There are about six weeks left until our child's birth day and I'm starting to put together The Hospital Bag. Our Hospital Bag is actually just the corporate-looking suitcase that is used in this household for all travel, and for which I will surely lose points with the La Leche League mother set.

 In childbirth class and in all the books they list what you should bring to the hospital with you in your "Hospital Bag". They never say "suitcase", which leads me to believe that once again I am missing the mark on something innate to all real mothers -- that a Hospital Bag is yet another pastel-colored, hundred-dollar baby thing  to be purchased from BabiesRUs.  My "Hospital Bag" does not have Winnie-the-Pooh stickers on it, it has airport sticker tags on it. Will the hospital staff peg me as a bad mother? Will they whisper about how I am surely going back to work to let my child be raised by wolves at a daycare center? Probably.  Do I care?  Perhaps if I had more energy, I might.

But that's the thing, see. I'm tired, so I care just a little less about things like this. I'm good for about 3 hours of productive energy in a day, but after that my feet start to ache, then I have to replace my contacts with my glasses, and then I really need to be put down for a nap or else everyone around me will suffer my cranky wrath.

Why does this surprise me? It certainly makes sense as to why I might be tired. I think I'm just surprised when it interferes with my standard way of life. For example, last week I went to the mall to buy pajamas (matching pajamas) for The Hospital Bag. I had the entire glorious evening to shop. I left the first department store empty-handed and with every intention of cruising around the rest of the mall in search of pajamas that were not either a) floral or b) wedding-night silky/lacy or c) festooned with Garfield or Tweetie Bird.   (Why are there no solid color pajamas for women?  Some of us are actually serious people. ) I made it about 15 steps past the department store entrance and into the main mall before spotting the Man/Waiting Chair area.

Those chairslook comfy, I thought. So I sat down. Just for a minute. 

Since I was so comfortable I decided to call Sandie. Just for a minute.  I sat there for about an hour, having a lovely chat with Sandie for much of that time. Next, I called Fabulous Husband to tell him that I've lost my shopping chops (he found it difficult to hide the relief in his voice).  Then I did some people watching before getting up and going home.

I had the entire evening, yet I made it to one department store and ultimately could not fulfill my shopping mission. Do you think the hospital staff will judge me if I wear non-matching pajamas? Probably. Do I care?

If I had more energy, I might.  

Thank you, my Internet pals and real-life friends, for your concern about my recent car accident.  It's nice to know that people care about you and your little baby, even when they have never met you in person. I love my blogfriends. You are lovely people.

I'm blogging this evening to confess my secret crushes on Eminem, 50 Cent, and Pat Riley,

You know how when you're 8 months pregnant and you're driving to work and you're stopped at a stop sign sipping your coffee and some enormous car SLAMS INTO THE BACK OF YOUR CAR? 

Oh, you don't? 

Oh, ok.

Well, let's talk about what happens.

The first thing that happens is that your coffee spills all over your face and all over the ceiling of your car. Next, you feel every inch of a brand-new headache creeping from the back of your neck to the front of your head.  As you realize what just happened to you, you think: Hey, my belly just hit the steering wheel. Then you begin to think, like an endless tape loop, my unborn child my unborn child my unborn child...

But even as you think about your unborn child - and you will consciously think about nothing else until you get to the hospital to later learn that all is fine -- you will subconsciously notice other things.  You won't remember those things until later, when you and your husband and your unborn child are home safe and warm, and you begin blogging. 

Here are some of the other things you notice:

First, it's clear that just like in the flight attendant industry, there appear to be some physical requirements for getting a job at my local fire department, police station, or ambulance--- um, ambulance house (?), because everyone who arrived at the scene was sporting some variation of this fashion theme. 
 
Now, when they place you in an ambulance -- and I will admit this only to you, you my closest friends from the global Internet --  you WILL note the strain in the faces of the ambulance men as they lift the stretcher to load you into the ambulance.  And you will want, with every fiber of your being, to say the following to these men:  Heh-heh, yeah, it's because I'm so pregnant. Normally you wouldn't be straining at all.  It's funny because you get to lift me on a day when I am really pregnant, and not on,  like, a normal day for me which would be like lifting, you know, a normal sized person.

Once you're inside the ambulance, you notice that the inside of an ambulance is remarkably shiny.  It's all red and chrome, like the inside of a teeny, tiny firehouse. (Who knew?) Another thing you'll notice is how freaky it is to be lying on a rolling stretcher in a vehicle not knowing whether the men have actually strapped the rolly legs to the ambulance floor, or whether you're going to go flying back out the way you came in when the ambulance takes off.  Another interesting fact:  the ambulance does not take off for urgent care immediately.  The ambulance waits until the ambulance people take your blood pressure & heart rate, and then it takes off for the hospital.  It is so NOT anything like the speedy 1-Adam-12 television scenes you may remember.  And when you are concerned about the vital signs of your UNBORN CHILD, all you can think about is how much freaking faster you would have been able to drive your own damn self to the hospital. 

Another thing to note is that in my town it would appear that the ambulance men probably don't treat pregnant women very often, because if they did they would know that the only thing we care about is hearing the heartbeat of our unborn child.  As I'm lying in the non-moving ambulance getting my bloodpressure taken I casually mentioned to the blood pressure man how wouldn't it would be a good idea to find the heart beat of my unborn child while we are all in here fishing around for vital signs?  The blood pressure man casually agrees.  He takes his stethoscope and proceeds to place it timidly just below my right breast for about 2 seconds. Finding nothing (of course) he moves it just underneath my left breast. Again finding nothing, he moves it directly next to my belly button for about 2 seconds. 

I am sweating now, trying to be a good ambulance patient; trying to restrain myself from being woman that I really am which is THE KIND OF WOMAN WHO MUST TAKE OVER THIS ACTIVITY IMMEDIATELY. 

But I have to take over. I have to.  I have to, because even with the dolphin-sonar-sensitive machine that my obstetrician uses to locate to the baby's heartbeat, it generally takes her some time to do so and furthermore she usually locates it way below my belly button. So I stop thinking about polite ways in which to inform ambulance man that no matter what he has heard about babies needing milk that the baby has not, in fact, pitched fetal camp underneath my breasts and instead I just take the end of the stethoscope out of his hand and place it down where it should be.  And believe me it's all I can do not to grab the ear-thingers off his head and listen for the heartbeat myself, but instead of ripping the earphones off his head  -- I stopped myself there, determined not to become his dinner party anecdote -- I implored him with my eyes to listen hard.  After a while he takes the ear-thingers off his head, claiming that he is "pretty sure" he can hear something, and I am pretty sure he is lying. 

At this stage I really want to yell up to the front of the ambulance "HEE-YAH! HEE-YAH!" and make a whip-cracking sound, like, maybe with my teeth or something but again, I restrain my instincts because I need for them to take me to a place where a white-coated expert will listen for the heartbeat of my unborn child instead of taking me to the nearest mental institution. 

So a couple of other things you notice include the fact that you need to be dripping large pools of blood in order to be looked at within 30 minutes of arriving at the emergency room.  Even stroking a pregnant belly does not speed things along, like it might if you were waiting in line to use a public bathroom (Note: I have not done that. Not yet.).  And everyone who sees you will ask your age. If you are like me and can never remember exactly how old you are, any pause in your response causes them to immediately reach forward, touch your arm, and ask if you feel dizzy or light- headed. (Note: a good response at this point is not Wait - for Godsakes I'm doing math without a pencil!).

That's all I've got for now.  Stay tuned for more suburban observations, as we report our findings from today's attendance at a Childbirth Education Class given from deep within the liberal heart of Massachusetts.