Then we got to wait on the internal office bench - if given a choice, NEVER choose to go back OUT to the waiting room: out of sight, out of mind, out of guilt range, out of the loop. It's much more efficient to sit there on the bench INSIDE, taking up as much space as possible, talking loudly, as various busy medico's hurry by and try to avert your longing gaze.

This strategy had us off the bench and in an examination room within five minutes, moments later our sainted doctor, who delivered our 3-year-old saw us in there and wandered in. "What are you guys doing here?" he inquired after a warm greeting. "I was just making some copies." It turned out that because there was such a disconnect between our scheduled appointment and our actual time with the ultrasound that they had kind of forgotten about us. Imagine if we had gone back out to the waiting room - we'd be there still.

He apologized profusely, discussed the perfidy of insurance companies, who got their freaking tort reform last year in Ohio but who are still reaming individual doctors to the tune of $100,000 per year for malpractice insurance - and this for a doctor with no complaints, no suits, no accidents. Like he said, "I'm the GOOD driver, and this is what they charge me. They told me I'm too popular." He may have to leave the state before our December due date, but I got the impression we and his other patients may be able to guilt him into sticking around, at least for currently scheduled deliveries.

How can a system that drives the best, most popular doctors out of state or into bankruptcy not be considered broken? Maybe the peasants who dump their load right on the cash crop, then go back to reaping and sowing have the right approach after all.

Oh, and as far as advice to expectant fathers: this is my fourth time through and I have learned through hard experience the cardinal rule - don't be an asshole.