Name Race

Things I learned at the doctor's office yesterday:
1. There are no physical signs that point to labor being anything close to imminent.
2. If this baby proves especially stubborn, then Sara will be induced Monday evening, July 12, so that she will be born on July 13. So at least we finally have a strict latest-possible date.
3. Through billions and trillions of babies being born, and unfathomable medical advances, and totally comprehensive amounts of information available to everyone involved, doctors still don't know exactly when a child will be born. Depending on how precise you define "roughly," doctors still don't even know roughly when a child will be born. After her examination yesterday, the doctor admitted to us that Sara could go into labor today or she could fail to as late as 19 days from now. That's almost a three-week window.
Given this knowledge, I'm not going to think about the imminent possibility of it happening for a while longer, until next weekend if possible. I'll keep myself up on the signs and keep thinking about what I need to do when the time comes, but the waiting part I'm stepping away from. In fact, mentally I'm preparing for the arrival to be about two weeks from now.

The naming process is very nearly finished, more or less on schedule, I guess. It's weird, but thinking about this process reminds of a horse race or something similar. At first we had all these potential names and then slowly some faded from the pace. Early on, we had a front-runner emerge, and in fact lead the pack almost the whole way around the track. As the field winnowed, a pack emerge behind the leader From time to time a candidate would depart or appear in this pack, but for the most part this was the group from which our name would come. (We're not saying what our choice is, but I feel like I can say without checking with my wife what some of the rejected choices were. I won't give up the last few still on the table, though). Stella joined the pack relatively late but her run with the leaders proved short-lived. Veda snuck in for a time but never really had enough momentum. Ophelia was one of the first to loose the leading pace, and her etymological cousin, Cordelia, would later suffer the same fate. Viola and Ruby made such brief appearances that I'm not even sure if it happened or if I'm making it up. Uliana, a decided underdog, hung in long enough to get a pat on the back for a good effort. Penelope was running very strong initially, and had a fair amount of staying power, but then faded fast. Vienna came out of nowhere midway through the race, shot right up near the front, and then just as suddenly disappeared from the field. Finally, Josephine, a forgotten participant at the start, picked up steam all along the way, climbing into the top four or five and holding steady, was just never able to fully bridge the gap as two contenders broke away from the field.
While all of this was happening, our lone leader was strolling along, challenged but comfortable in the front. A couple of late arrivals materializing in the trailing pack, initially not distinguishing themselves much but holding strong. Then as some of the second pack started falling away, it become apparent that the two latecomers were legitimate contenders, biding their time until breaking free together to chase the leader. Maybe it was the tough job of constant pacemaking, but the leader started to tire just enough that the two were able to join her at the front for a pack of three. They stayed level for some time, the initial leader perhaps possessing a slim advantage still, when the crowd started to get wrapped up in the excitement of the two newbies at the front. At some point, almost imperceptibly, the longtime leader broke stride and slowly allowed the other two to make the pass. Getting and nearer and nearer the finish line, these two have been neck and neck, one holding the lead only as long as her stride leads forward, as the longtime frontrunner holds her position a couple lengths back but far ahead of the rest of the field.
Even though I'm really a participant, I don't know which will win, but just like any other observer, I'm extremely excited to find out.

A Shift

According to the questionable accuracy of the due date, we're now just over two weeks from the big day. A week ago, Sara passed the milestone of officially being "full-term," which means that she could deliver the baby and it wouldn't have any premature complications. It's important in that it's the final prenatal hurdle to clear; the only things that could go wrong now are only related to the birth process itself. For someone like me, who tries very hard to keep my focus only on the things happening now that can be controlled, finally getting to a point of simply waiting is nice. For a few months, it was the constant and helpless fear of a miscarriage, along with the need for Sara to be extremely careful with basically everything she did. Then there were doctor visits and the accompanying tests, holding your breath waiting for the results to see if the baby would be born with all manner of diseases, disorders, or syndromes. Finally the much more unlikely prospect that the baby would come premature, with its attendant worries. Those are all passed now. And yet we wait more, now mostly clueless about when it will happen. We rewatched parts of the childbirth class DVD, the parts about going into labor, to refamiliarize ourselves with dropping, passing the mucus plug, effacement, breaking water, weight stabilization or even loss, dilation, and the change from Braxton-Hicks into legitimate contractions. I am confident that we will know when the big show has started in earnest, and when we need to remain patient. For now I try to remain patient.

