Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2007-07-30 03:46 am
ptahrrific) wrote2007-07-30 03:46 am
Entry tags:
Fake News: Expecting, Chapter 10
Title: Expecting, Chapter 10: The Doctor Is In
Series: The Colbert Report
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mild swearing, mild ickiness
Words: ~3900
Disclaimer: Three.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.
And the brand shiny new disclaimer number three: Not approved, endorsed, or even necessarily agreed with by NoFactZone.
Notes: Dr. Moreau's granddaughter is named after her. If you ever watched The Magic School Bus, you've seen her in action. (This has no bearing on the story; it's just amusing.)
Clips referenced: House-buying advice; Lent. The short referenced in the Moment of Zen can be found here.
For the full table of contents to this story, click here.
Chapter 10
The Doctor Is In
Yesterday
"...an' Ty saw a whale, a real live whale, an' when we all got over to the side of the boat it was gone, but he got pictures an' he showed them to us an' Mary says it was just a ripple but I bet she's just jealous, there's definitely a tail..."
"Hang on a second, Sally." Jon covered the mouthpiece of his phone and turned hurriedly to the small freckled woman in a nurse's uniform who had appeared at the door and was signaling to him. "What is it? Is Stephen—"
"You need to turn that phone off."
"What? Why?"
"Cell phones interfere with our equipment. There's a pay phone in the lobby."
It took him a moment to realize that this had nothing to do with Stephen, another to process the order, and another to realize that she had answered the question he would have asked. "Oh! Sorry. I'll — just a second."
To the kids he said, "I've gotta hang up. It's okay — nothing's wrong — I'll call back in just a minute. Hang on, okay? Just a minute, I promise."
Over their protests, because the nurse was looking very stern and making "kill" gestures at him, he pressed End Call. "Now hold on!" he added, as she turned to leave. "You're the first person I've seen, besides the receptionist, in half an hour. You can't just leave without telling me what's going on!"
"You're here with Mr. Colbert?" asked the nurse placidly.
The frustration and worry that Jon had been able to ignore while the kids were talking flared up all at once. "How many other pregnant men are you treating?" he snapped.
"We have other programs here. You've probably heard of—"
"I don't CARE!"
The woman looked a little stunned; Jon checked himself. Deep breaths. "What," he said, very slowly, "the hell," okay, that wasn't polite, but it could have been worse, "is going on with Stephen?"
"I'm sorry." Now she sounded as if she had only just remembered that there were social niceties to be followed. She had all of Moreau's cool precision and none of the easy affability. "I don't know."
"Can I speak to someone who does? What about Dr. Moreau? Where's she?"
"Dr. Moreau is in the operating room with the patient, which is, I assure you, where you want her to be."
"Why? A C-section shouldn't take this long, should it? Is something wrong?"
"As I said, I—"
"—don't know, yeah, yeah, can you find out?"
"I can try."
"Thank you. God, that's the best thing I've heard all night. Hang on!" he added, as she started out the door. "Show me where the phone is first."
"Down the hall and to the left, right after the men's room."
Jon would probably have needed to know where that was before long too. "Thanks," he said again, but she was already gone.
He fished around in his pockets for spare change as he tried not to run down the hallway. The lobby had a row of pay phones, huge bulky black things with fat shiny keys and stickers of fine print detailing the costs. Jon fed the rightmost phone four quarters, found Lorraine's number in his contacts list, and punched it in.
The phone was picked up in the middle of the first ring.
"Sorry about that," he said quickly. "It wasn't anything wrong, they just didn't want me using my cell phone, so—"
"Who is this?" demanded a very familiar, very adult voice.
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
March 3, 2007
19 Weeks
Colbert was obviously bored with the questions. They were generally the same ones a pregnant woman would be asked at a monthly checkup, but Phoebe was bringing him in every week.
(Truth be told, she would have been comfortable decreasing the checkups to once every two weeks. Unlike her patient, though, she was enjoying them, so she never brought this up.)
"And you've been taking all your medication regularly? You haven't skipped any days?" she asked, doing her best to sound sympathetic to his boredom as she checked his hematocrit. A little low, but within safe boundaries. The increased iron intake was doing its job.
"Of course not. When I have a routine, I stick to it."
"You missed a day last week," Phoebe reminded him, pressing his feet gently. A little swelling. Not surprising for someone who spent so much time at a desk.
"Well, I was on vacation then. It's completely different. What are you writing there?"
