The punchline first, since this isn’t a murder mystery: Kathryn Elizabeth “Liza” Granade was born today at 12:19 P.M. She weighed 7 lbs. 7 oz., and was 19.5″ long. She scored an 8.9 on the Apgar scale.

Getting to that point, now…. We went to the hospital at 1:30 A.M. By 3 A.M. Misty was in active labor. By 8 A.M. she’d stalled — she had contractions but no progress. Two hours later the pain had gotten bad enough that she went from no drugs to in-IV drugs. An hour later she was on a full epidural plus pitocin. Still nothing.

By noon we were worried. Then Liza’s heartbeat dropped and would not come back up. Our doctor walked into our room, looked at the monitors, checked Misty for non-existent progress, and said, “I’m sorry we have to do this, but we’ve got to get that baby out right now, and that means a c-section. We’re taking her now.”

If I didn’t know how dire things were from what she said, her actions told me. She had Misty disconnected from the monitors and her bed moving in two minutes. Our nurse was on her portable hospital phone calling the c-section team. We flew down the hall, our doula and I trying our best to keep up. A minute later Misty was in the operating room, and they determined that they needed to put her to sleep. That meant I stood outside in the hall in a mask and gown I no longer needed and fretted.

Ten minutes later they wheeled Liza out to me.

That was, bar none, the most frightening thing I had ever experienced. If our doula hadn’t been there, I’d have gone insane. She had the time to explain what was going on. The doctors and nurses were too busy saving Liza and Misty both.

Everyone’s resting now, thank goodness. More later as the situation warrants.

We’ve reached the magical point of 5-1-1. That’s the point where Misty’s contractions occur every five minutes and last for a minute, and have done so for at least an hour. We’re off to the hospital, where with any luck we’ll have ourselves a brand new Liza. We told the dealer we wanted the sleeps-through-the-night and colic-free options. The only way we could get those was in a package that included undercoat rust-proofing, but what the hey, you only have a baby once, or perhaps twice, or five to ten times depending on your preferences and choice of birth control.

Wish us luck!

My contractions are now 8 minutes apart and much more intense. I think I might actually have this baby sometime this week. We’ll post here when we leave for the hospital.

Still in labor. Contractions still roughly 10 minutes apart. I did manage to take a nap but the contractions woke me up. Who said this laboring at home was a good idea anyway?

My mom is headed back to Huntsville.

I might make it to the hospital sometime today, maybe.

Also, I’m out of laundry to do.

I woke up this morning at about 4 with some vague achy feelings and couldn’t go back to sleep really well. I got up about 6 and took a shower. So, um, yeah, I’m having contractions again. They’re about 10 minutes apart. My doula says we will go when they are five minutes apart.

In the meantime, I’m doing some laundry (sheets must be washed!) and reading Craft: Transforming Traditional Crafts that I picked up in a hormone-induced dream yesterday that told me I would have time to read in the hospital. Or at the very least, I needed something really interesting to flip pages of while there.

I cannot put it down! Amy, there’s a beautiful knitted kimono for you. Jessica, there’s about three-four crochet projects for you. Ashley, there’s a crafty make a wi-fi stuffed animal that we are so gonna make for the girls. I’m thinking of getting the very expensive subscription because I’m already addicted to this particular brand of craft crack.

Oops, another contraction. Gotta go rotate the laundry.

I’ve been thinking about racism and diversity lately, especially in the context of speculative fiction. SF has a long and storied tradition of diversity through a monoculture of whiteness. By and large you have white males writing for an audience of white males, and at this point some of the associated attitudes are all but encoded in the community’s DNA. You’ve got Tolkien with his Easterlings and Southrons, which was echoed by a number of writers such as David Eddings. You’ve got Harlan Ellison groping Connie Willis at the Hugo award ceremony. In more recent events you’ve got conversations about diversity within the SFWA, the professional organization for writers of speculative fiction, quickly reaching the “I think Fred and Jim are black” level of discourse. Then there’s the column by Dave Truesdale that led to an even crazier discussion.

In light of all of this, The Angry Black Woman discussed diversity in fiction markets, specifically speculative fiction, and how to improve it.

In both instances, two editors who differ in age, experience, and probably ethnic or religious background said nearly exactly the same thing to me. To wit: ” I didn’t know (or care) if [the people who submitted to my markets] were black, white, purple, or polka-dot” (Resnick) or “I don’t choose stories based on race or culture or gender, I just choose the best stories” (an editor friend).

I really, really hate this excuse – for several reasons. The first of which is that it gives the appearance of being reasonable, thereby shutting down further discussion or debate. In writing, only the story should matter, not the writer! It also assumes that the submission pile represents an adequate and accurate cross-section of writers and stories. Therefore, by picking the best, the editor is automatically being fair.

