March 6, 2002
Overdue baby spoils waiting game fun
By GARRET LEIVA
Herald editor
You can turn up your nose to overdue milk, turn a blind eye to late library books and not get hung up about tardy phone bills. However, no one can ignore a past due baby, least of all its parents.
Sadly, the shortest month of the year came and went and our baby stayed put. Truth be told, we didn't expect to still be expecting parents with the Ides of March fast approaching. After waiting so long, I'm seriously considering naming the kid Godot.
To be brutally honest, I'd rather not be writing another column on our impending birth (by the way, this one is way past deadline, too). For weeks, I've been poised to wax poetic on the arrival of our first born. Instead, I'm inserting Samuel Beckett references when I should be cutting the umbilical cord.
In fact, the waiting game has reached the point that my wife's co-workers have dispensed with the witty "you're still here?" morning greetings. At my job, people are also disappointed when I walk in the door, and some of them don't even know about the baby. Same goes for phone calls, family and friends faintly disguise their disheartenment when you pick up instead of the answering machine. After almost 42 weeks of waiting, it's hard to still sit on the edge of your seat, which might explain why my dad was asleep in his Lazy-Boy when I called the other night.
Despite weeks of anxiously waiting, we are still trying to let nature run its course. Unfortunately, nature seems content with keeping things at a light jog. In order to expedite the labor process, we've driven over a plethora of potholes and bumpy dirt roads. Winter storms have raged and full moons risen, but still no baby.
All of which brings me to one conclusion: this child has total disregard for deadlines - thanks to their journalist dad's genetics.
Of course, all this waiting is merely preparing us for life in the childhood space-time continuum. After all, a child's concept of waiting is the minuscule pause for breath between each "pleeeeaaasssseeee!" Life from here on out will be full of waiting - for the next dirty diaper, the first word, small steps, how to use the bathroom, the afternoon school bus, report cards, puberty hormones, for someone to get out of the bathroom and off the phone, hell to freeze over before handing over the car keys, graduation day, the last load of dirty college dorm room clothes.
Strange as it sounds, I can't wait another day.
Unlike the milk sniff test or post dating the check for the phone bill, the only solution for a reluctant overdue baby is induction. If running over potholes between today and tomorrow won't burst the bag of waters, our midwife will Friday morning.
While it seems doubtful now, in less than two days we will no longer be expectant parents. Of course after waiting 42 weeks, the first thing we will try to do is hold back the hands of time once we take hold of those tiny fingers.
Grand Traverse Herald editor Garret Leiva can be reached by calling 933-1416 or e-mail gleiva@gtherald.com