Penny's Arrival, Pt. 1: What Got the Ball Rolling

My wife is stubborn, which is to say she is both Korean and female. And the strength of her will is most clearly on display when it comes to illness and medication.

How many times have I begged, pleaded with her to just take an aspirin for her headache? A NyQuil for her cold? Just a cough drop to ease her suffering? When I try and take care of my wife in these ways, I am met with an arm stiffer than a tailback on the way to the end zone. My wife doesn't do medicine.

Which is why I was all too pleased Thursday last week when Kathy asked if she should take a laxative (sorry, a little too much information, I know, but hey, pregnant ladies get constipated). Should she? Why, of course she should! I can't remember the last time my wife willingly swallowed a pill of any kind, and here she is, coming to me, asking if she should take something for her discomfort. I could have gloated. I could have noted the day and declared it a family day of remembrance. I resisted. "If you're feeling bad," I said, "you should definitely take something."

She did.

Later that evening she asked if she should take another dose. Again, I nobly agreed (sans "I told you sos") that she should if she felt like she needed it. Thus, the total number of laxatives ingested by my wife in the past year leading up to Thursday last week? Zero. The number she took on Thursday last week? Four.

The medicine took its appropriate effect the following day. But after relief came to my lovely wife, it did not quite seem that the medicine had finished working. When she began experiencing irregular contractions on Friday, Kathy began to suspect that perhaps four laxatives in one day at 36 weeks into a pregnancy might not have been the best idea...