What did you think of CPMC?

You mean aside from not wanting to be there?  My first impression was that it's a slightly run-down facility that it staffed with some really top notch people.  The first half of that impression was developed instantly.  The second half also didn't take much time.

I arrived in Room 206 at 2:06 or so.  Mom called to say that Ginger was just being put into the ambulance now.  Wha?!?  Well, apparently these things take time to accomplish.  Wish I'd known that; I spent the entire drive from San Mateo thinking that I was going to be passed on the freeway by a barreling ambulance with its lights flashing.  When that didn't happen, I expected I would be passed on 19th Avenue by two kids entering the world in a sudden moving rush of blood and amniotic fluid.  I also learned that the "90% effaced" estimate was being modified to 75%.  That gave me hope that we could see this through and get the contractions to stop.  Maybe Ginger would spend a day or two, promise to be a good girl about bedrest, and we could go home.

I paced the hall for forty minutes.  Ginger was wheeled in at 2:45.  Not exactly the fastest ambulance ride in history.  But the important thing was that Ginger was not crying, and neither was anyone else at that point.

They got her set up in the bed and hooked up to the all-too-familiar monitors.  As usual, the fetal heart rates were perfect -- 125 to 140, always in the sweet spot, never in stress.  The contractions were still regular.  The perinatologist told us that with her contractions and dilation, the best we could hope for was getting through to morning, but that it was very important that we make it to morning.