Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for June 07, 2013

Who didn’t see this coming?

And its…..Friday !

GASP—!!!!!! (Dies again)

Cry havoc and loose the twins of Alex!

The first of the class of ’35 makes their entrance.And legacies do have an easier time getting in, especially if they were born on campus.

No a MD, not a PhD.

Oh, for heaven’s sake! Give it a rest!

“It’s about creating something new” Love this. Wealth is not always in a corporate world. The joy of creating something new? A garden, a baby, a quilt … thank you Mr. Trudeau.

uh, dude, it’s a comic strip…

This really hits home. My daughter wasn’t due until 6/20, wasn’t dilated, wasn’t really having contractions, etc. Then her water broke Monday night, quite unexpectedly. Little Brooke Renee graduated into the world Tuesday about noon. Better to me (as a granddad) than any PhD.

@JPSteve

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends.”

“Well, the indulgences of “Liberals” are strictly out of Fantasyland, aren’t they?”

I think of co-workers’ kids I last saw twenty, thirty years ago. Can’t help wondering what some of them are up to. At least a couple of them should be making their mark on the world by now.

I can’t wait to see how this will all turn out!

@Susan Newman And let’s hope neither of Alex’s rips off the other after their exit from her womb!

@ Guard Sarge What a great story. But what baffles me is how the doctor didn’t notice the twinniness before D-Day (Delivery Day)! I once knew some triplets who were twins until D-Day, when #3 emerged some time after the first two. That seems understandable.

Also, traditional thinking was that twins skipped generations, so it’s always a surprise to me to hear about a twin delivering twins.

I thought you were in the Army Air Corps.

My favorite twin-birth story was told to me by a neighbor, whose elderly friend was a twin. She and her sister were born during a blizzard in a little rural cabin in the 1890s. They were premature, and tiny. The parents placed them in shoe boxes and stowed them in the warming ovens above the wood-burning cookstove. The girls survived, thrived, and lived long lives. Twins have had safe vaginal births since time immemorial, and still do.

They must have been as bored by the graduation speeches as everyone else. Except that they actually have the ability to shake things up.

When we were in the process of adopting, we happened to hear of a family who’d adopted a baby girl from China, and they named her Meredith. Jim (the dad) said that they started hearing about another little girl who looked just like her.

Long story short: Meredith’s twin sister was adopted by another family in another state. They named her Meredith.

So they found each other, and those girls and their families get together a couple of times a year. They’re maybe twelve now, just a tiny bit older than my daughter.

My first child was a breech birth – no complications, no prior preparation, no problems. It’s doable. And we weren’t even in a comic strip.

I thought this was gocomics.com and not RSR’s personall comic strip?You seem to enjoy starting stuff just a little too much.

Let’s stop the misnomer “Caesarean.” This first recorded account of this procedure was described in 1744, and has nothing to do with any Roman emperor. Contrary to myth, Julius was NOT delivered this way. If he had been, in the pre-anesthesia age, his mother, Aurelia, would have died on the spot and not have lived as long as she did.

The word is cesarean, from the Latin ‘ad cesare, meaning “to cut.” Same root that English gets the word ’scissors’ from. ‘Caesar’ comes from the same root as words like ‘kaiser’ and ‘czar’ (Polish) or ‘tsar’ (Russian).

Sigh…and we’d been doing so well in the “let’s be friends” department today!

If Alex is like most women in terms of childbirth, her labor will last longer than 5-10 minutes, thereby giving her enough time to get to a nearby hospital in the heavily populated area of Massachusetts. If GT wants to just make the story more interesting, who knows? We hear of the woman who gives birth quickly more often because it makes a better story than the one who manages to have the childbirth process in a more controlled environment. But, as LWP said, we could also see it coming that she would go into labor at graduation. BTW, it is great to see you back LWP!

Must have been about 9 months since we heard from DT. I remember him predicting the pregnancy before we saw that it was written into the strip. Congratulations DT, wherever you are…

Wow, almost everybody is commenting about the storyline. I guess, everybody loves babies.

tick, tick, tick, Tick, Tick, TICK, TICK, TICK…

My wife delivered 2 vaginally in Massachusetts.

Women were giving birth to twins for millions of years without Caesarean sections. It is a natural process that usually has no “complications”. The choice to deliver vaginally is entirely the woman’s….not that of the doctors or the lawyers.

http://articles.mamaslatinas.com/pregnancy/113760/amazing_mom_gives_birth_to

Babies, whine and cry nonstop,don’t appreciate anything around them. Sound pretty “conservative” to me.

We can agree to disagree as long as you keep your sense of humor.

In 1952 my first delivery was an occiput posterior with about 24 hours between first twinge and forceps delivery. Glad now the dr didn’t do surgery, but certainly wished for it then.

I appreciate your comments regarding why a lot of physicians need to practice overkill (so to speak) in the caution dept.. In my case, the GP didn’t have a choice. I’d been pulling instead of pushing, all we way from home to keep the baby in, and he’d been roused at home. had to come in, wash his hands, etc. Do wish he’d counted his #@%#.sponges!

I was in labor for 64 hours, but during that time went to beauty salon, helped lead a children’s choir practice, attended a baby shower (mine). Appetite was a little off. Was waiting for the scenes you see on TV to occur, but they never did. Everyone’s different.

Dr. did a great job, hardly a mark on him. Was under 7#, with a full head of red hair. Prettiest baby boy ever born.

Hey SGT, good story, my hats off to you. Didn’t know if you had it in you, to be able to take a day off from your daily attempt to educate the masses. I’ll cut you a little more slack for being a regular Joe today.By the way, not to split hairs, but, I had a buddy who started out in Army Air Corp and then finished up in the Air Force after Korea. So I think through WW II it was still Army Air Corp.

LOL!!! didn’t realize she was this close!! Oh, GT, you crazy thing!!

All about creating something new.

One toasted almond, please!

I think everyone was expecting this. At least her family is in town for the graduation party. She better deliver vaginally. If she gets bullied by the medical staff, family, law enforcement, etc., to have a c-section, I will be really pissed.

has this ever happened during a commencement speech? someone goes into labor.

You’ve been watching too much ‘Big Bang Theory’

“Have you slacked off to the point that nowadays you enter a triathlon only four times a year?”Gee, t’anks. I don’t run any more, because something might work loose. However, right now I’m doing the lion’s share of labor in a household of six people with various impairments and a surfeit of ADD-type stuff and lack of motivation. Also, try to hit gym 3X per week. Help offset this with GoComics addiction!

Read my post again: Wikipedia agrees with your version of history; the military website takes has the AAC continuing until 1947.

Is that really you?Very cool if it is.

Yep. my father-in-law was Air Force, but when he enlisted in 1940 he was Army Air Corp, (later Army Air Force) and remained that through WW2.Air Force came between WW2 and Korea.

Wow Alex!! Girl, you are about to kill 2 birds (or 3) with 1 stone. As for not knowing when twins are imminent, I’ve known women who didn’t even know they were pregnant and they gave birth to a full-term baby.

Interesting, my Dad always said he was in the Army Air Corps and he served during WWII.

You sound like you are describing yourself.

But no doubt he finds himself endlessly entertaining.