Yesterday morning before going in to work I accompanied Sara to her weekly doctor appointment, this one with our primary obstetrician. For the first time ever I left with a palpable sense that it was actually going to happen, and soon. Sara had lost two pounds since the previous week, and three pounds in the last three weeks total. The doctor felt around quite a bit and estimated that the fetus was something around 6.5 to 7 pounds, which is almost exactly average as a final birth weight. She also took much more time in explaining to us all of the details of going to the hospital and even the prospect of having to be induced if the fetus proves stubborn. One thing that I can say is that through many of the earlier visits, the doctors will seem to answer questions on auto-pilot, not really investing themselves or sharing in the excitement of the patients, but now that we are so close, our doctor finally met us on totally equal emotional ground. This intensity was a little jarring to me. Now I finally feel the reality of what's going to happen. I understand what it's all about. Unfortunately I can't explain it quite yet, but perhaps afterward.
Going to work after all of this yesterday morning was difficult. I found it basically impossible to insert myself into the happenings of the office or even simply my own personal routines. I couldn't make sense of the business of my job compared to the active time bomb that was sitting inside my wife back at home.
Probably the fact that Monday was Sara's first weekday off for the summer magnified the sensation, but I had an extremely strong urge to be with her, and not actually to be with her to talk or whatever else but simply to be there, like standing guard. That seemed like my real job. I'm sure this will only get much much stronger after we have the baby. Here I have a wife who is more or less just sitting at home the next few weeks (?) waiting for amazing. She is not at all helpless but she is in a reduced state of ability and an increased state of discomfort. Rather like an honestly sick person. If you've ever had a wife or similarly important person to you come down with a sickness that forces her home from work, you might understand the feeling a little. You spend most of the day thinking of the little things you can do when you get home in the evening to make her feel better. It's very distracting, but a sick person is merely sick; what keeps her home is the end. A pregnant person is a prelude to something else. A pregnant person is basically the walking embodiment of empathy and anxiety.

June 15. I think I will try to forget about the possibility of Sara going into labor until at least the next doctor visit, which is June 23. At that point it would be very likely to happen within two weeks, and I can handle two weeks of being on edge. Three-plus weeks is asking a bit much.

The Perfect Bet

What would you do if a fund manager was promising you a one-time 30% annual return? Setting aside a philosophical debate about "promising" a "return," you'd give him just about all of your savings as fast as possible.
I have a tip for you. All you need is the ability to withdraw a chunk of money and be ok with not having access to it for about four months. Actually, that makes this more like a 4-month CD. A CD with a 30% yield.*
Anyway, take as much money as you can temporarily live without and deposit it at sportsbook.com. Then go to the Baseball tab and find the link for "Stephen Strasburg Props." Put a check next to the box that says NO (-1000) under the "Will He Record a No Hitter During the 2010 Regular Reason." Wager all of your deposit on this bet.
Then all you do is wait four months and collect.
-1000 gives a 10% return. Bet 100, win 10. Simple. The perfect bet is real.

But allow me to break it down for you.

The most prolific no-hit pitcher ever, Nolan Ryan, had seven in his career, which spanned 773 starts, for a rate of 0.9% of all starts.
Sandy Koufax is second all-time, with four but in just 314 career starts, so 1.27% of all starts.
That's for a career. Additionally--looking only at the far outliers, and allowing for small-sample wildness--four times a pitcher has thrown two in a single season:
Ryan, 2 in 39 starts, 5.1%
Allie Reynolds, 2 in 26 starts, 7.69%
Virgil Trucks, 2 in 29, 6.9% (amazingly he went only 5-19 that year)
Johnny Vander Meer, 2 in 29, also 6.9%

Next, and very importantly, consider that Strasburg has an innings cap for 2010 of about 160. He's already thrown 62, so he's got less than 100 to go. That equates to maybe 15 more starts. One no hitter in 15 starts is a rate of 6.67%. So they've set his line at about equal to the greatest no-hitter seasons ever. We could have a long discussion about probability if you like, but the bottom line is you can never ever predict something to be the farthest outlier on the line. It's impossible.