"I'm going to have an assistant print some information for you. I'm just writing down what he should print."
"More reading?" grumbled Colbert.
"It'll help with the sore feet."
Four and a half months, and he still hadn't gotten used to her ability to address problems he hadn't mentioned. The man looked as awed as a kid watching a magician. It was very gratifying.
"Now I'm going to take your pulse and blood pressure..."
"Do you think they've changed?"
Rather than answer ("no"), Phoebe changed the subject. "What's coming up on the Report?"
Her patient took the bait with gusto.
"...and then I got a call from Prescott Pharmaceuticals," he was saying by the time she finished, "and guess what? They want a sponsorship deal! I told them I'd think about it, of course, because you've got to play hard to get, but they're offering a lot of money..."
Why did that name sound familiar? "What product do they want you to sponsor?"
"Oh, I don't know. Some pill, Voxysomethingorother..."
"Vaxadrin?"
"That's the one!"
"Turn them down."
Colbert frowned. "I don't think you understand, Doctor. When I say 'they're offering a lot of money', I mean they're offering a lot of money."
"Doesn't matter. I've seen the studies on Vaxadrin. If half of them are true, the FDA will have it banned within a month."
"Is that bitterness?" teased Colbert, raising an eyebrow. "A touch of professional rivalry, perhaps? Two giants of experimental medicine, Prescott and Dwayne Medical, facing off..."
"Nonsense. RYT Hospital-Dwayne Medical Center develops innovative treatments and medical breakthroughs. Prescott Pharmaceuticals mixes up chemicals and hopes it can sell a lot of them before anyone catches on to the side effects."
"They can't be that bad."
"Vaxadrin," said Phoebe, "is guaranteed to promote the growth of strong, healthy teeth."
"What's wrong with that?"
"They don't always grow in the mouth."
Colbert controlled his shock quickly, but his shudder was so obvious that Phoebe felt no need to press the matter further.
"Now, here's something you'll be happy about: You won't need a full bladder for today's ultrasound."
"Oh, good! Because, I don't mind telling you, I was just about to pop by the time you finished the first one."
"I remember. You told me so at the time. In great detail." He had also gone through what seemed like a hundred panicky questions (What's that gooey stuff? Why are you rubbing it on me? What's that on the screen? Are you going to stick anything in me? Now what's that? Do you have to press so hard, because I don't know how much longer I can hold this in...), and Phoebe didn't relish facing that again.
"So let's get that urine sample now," she continued, retrieving a small jar from a shelf and waving him in the direction of the lavatory. "And then we'll take your weight."
When Colbert returned with a full jar and looked pained at the familiar sight of the scale (which had reported nothing but constant and healthy weight gain for weeks), Phoebe groped for a new subject. "How goes the house-hunting?"
From the way Colbert launched into this topic, she knew she'd picked a good one. He had apparently spent all of Friday visiting prospective sellers, dragging Jon Stewart in tow.
"Now the first house," he said, stepping onto the scale, "it was great — the couple that owned it said they're big fans of the Report! They even had Nutz brand soda in their fridge, and offered us BLTs! Kept telling me how much they admired me; the husband talked about how I must have balls of steel to get pregnant. There was a weird smell in the basement, so of course we won't be calling them back. But they were a lovely couple."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Phoebe, adjusting the sliders to mark off his weight. The approval of Colbert's viewers was just the kind of culture shift she had hoped for.
"I read some stuff on buying a house before we left, completely on my own initiative and not at all because Jon said he wouldn't come if I didn't prove to him that I knew at least a few basic things before we went." He spoke a little too quickly whenever Stewart's name came up. If there was still tension between her patient and the man who always seemed able to calm him down, she would have to keep a closer eye on his stress level.
"But," he continued, "I've already come up with a bunch of advice that you won't find in any book. I think I'll do a segment about it on the show some time. Like, what would you say are the most important words to keep in mind when buying a house?"
She was out of tests to do; it was time for the ultrasound. "Lie down here. You mean 'Location, location, location'?"
"Yeah, that's what all the books said! But my gut tells me that there are plenty of more important things. Like...bees!"
"'Bees'?"
"Exactly! No matter where it's located, you should never buy a house if it's filled with bees!"
"I never thought of it that way," said Phoebe, with perfect honesty, activating the machine.
