, but things definitely did not quite go as planned…

It all started out pretty much as expected. Around 11:00 in the morning K started to get the feeling that things were changing. She’d been having sporadic contractions for a couple of weeks, but these had a different quality to them. Nothing big was happening, so we decided to just go on with our day and keep an eye on things…

By about 3:00 we were pretty sure Rabbit was getting ready to come out, but it still seemed a bit early to go; home is much comfier than the hospital, especially since the hospital our OB/GYN delivers at doesn’t even have a gift shop for chocolate gathering. But by 5:00 we were on our way.

When we got to the hospital everything checked out fine, but things just didn’t progress the way they wanted them to. Over the next three hours things definitely changed, but the data didn’t add up to anything imminent so they sent us home. We weren’t too keen on the idea, but had no choice.

By the time we got home the contractions were stronger, but still not of the type the docs wanted. So, K had a nice long bath and we talked and worked through the increasing contractions. After about an hour it was time to go to the hospital even though the contractions were still not the length the docs wanted. So, out of the tub K got, and then everything decided to take a left turn.

All in one swoop her water broke and Rabbit was crowning; K was literally holding him in. So, 911 was called, K was carefully transitioned to our bed, and the narrow thoughts began. Luckily we have a hospital five minutes away (not the one we were scheduled to deliver at) and the ambulance arrived lickety-split. Rapid ride to the hospital, race through the ER, and up to delivery. Rabbit held off just barely long enough to be delivered by a doc in a delivery room, but just barely. The fact that he was not delivered in our bed (or the bathroom floor) is purely a testament to K’s remarkable will power. And speaking of K she was amazing (and still is of course); this was obviously not the plan, but she remained calm and mighty and extraordinary.

Know what else is amazing? Bee slept through the whole thing. Four paramedics came clomping up the stairs to our bedroom; there may have been a bit of anxious yelling at one point. No one even gave a thought to being quiet, and Bee just snoozed away in the next room over.

In the end all obviously turned out well, but K and I periodically look at each other, almost as though we are reading the other’s mind, and say, “Well, that was weird.” But for a while you might not want to get me started on the practice of medicine right now. In this case the “data” trumped K’s actual body. It was much like my experience of trying to find a diagnosis for what was my mystery ailment, not that Rabbit was an ailment. We have collectively narrowed the idea of data down to a point where the actual experiences of the human body are no longer really regarded as information. I am all for data, but we need to have an inclusive model for information, one that allows careful discrimination even as it maintains a goal of expansive understanding. (Hey that sounds a lot like my approach to art).

But I digress; I do not want to turn this into a rant on information theory. Everyone is well and happy; the process worked out. But dear goodness that was a crazy-ass ride. And it all earned Rabbit a new nickname: Precipitous Boy.

Yay Precipitous Boy!!!

-t

PS. So, all you guilds and shops out there, you totally need to invite me to come talk or do a trunk show or a workshop because now we have to figure out how to pay for that emergency ambulance ride and whatever new processes of billing that will occur because we deviated from accepted pre-approval processes or whatnot. Oh Precipitous Boy…