BUT I HAD MY BABY 29 YEARS AGO!

So, last week I had surgery to hike up some internal organs that had nosedived since the last time they were hiked up 25 years ago when I had my hysterectomy. The are now sufficiently hiked and shored up and I am assured they will stay put until I leave this earth. A minor puncture of the bladder, a ton of morphine and two nights in the hospital got the job done.

The coolest part, though, was that I was put in the "maternal care" ward. It's mostly where overflow from the birth center ends up or where they put patients who have delivered but had complications in delivery and need more care. Well, it WAS gynecological surgery so it didn't seem all that strange for me to be there, but the first day a nurse came in waving a bag and asking cheerily, "Have you received your Mercy Hospital gift bag yet?"

"What's in it?" I asked.
"Baby stuff," she said.

I laughed and told her I was 55 years old and definitely not just delivered a baby!

Later that day they had a "code pink" drill, in which they practice procedure for when babies aren't where they are supposed to be. The nurses popped in and said, "Oh, you're not supposed to have a baby. You don't, do you?"

Later a gal came in asking about baby portrait's, and when the one who wanted to tell me about the birth certificate for newborns breezed in, I told her, "My newborn teaches English at West High and she needed her birth certificate to get her passport four years ago when she got married, so I think she's covered."

I was amused.
They were embarrassed.
I guess it was more strange for me to be in the maternal care ward than I thought.