To her relief, Colbert had morphed from skeptic to expert. It was a pose she had seen him take many times since becoming a regular Report viewer, usually on subjects which he clearly knew nothing about. Now the pose worked in her favor: as the conducting gel was rubbed over his stomach, he acted as nonchalantly as if he sat through this every day.
He was still talking about houses, and she was moving the transducer around his stomach, when his face clouded over. "The house after that was the worst."
"What was wrong with it?"
"Well, the house was fine. Pretty little beach front property, nice kitchen, room that would be a perfect nursery, the works. But the people! Absolutely unbelievable!"
"How so?"
Colbert hesitated. "I should warn you, it's a little shocking."
"I'm a doctor, Stephen. I see all kinds of shocking things. Try me."
Still Colbert paused, clearly trying to gather the courage to approach whatever terrible thing had occurred.
"They were great on the phone when I arranged the visit. But when we showed up at the door, they were suddenly all closed off and reluctant, and one of them finally said..." He took a deep breath. "She said they weren't comfortable selling to 'people like us'. Now, I'm a rich Christian male and people tell me I'm white, so I couldn't figure out what she meant, but I asked, and it turned out — do you know what they thought?"
Phoebe had a guess. "What?"
"They thought Jon and I were gay!"
He let the word hang dramatically in the air.
When it got no reaction, he started to look indignant. "Why aren't you more offended?"
"Should I be?"
Now he looked as though she had asked whether it was such a bad idea to run with scissors. "Of course you should! Because we're not. I mean, we spend a lot of completely platonic time together, and he's always been there for me, and he's really handsome in a short and Jewy kind of way, and when he laughs it's like sunshine and I kissed him at Christmas and sometimes when I'm alone at night I imagine him doing dirty unspeakable things to me, but that doesn't make us gay!"
For the first time in her life, Phoebe Moreau had absolutely no idea what to say.
Colbert finally broke the silence. "That had better fall under doctor-patient confidentiality."
"Of course."
"And it certainly won't come up during, say, your appearance on Jon's show next week."
"You have my word as a physician."
After all, what good could it do to reveal the information? The Jerry Falwell types had more than enough reason to hate her already without getting homosexuality into the mix; Stewart was a nice guy who really didn't need to deal with the fallout it would bring; and she was getting so much money out of Colbert already that she had bought everything she could think of, up to and including a pony for her granddaughter.
Still Colbert looked wary, defensive; it was time to change the subject again.
"Look at the screen," she said, tracing a circle in the mass of grey static. "This is your son's head. He's facing towards you — do you see where the eyes are?"
He didn't, at first — and then he put it together, and all the suspicion and all the defensiveness melted away as if the whole conversation were forgotten. Which, for the moment, it probably was.
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
March 6, 2007
20 Weeks
"Tremendous show for you tonight, folks: Dr. Phoebe Moreau will be joining us! As you've all heard by now, she's the woman who got my friend knocked up, which is funny, because usually that works the other way around."
Jon put on his best awkward smile, and the audience rewarded him with an appreciative laugh.
Within an hour, No Fact Zone's Senior Pregnancy Correspondent (a nurse practitioner by day and active Colbert Nation hero by night, who had joined the blog a month into the pregnancy to help sift the news from the nonsense) had posted the following:
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
As usual, NoFactZone posted a recap of the day's Report, including a video of the toss. It can still be seen there, and runs as follows:
(The camera zooms in from a limited angle; we can only see the half of the desk where JON is sitting.)
JON
That's our show! Before we go, as always, we check in with our good friend StephenColbertatTheColbertReportStephen!
STEPHEN
Thanks, Jon. Tonight...
(DR. MOREAU leans over JON's shoulder into the frame.)
DR. MOREAU
Stephen?
STEPHEN
Oh...hi, Doc! What is it?
DR. MOREAU
I saw your show last night. You said you couldn't eat ice cream because you'd given up sweets for Lent?
STEPHEN
That's right.
DR. MOREAU
You can't do that.
STEPHEN
But I promised.
DR. MOREAU
You'll have to take a rain check. Right now the developing fetus needs sugars and fats as well as nutrients. You can't cut them out of your diet.
STEPHEN
I can't?
DR. MOREAU
You can't. Doctor's orders.
(Before she has finished speaking, STEPHEN reaches behind his desk, retrieves a spoon and a pint of Americone Dream, tears the pint open, and begins shoveling the ice cream into his mouth.)
STEPHEN (mouth full)
Comin' up nehst: zuh Colbeah Rupoah!
DR. MOREAU
Save room for your vegetables!
