They Didn’t Show This on The Cosby Show

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By the time we reach the first episode of The Cosby Show, Clair Huxtable had already earned her law degree, joined a successful practice, and had four children.  Since I learned nearly everything I know about how to raise a big family from Clair & Heathcliff Huxtable (read Donald Miller’s "To Own a Dragon), I wasn’t quite prepared for our major emergency this morning.

At about 2:30AM, I had to take my pregnant wife to the emergency room.  She was bleeding in a major way.  Our three kids were asleep.  What do you do?  Wake ‘em all up and take the crew with you?  Call friends that live in the burbs and have them come over?  Do you wait for them to get there?  Do you call an ambulance?  I ignorantly even thought of leaving the kids in bed alone while I ran wifey to the doctor.

We ended up asking a life-saving neighbor (thanks Eric) to come over and sleep on our couch while Rai and I booked it to the emergency room.  Once there, we were shocked at how long it took to receive medical attention.  It was nearly 5AM by the time we saw a doctor.  After a painful exam, the doctor determined that Rai had indeed had a miscarriage, but ordered an ultrasound just to follow up on his exam.

For nearly two more exhausting hours we chatted and prepared how we would tell our children that we wouldn’t be having a baby after all.  Finally during the ultra-sound, the ultrasound tech showed us, clear as day on the monitor, our stubbornly fearless two inch long baby…regular heartbeat and all.  Needless to say, I halfway felt like punching the inaccurate doctor in the nose (since you don’t get refunds on doctors visits) for adding a few loops to our emotional roller coaster.

By this time, I had to rush home and leave my wife at the hospital to relieve the neighbor so he could go to work.  Since our gate remotes to our neighborhood have not been working for several days, I then had to park a 1/4 mile away from our house, scale a sharp-top fence like Jack Bauer (at least that is how I imagined myself in my head) and walk the rest of the way to my house. 

About two hours later I woke the kids up to go pick up my wife (we made the long walk to our car).  They have ordered very strict bedrest and close observation at least for the next week.  Things are obviously very fragile, but we are a close-knit couple and family – we’ll make it. 

Thanks for all of your prayers….we need ‘em.  Since you feel really bad for us now, it would really help my wife (not) if you bought me and Gary some front row seats to the upcoming UFC 88 in Atlanta! Just kidding…I think!