Surprise! My husband's delivering the baby this time

I had my Level 10,000 Super Duper Mega Ultrasound this week. I had to go to the Pukon Schmelth Schmenter (name changed to protect identity but go on and click that link!) to have it because Mulletville Hospital doesn't own its own machine. 

If you've never been to the Pukon Schmelth Schmenter it looks like a beehive-esque stone prison on a hill. The Pregnancy Office staff, kept underground in a musty basement, are delightful, except for the Evil Pregnancy Doctor, who sighs heavily throughout the ultrasound and doesn't speak, leaving you to believe he has spotted every abnormality known to man on your unsuspecting fetus. 

He's no better post-ultrasound, when he plops down on his chair and, without any emotion whatsoever, recites a litany of birth defect/geriatric mother statistics that leave you in a ball of tears. Thankfully one of those sweet nurses swoops in afterward to let you know that everything looks just fine. 

Chuck, Everett and I were listening to the nice nurse when Chuck started sweating, holding his side and pacing the room.

"Is everything okay?" I asked him.

"I think I...need to check....myself into...the ER. Kidney...stone."

"Oh dear," the nice nurse said.

And just like that he was gone.

When we went upstairs to locate Chuck he was nowhere to be seen. Thankfully the sound of his vomiting led me right to him! He was standing in a parking lot off the ER, knees buckling from pain. He'd already registered but because he wasn't standing IN the ER (he didn't want to vomit on anyone), they wouldn't treat him.

So Chuck would come in and wait to be seen, but no doctor would come. So he'd go back outside to puke, the little angry man at the desk would yell "Have him come inside!", Chuck would, and so on. It was a 3-ring circus.

Finally—finally!— he was whisked away to a hospital bed in the hallway (next to a deranged man in a cast who sang "To see your doctor, call 9-1-1! To see your doctor, call 9-1-1! To see your doctor, call 9-1-1! To see your doctor, call 9-1-1!" nonstop) and a mere hour later received some pain medication.

Everett and I stayed with him for the next four hours, until the doctor released him because there was nothing more they could do for him. And now, three days later, he's recovering at Mulletville Hospital from a ureteroscopy.

For crap's sake I feel like Chuck gave birth. I see Chuck hunched over and moaning, as if he were in labor. I remember the questions about the kidney stone—"How big? How long until it drops?"—and they sound like labor questions. I wonder, will he come home with the 6 mm stone wrapped in a soft blanket?

What should we name it?

Most of all I am struck by the timing. It was supposed to be my ultrasound—my day at the doctor's. Six years ago in a post I wrote, "His organs keeps trumping me" and by God, he's still doing it. What's going to happen when we're 90? When I fall and break my hip? Will he spontaneously go into cardiac arrest the minute my elderly bone hits the floor?

Yes, yes, he will! The sneaky bastard will! But hey, we'll have three children to watch over us at that point (knock on wood). Two boys and a...

Shoot! Gotta run! Chuck's calling.

(P.S. Don't ever go to Pukon Schmelth Schmenter. It's hell on earth.)