(The shot cuts back to JON's frame only. DR. MOREAU stands up and backs away.)
JON
That's our show! Join us tomorrow, hereitisyourMomentofZen!
(A clip is played from the 1958 teen pregnancy/family planning short "How Much Affection?" — "Well, it's tiring, but it's not too bad when Fred gives me a hand. 'Course, he's not used to babies, but he's a real whiz at changing diapers — you should see him!")
Series: The Colbert Report
Rating: PG
Warnings: Mild swearing, mild ickiness
Words: ~3900
Disclaimer: Three.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.
And the brand shiny new disclaimer number three: Not approved, endorsed, or even necessarily agreed with by NoFactZone.
Notes: Dr. Moreau's granddaughter is named after her. If you ever watched The Magic School Bus, you've seen her in action. (This has no bearing on the story; it's just amusing.)
Clips referenced: House-buying advice; Lent. The short referenced in the Moment of Zen can be found here.
For the full table of contents to this story, click here.
Chapter 10
The Doctor Is In
Yesterday
"...an' Ty saw a whale, a real live whale, an' when we all got over to the side of the boat it was gone, but he got pictures an' he showed them to us an' Mary says it was just a ripple but I bet she's just jealous, there's definitely a tail..."
"Hang on a second, Sally." Jon covered the mouthpiece of his phone and turned hurriedly to the small freckled woman in a nurse's uniform who had appeared at the door and was signaling to him. "What is it? Is Stephen—"
"You need to turn that phone off."
"What? Why?"
"Cell phones interfere with our equipment. There's a pay phone in the lobby."
It took him a moment to realize that this had nothing to do with Stephen, another to process the order, and another to realize that she had answered the question he would have asked. "Oh! Sorry. I'll — just a second."
To the kids he said, "I've gotta hang up. It's okay — nothing's wrong — I'll call back in just a minute. Hang on, okay? Just a minute, I promise."
Over their protests, because the nurse was looking very stern and making "kill" gestures at him, he pressed End Call. "Now hold on!" he added, as she turned to leave. "You're the first person I've seen, besides the receptionist, in half an hour. You can't just leave without telling me what's going on!"
"You're here with Mr. Colbert?" asked the nurse placidly.
The frustration and worry that Jon had been able to ignore while the kids were talking flared up all at once. "How many other pregnant men are you treating?" he snapped.
"We have other programs here. You've probably heard of—"
"I don't CARE!"
The woman looked a little stunned; Jon checked himself. Deep breaths. "What," he said, very slowly, "the hell," okay, that wasn't polite, but it could have been worse, "is going on with Stephen?"
"I'm sorry." Now she sounded as if she had only just remembered that there were social niceties to be followed. She had all of Moreau's cool precision and none of the easy affability. "I don't know."
"Can I speak to someone who does? What about Dr. Moreau? Where's she?"
"Dr. Moreau is in the operating room with the patient, which is, I assure you, where you want her to be."
"Why? A C-section shouldn't take this long, should it? Is something wrong?"
"As I said, I—"
"—don't know, yeah, yeah, can you find out?"
"I can try."
"Thank you. God, that's the best thing I've heard all night. Hang on!" he added, as she started out the door. "Show me where the phone is first."
"Down the hall and to the left, right after the men's room."
Jon would probably have needed to know where that was before long too. "Thanks," he said again, but she was already gone.
He fished around in his pockets for spare change as he tried not to run down the hallway. The lobby had a row of pay phones, huge bulky black things with fat shiny keys and stickers of fine print detailing the costs. Jon fed the rightmost phone four quarters, found Lorraine's number in his contacts list, and punched it in.
The phone was picked up in the middle of the first ring.
"Sorry about that," he said quickly. "It wasn't anything wrong, they just didn't want me using my cell phone, so—"
"Who is this?" demanded a very familiar, very adult voice.
March 3, 2007
19 Weeks
Colbert was obviously bored with the questions. They were generally the same ones a pregnant woman would be asked at a monthly checkup, but Phoebe was bringing him in every week.
(Truth be told, she would have been comfortable decreasing the checkups to once every two weeks. Unlike her patient, though, she was enjoying them, so she never brought this up.)
"And you've been taking all your medication regularly? You haven't skipped any days?" she asked, doing her best to sound sympathetic to his boredom as she checked his hematocrit. A little low, but within safe boundaries. The increased iron intake was doing its job.
