I wrote this on the train on Thursday, but didn’t get to post it then. It’s Part I of the delivery story.

I spent most of the early afternoon Tuesday making travel arrangements.

First, my mother was due to arrive at the airport at 6:00, and I had to find some way to get her to our house. Normally I would just drive down and get her, but the floods had shut down one of the major routes, forcing all the traffic onto the highways—five hours round-trip. The guy who usually drives me for business trips agreed to do it, but then she was delayed, then rescheduled, then rescheduled again, so I had to spend a lot of time on the phone.

I was also scheduled to go to New York at the end of the week, so I had to figure out the train and find a hotel. The whole city was sold out (due, apparently, to the Stationery Convention—that’s going to be a wild time). That gave me a good excuse to book something much pricier than usual, at a cost that didn’t seem to faze my clients at all. I also booked a ticket for the New York City ballet on Thursday night. It’s one of the few perks of business travel; since you’re out anyway, you might as well do some fun grown-up stuff.

Since my mother was going to be there for the weekend, and some friends were getting together in Boston on Saturday, I impulsively decided to book a hotel room for Husband and me downtown. I had enough points in the Marriott account I didn’t even know was there to get yet another overpriced room.

Then the phone rang. I glanced at caller ID, wondering which one of my to-do list tasks was finally returning my call. The bank, about the loan to refinish the attic? The contractor, finally giving us a start date? The furniture people, who were three weeks late delivering the dressers for the nursery?

It was our social worker. I knew it was the call. They don’t call people during the referral-to-travel interval unless it’s good news, because it’s too crushing otherwise. “I have good news!” she chirped. “Your son is coming home on Friday. I don’t know the flight details yet, but I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I do.”

I spent most of the late afternoon Tuesday changing travel arrangements.

I moved the New York trip up a day, so I’d be back in time to get to the airport. (Ladies who do it the old-fashioned way: when you tell someone you’re being induced on Friday, do they say, “Great! Well, if you hurry you can make it to New York and back before the birth”?) I rescheduled the train ticket, and thought about canceling the second night in the New York hotel, but I must have lost momentum there, as I found out later. I called the Boston friends to cancel dinner; I canceled the Boston hotel and, miraculously, got my points back. I spent a few minutes on the New York City Ballet web site trying to figure out how I might change the ticket.

Then, I stopped and took a few ujjayi breaths and tried to achieve some measure of inner calm. It was then and only then I could hear my subconscious screaming OH MY GOD WE’RE HAVING ANOTHER BABY.

Like, oh my God! Another baby!

Sometimes my subconscious sounds like a Valley Girl, circa 1982.

So. Here I am in New York, while Husband and Aitch and my mother are at home, getting ready for the baby. It’s actually been a great trip, even though I overslept and had only an hour and ten minutes to shower, pack, and drive 60 miles to the train station. After that, though, everything went smoothly. The hotel graciously allowed me to cancel the extra night after I told them I was suddenly having a baby; this explanation also worked on the New York City Ballet, who not only exchanged my ticket but gave me a very good seat for Wednesday night. (Excitement is contagious. The next time I want some customer service person someone to help me out, instead of giving them a sob story I’m going to tell them that something wonderful—an Oscar nomination, a MacArthur grant, a lottery win—is the reason I need to exchange merchandise without a receipt/upgrade to first class without enough points/get a lower interest rate on my credit card.)

It has been very stimulating, rushing from midtown to the Village to Lincoln Center in a taxi, watching all the people rush around me, and thinking, this is not the most exciting thing I’ll be doing this week.