my 3rd

My 3rd daughter was born 8th march 2010 and I am super duper happy. My MIL was not here to there was a lot of tension but it all worked out. Here is how things progressed:
Monday 8th march
7 am : wife thinks it is time
8 am : timing of contractions is confusing.
Now everyone who we met had warned us that 3rd babies take very little time to come. So we were a little worried. 6.5 years ago, we had taken a birth preparation class and they had told us something about babies being born in a car. I did not want to remember this and wanted to get to the hospital.
Our hospital was El Camino hospital in mountain view and we had to go from start to end of freeway 237. I told Santoshi that we should not leave between 9am and 10am. Carpool ends at 9am and the traffic is a mess.

Well, after 8 the contractions started increasing. Urvi was awake and Anvi was still sleeping. By 8.30 all awake, and we tried to call Sandhya .. hmm.. answering machine... what luck. We needed to drop the kids. We knew that kids would be comfortable at Sandhya's.
Phone rang back and Sandhya had not left for office.. good. She would be the lucky one to take care of the kids. :-). She was most graceful in accepting the responsibility and I will remember this forever.
By the time we packed and left it was 9.15. Traffic was a mess and took 20 mins to reach her place. Girls were happy with their maushi. Left the carseats for her and by the time we reached the hospital it was 10.15 nish

We called up Santoshi's mom on way to the hospital. She was packing to leave for US (from India_. Nice. She had got her Visa at 6pm the same day - got an e-ticket immediately and was going to fly 8 hrs later. As it takes 24 hrs to travel, she would be the last family member to get the news of my 3rd.

Dropped Santoshi at the entrance of the hospital and searched for parking. Place was packed. Were there so many babies in the making? or were so many people sick? I donno.

Parked in YMCA parking lot as after 5 min of searching for parking I really did not care. It felt more like 30 mins of searching for parking.

Well, we had not pre-registered at the hospital.. and need to show id/insurance etc and we were set.
Hospitals in US are nice about these things. No trouble in getting in. Dont know if they immediately called up insurance or ran a credit check on me as I turned my back on the registration office.

10.34 was when we got in the L&D room. Nurse checked Santoshi and gave the green light to be admitted. Today was the day.

12.30, nurse says that labor progress is good.

2.30, she says the same thing.

What happened? 3rd ones are supposed to come fast.

So when it finally happened - it was fast. Time was just after 4pm and it reminded me of Urvi and Anvi. Newborn Neya looked just like them and if not more I was equally happy.

economy stimulus - goverment stuck in time?

I think the US government is getting sidetracked. With the stimulus money, the government plans to build roads, construct high speed rail lines.. etc etc.

This is a losing proposition. I am not sure these are the jobs and this is where money should be spent. This was good in previous depressions. Times have changed.

The *thinking leaders* in power need to come to terms with what is needed after another 30 years. I believe infrastructure investment should be done - but the infrastructure in question has changed. The infrastructure in question now can be related to
* security infrastructure
* broadband access
* basic sciences
* health infrastructure
* medical technologies
etc.

Why construct more roads? Make WFH a reality for more folks!