The Daddy Diary 2: Outtakes and Deleted Scenes

You Had One Job – Don’t Lose the Baby

In the childbirth story, it turns out the father has an insignificant role even though they let you wear scrubs. The bulk of my responsibility was completed about 40 weeks ago. In the hospital’s eyes, I had less responsibility than the attendant at the automated toll booth. If the barrier arm won’t go up, at least that guy can make a phone call. The hospital wouldn’t even trust me with that responsibility. I know that for a fact because our admissions paperwork listed the following emergency contacts for Audrey:

Emergency contact 1 – Sarah Michelle Hunt (Mother)

Emergency contact 2 – Michelle Hunt (Parent)

If something goes wrong for God’s sake, don’t call the father, just call the mother twice and leave a message.

Due to the complexity of our situation, they reluctantly allowed me to participate. My job – don’t lose the baby. Since they don’t deliver babies at Children’s Medical Center (not sure why that surprised me, but it did), we had to transport Audrey by ambulance after she was born. Michelle was still in recovery, so I had to go with Audrey to Children’s. They gave me the option of riding in the ambulance, but the transport team told me it would take about 2 hours to get her set up after they arrived, and I couldn’t be in the room. They said it would be best for me to get some sleep and meet them at the hospital. I was tempted to ride along because I’ve never been in an ambulance and wanted to see what it’s like to legally blow through red lights, but the prospect of getting a solid 27 minutes of sleep was too appealing. For those wondering, all-nighters suck when you are 47 years old.

So when I arrived at Children’s at 7:00 am, I went to check in and said: “I’m here to see my daughter, Audrey Hunt.”

“I’m sorry, sir. There’s no patient here with that name.” said the front desk clerk.

“Wait. What?” “Audrey Hunt. She’s impossible to miss, a cute little baby dragging the IBM 7090 mainframe computer behind her.”

“I’m sorry. We don’t have that name in our registry.”

Breath gone.

I had one simple job and screwed it up.

Was I supposed to give this lady a tracking number? Was I supposed to get a claim ticket from the ambulance driver? I electronically signed the consent paperwork on a tablet, so I never got a receipt for my daughter. Did I beat them to the hospital? I assumed the ambulance driver knew how to get here, but I didn’t bother to ask.

After about 10 minutes (and calling an orderly to mop my nervous sweat off the floor) the registry attendant found the problem and saved my life. As anybody who has come to visit us knows, the hospital decided to list Audrey as “Girl Sarah Hunt.” I assume they did that because she’s so cute they wanted to keep the paparazzi away. I hope and pray that’s not what is listed on her birth certificate. That sounds like the ultimate parent give up. Plus, I think it takes 2/3 majority of the Texas and U.S. Senate to get that corrected.