Kari and I arrived at the hospital roughly around 4AM and we went straight to the reception area. It was a ghost town. There was no one in the waiting room and the receptionist was nowhere to be found.

It’s hard not to panic when your wife is on the brink of giving birth to your first child and there’s no one in the hospital to check her in to a room with doctors and machines and medication. I tried my best to stay cool, but on the inside I was screaming. I quickly made a small loop around the room looking for open doors or a hallway; anything that could potentially lead us to PEOPLE.

Finally, I found a call speaker on the wall next to a set of locked doors. I pressed the button and a lady on the other end asked if we needed help. As calmly as I could, I informed the lady that my wife was in labor. Our conversation ended and the receptionist appeared a moment later.

She was all smiles as she apologized for making us wait. She had made a trip to the vending machine. In hindsight, I realize that this is a perfectly reasonable excuse for not being at your desk at 4AM, but - in the moment - I felt justified in stating my belief that all labor and delivery receptionists should keep snack rations in their desks and that they should also wear astronaut diapers. You never know when a panicky, first-time father will arrive after driving 60 minutes in a small SUV with a laboring wife.