The clock is ticking...

Steven: It's 7pm (Central) and Kofi just went down, not quite as easily as always (his clock is a little off, I'm afraid). Rob has gone to work-out and I am sitting in the livingroom trying to stave off the anxiety that comes with expectant parenthood. Marcus called just now: he and LeSahre have left for the hospital.

Rob and I visited the hospital earlier today to drop off some gifts for LeSahre including a very sweet picture of all of us at dinner last night (Red Lobster: a chain restaurant, yes, but quite delicious. Or, delicioso as Kofi likes to say. Well, mostly he just says "-so" when I feed him the root "delicio-" or "genero-" or, my favorite, "carinos-" which means kind or tender or affectionate). The nurses on Labor and Delivery were very friendly and thought Kofi was cute and precocious and seemed excited to meet us. But when I asked if it would be OK if we brought Kofi with us tonight, they made it clear that the "policy" was that only children related to the laboring woman could come in. OK, not a crazy policy, but like all policies it was not written with the idea of two gay men from Boston coming down with their child to adopt a second baby. But, for some people, alas, it is easier to follow policy than figure out a way to do the right thing.

So what this means is that when we come to the hospital tonight, only one of us will be able to be with LeSahre at a time, for the other will have to stay with Kofi. And ditto for when after the baby is born: we won't be able to be with the baby together while he's at the hospital. Even the charge nurse realized that this was ridiculous and thought we could work around it on the post-partum floor.

Rob, of course, is taking this in stride and saying we can't let this ruin our experience. I, on the other hand, the son of A. Ralston of Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BA (which is how he signs all his op-ed pieces) am in high dudgeon and have already composed in my mind the letter I'm going to write to the CEO of the hospital about this family unfriendly, anti-adoption, and homophobic policy.

Thank G-d for Rob, though, and his ability to show me the error of my ways and to dissuade me from allowing my anger to taint what we hope will be a glorious night. So we're going to schlep a pack-n-play to the hospital later tonight so maybe Kofi will sleep a bit and camp out there waiting for the baby to be born.

I'm hoping for August 4th: it's Calvin's birthday.