That out of the way, there's more. In addition to an innings cap, Mr Strasburg will have a pitch max within each of his starts. This will be slightly more flexible than his year-long innings max but even being liberal you can assume that he wont ever be throwing more than 110 pitches, and the likelihood of him throwing over 100 is low, maybe 3-4 times out of 15. Here is a little secret: to throw a no-hitter you have to complete the game. This week he dominated the AAAA Pirates, but it took him 94 pitches to get through 7 innings. To finish the game at that rate, he'd require over 120. And that is not an uncommon rate of pitches thrown. Covering all of 2009, there were 4,860 starts made by pitchers. 152 times the pitcher threw a complete game. 97% of the time, a starting pitcher failed to complete the game. Even just applying this expected rate of simply completing the game, it takes an average pitcher 32 starts to compile one complete game. Again, Strasburg has only about 15 to work with, and we're only talking about complete games, let alone no hitters. For more perspective there, since the last expansion in 1998, there have been 21 no hitters in over 60,000 starts made. That's 0.035%, one in 2,857. It's ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, to think that one guy could have anything even remotely close to a 9% chance of throwing a no hitter in his next 15 starts. I don't care if that guy is a robot.

Adding these factors together, what is required of Strasburg to cause you to lose your NO no hitters bet is for him to equal the best no hit rates of all time, but to do so with both hands tied behind his back.
Anything is possible, that is a fact. But when gambling you can't consider the fluke possibilities, you have to focus on the most likely scenarios. When the break-even point for a bet is 9.1%, and the actual chance of it happening is easily less than 1%, then you jump all over it. It's the perfect combination really: an incredibly low chance of losing (well less than 1% that he gets a no-no), coupled with a payout that is at least ten or twenty times higher than it should be.


*Via Chase, the shortest CD they offer is for six months. The return yield is 0.50%, a mere 60 times lower than our proposed bet here.

Who are these people that have the capability to be so demonstrative on their cell phones out on the sidewalks before 8:00am? Sure there are some real go-getter morning people in the world, but I'm seeing them in downtown Brooklyn coming out of apartment buildings, not downtown Manhattan outside investment banking houses. I guess some people just need to be seen right from the get-go. There is just no need for that.

I was reading something on a baby site yesterday. A few weeks ago, I moved over fully to reading about post-birth items, and one of them was titled something like this: "Caring for your newborn's umbilical cord stump." Caring for my newborn's umbilical cord stump. Obviously this is something that I'll need to remember to actually remark upon after I've experienced it, but just reading that line makes me feel like a character in David Lynch short film.

Sara asked me last night if we should take an old bedsheet and cover our couch with it, to protect against the baby's vomit. And so it begins.

We met with the fourth of five obstetricians at our doctor's office yesterday, maybe the most senior of the group. We might have been her last appointment of the day, and it's the only time we'll see her unless Sara goes into labor at a weird time and she's covering the shift, but this woman was almost jarringly blase about the whole thing. I think Sara could have told her that the fetus's hands were stabbing out through her stomach and stealing bits of food off her plate and she would have given us a glazed response: "Yeah sure, that's normal."
In a way, I like the idea of a somewhat grizzled doctor running the show, because if some shit hits the fan, then you know this woman will be ready for it, but on the other hand, giving birth is usually a long intimate process, and actually having a personality attached to the doctor is not a totally frivolous preference.

I really blanch at seeming to criticize her for this, because I'm not, and because curiosity and a zest for information are very good right now, but sometimes I wonder if she doesn't take too seriously the myriad pieces of advice or simple experiential stories offered to her by other parents. It's part of Sara's nature to really care what other people have to say, and rather not part of mine. That's ok, that's a simple difference that I hope I'm mature enough to accept (and even to accept that my approach is lesser). I guess it's the other parents that I silently have issue with. Just because you had/have a child, doesn't make you some expert. Your experience, while perhaps sometimes applicable to others, is only your experience and not the universal law. There are so many ins and outs to the whole process of making a baby into a person that I feel it's kinda self-centric to project yourself across wide spectrums of experience. (Heh. The spell-check is flagging that word "spectrums." At first I couldn't imagine why but then it dawned on me: damned Romans. "Spectra?" That, or the spell-checker's got more of a philosophical slant than I would have guessed. Anyway, I'm leaving it.)
I think people are always trying to find places where they can interject themselves and be listened to, or simply to feel like their opinion is needed or valued. It serves to glorify themselves, at least in their own eyes. Parenthood is one of those things that allows a lot of latitude for a person to feel like an expert, because every experience is unique, and because culturally it's hard to really criticize a parent, at least one that isn't leaving his kids locked in a parked car or something. But the thing most of the self-centered masses fail to consider before constantly sharing their expertise is that this extremely broad and universal uniqueness serves to undercut their preciousness. In terms of the rest of the world, there is nothing special about having or raising a child. It happens every day in all corners of the world to all types of people. It's not at all important to everyone else. It's important to you, to you it's a miracle and "the greatest and toughest thing you'll ever do" and all manner of hyperbole. To you. Not to everyone. Too few people understand this. No--too few people behave accordingly.