Damn It, Jim... I'm a Doctor, Not a Daddy!

This grainy photo was taken during our tour of the hospital where the twins will be born.

It’s a bit grainy and feels like an espionage photo, but it’s actually the NICU for Rose Medical Center.

Very state of the art, and resembles the sick bay on Star Trek. I did a ”Damn it, Jim” quote when the nurse showed us the ward, which was met with a blank stare.

Nurses just don't appreciate quality pop culture humor.

I also learned that the days of large nurseries with 75-100 incubators/bassinets, a baby in each one, are long gone.

“Please, Mr. Barron. This is the 21st Century.”

Today, the newborns stay in your high tech room with the mother and the father (although the dad has to sleep on the couch that pulls out in semi-comfy bed).

And that’s great.

Much better than the other way.

Still, I had this vision…

Me, the proud poppa of sleeping twins in the same incubator/bassinet. Family, strangers and hospital patients alike all gathered around me at one end of the nursery, recognizing the perfectness of the twins.

The nurse, wearing her pristine white uniform with a matching starched, tri-cornered hat, and her face covered by a gauzy white mask, would see me beaming towards the twins. I would says something witty about the state of television and everyone, including the nurse, would laugh.

The nurse would roll the bassinet to the window, everyone ‘ooohhhing’ and ‘aaahhhing’ at what are quite possible the cutest twins ever born, or at least that they have ever seen. Then Rob & Laura Petrie would come over to congratulate me and offer me Buddy Sorrell’s writing job on the Alan Brady Show.

Yeah.

And I’m wearing a thin-lapelled, thin-tie suit with a narrow-brimmed hat.

It’s a weird, early-‘60s vision.

But that won’t be the case. Assuming, of course, the twins don’t go to the NICU.

If they do, I’ll be waiting in the transporter room with Mr. Scott.