The appearance of fairness, though, is false. That’s not readily apparent. Thus, anyone who disagrees seems, to the casual listener, unreasonable and strident.

I submit that I am neither unreasonable nor strident (at the moment). I hope that means people will hear me out.

Go read the whole thing. I mean it. She discusses why saying “I’m color-blind” or “I’m publishing the best stories I get” don’t cut it.

What all of this drives home to me is that I continue to benefit from the privilege of my heritage. I am a straight white Christian male. The way American society is structured works to my benefit. I’m not earning seventy-seven cents instead of a dollar due to my gender. The police aren’t as likely to search me if they pull me over.

Oftentimes in these discussions, someone says, “I’m not privileged! If I were, I’d be a lot better off!” I’ve been guilty of thinking that myself. I was wrong. My privilege shows up in surprising ways. Take today’s NPR report on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Minority Health announcing two initiatives to increase the number of minorities in clinical trials. Minorities are extremely underrepresented in trials. To take one example, in clinical cancer trials between January 2003 and June 2005, 88.8 percent of those enrolled were whites. That’s crucial because clinical trials lead to new medicines and treatments. We’re in a situation where any differences among groups due to race, differences that could lead to ineffective treatments and death, won’t be found.

Now tell me that I’m not privileged. Even medicine is designed with me in mind.

I had a doctor’s appointment this morning and I was hoping, hoping that when she saw me she would just send me on the the hospital. Wishful thinking on my part! The baby has dropped down some more which is a good sign but I haven’t made any significant progress in either effacement or dilation. My doula seems to think that once I do start, I will be immediately into active labor. So potentially that part will go more quickly. My doctor said she could go ahead and induce me but that if I didn’t want an epidural, then pitocin at this point was “cruel and unusual” punishment. So we are down to waiting.

My mom is packing up to go home now. Stephen has gone on to work today after taking Thursday and Friday off last week. Somehow I feel as if I’ve missed the prom or something.

When I left the doctor’s office she made me another appointment for next week. May 14. Three days after my due date. I really hope that I don’t have to keep that one…

Next Friday is 40 weeks. I’ve been uncomfortable this past week and today I think I edged over into the completely miserable. The muscles in my belly actually hurt they are so stretched out. I’m sure that I felt this way with Eli at the end, but I don’t remember it. Also, I delivered Eli at 39 weeks and I am now past that point with this baby.

Overall, I’ve felt pretty good. Yes, I did a lot of yacking at the beginning (and part of the middle) but that’s all forgotten in the light of feeling good and the baby moving and trying to get so many things done. This past week, I really thought we were going to go on to the hospital and deliver, but no luck. Now I’m just getting aggravated with the whole still being pregnant thing.

I know she will be here soon and I am looking forward to not being pregnant anymore although looking toward being awake every three hours still isn’t looking like fun. That part will be over soon just like this part. And I know the baby will be interesting to me once she gets here. Several people have told me that I won’t necessarily bond with this one as quickly as the first, since I’m dealing with two instead of just the one. I don’t feel like I really bonded with Eli until about six months anyway so that part doesn’t matter to me so much.

When Eli was very small Stephen and I developed our own made-up mantra of “Whatever is going on this week, won’t necessarily be happening next week.” It was a way to keep the changes in perspective, even when they were going fairly quickly. (We were sleep deprived so it never felt very quick.) I think I have to start reminding myself of that now. Again. A lot.

Episode 7 of WhatTheCast, the pretty geeky podcast I participate in, is up. You can hear what I sounded like in the innocent days before LOLTrek. Patrick and I argue about whether Fox was right to kill off the show Drive (he says no, while I say yes), we make fun of the US Navy for naming some of their ships after the herpes simplex virus, Sony pretends to sacrifice a goat for the game God of War II instead of for the PS3 like they should have, and Patrick makes fun of the movie The Condemned. I do not use the phrase “doin’ it panda style” in this episode, though given recent events perhaps I should have.

Mika: Grace Kelly (2007)

Yes, yes, Mika doesn’t like the comparisons to Queen. Perhaps if you sang fewer lyrics like “I tried a little Freddy” and used your clear falsetto less. Anyway, the video is fun in a goofy kind of way, though I don’t know what’s up with the women bringing over cakes.

McFly: Transylvania (2007)Aah! Scary floating Queen-like heads! Actually, come to think of it, aping silent films will give you the chance for the kind of histrionic over-acting that goes well with the Queen vibe. My main complaint is that the video uses some of the tropes of silent films — dialogue cards, women tied to train tracks, flickering light — but then undermines the conceit by showing the band singing.

And for all of you wondering: day three. Still not a new dad.