"Of course not. When I have a routine, I stick to it."
"You missed a day last week," Phoebe reminded him, pressing his feet gently. A little swelling. Not surprising for someone who spent so much time at a desk.
"Well, I was on vacation then. It's completely different. What are you writing there?"
"I'm going to have an assistant print some information for you. I'm just writing down what he should print."
"More reading?" grumbled Colbert.
"It'll help with the sore feet."
Four and a half months, and he still hadn't gotten used to her ability to address problems he hadn't mentioned. The man looked as awed as a kid watching a magician. It was very gratifying.
"Now I'm going to take your pulse and blood pressure..."
"Do you think they've changed?"
Rather than answer ("no"), Phoebe changed the subject. "What's coming up on the Report?"
Her patient took the bait with gusto.
"...and then I got a call from Prescott Pharmaceuticals," he was saying by the time she finished, "and guess what? They want a sponsorship deal! I told them I'd think about it, of course, because you've got to play hard to get, but they're offering a lot of money..."
Why did that name sound familiar? "What product do they want you to sponsor?"
"Oh, I don't know. Some pill, Voxysomethingorother..."
"Vaxadrin?"
"That's the one!"
"Turn them down."
Colbert frowned. "I don't think you understand, Doctor. When I say 'they're offering a lot of money', I mean they're offering a lot of money."
"Doesn't matter. I've seen the studies on Vaxadrin. If half of them are true, the FDA will have it banned within a month."
"Is that bitterness?" teased Colbert, raising an eyebrow. "A touch of professional rivalry, perhaps? Two giants of experimental medicine, Prescott and Dwayne Medical, facing off..."
"Nonsense. RYT Hospital-Dwayne Medical Center develops innovative treatments and medical breakthroughs. Prescott Pharmaceuticals mixes up chemicals and hopes it can sell a lot of them before anyone catches on to the side effects."
"They can't be that bad."
"Vaxadrin," said Phoebe, "is guaranteed to promote the growth of strong, healthy teeth."
"What's wrong with that?"
"They don't always grow in the mouth."
Colbert controlled his shock quickly, but his shudder was so obvious that Phoebe felt no need to press the matter further.
"Now, here's something you'll be happy about: You won't need a full bladder for today's ultrasound."
"Oh, good! Because, I don't mind telling you, I was just about to pop by the time you finished the first one."
"I remember. You told me so at the time. In great detail." He had also gone through what seemed like a hundred panicky questions (What's that gooey stuff? Why are you rubbing it on me? What's that on the screen? Are you going to stick anything in me? Now what's that? Do you have to press so hard, because I don't know how much longer I can hold this in...), and Phoebe didn't relish facing that again.
"So let's get that urine sample now," she continued, retrieving a small jar from a shelf and waving him in the direction of the lavatory. "And then we'll take your weight."
When Colbert returned with a full jar and looked pained at the familiar sight of the scale (which had reported nothing but constant and healthy weight gain for weeks), Phoebe groped for a new subject. "How goes the house-hunting?"
From the way Colbert launched into this topic, she knew she'd picked a good one. He had apparently spent all of Friday visiting prospective sellers, dragging Jon Stewart in tow.
"Now the first house," he said, stepping onto the scale, "it was great — the couple that owned it said they're big fans of the Report! They even had Nutz brand soda in their fridge, and offered us BLTs! Kept telling me how much they admired me; the husband talked about how I must have balls of steel to get pregnant. There was a weird smell in the basement, so of course we won't be calling them back. But they were a lovely couple."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Phoebe, adjusting the sliders to mark off his weight. The approval of Colbert's viewers was just the kind of culture shift she had hoped for.
"I read some stuff on buying a house before we left, completely on my own initiative and not at all because Jon said he wouldn't come if I didn't prove to him that I knew at least a few basic things before we went." He spoke a little too quickly whenever Stewart's name came up. If there was still tension between her patient and the man who always seemed able to calm him down, she would have to keep a closer eye on his stress level.
"But," he continued, "I've already come up with a bunch of advice that you won't find in any book. I think I'll do a segment about it on the show some time. Like, what would you say are the most important words to keep in mind when buying a house?"
She was out of tests to do; it was time for the ultrasound. "Lie down here. You mean 'Location, location, location'?"
"Yeah, that's what all the books said! But my gut tells me that there are plenty of more important things. Like...bees!"
"'Bees'?"
"Exactly! No matter where it's located, you should never buy a house if it's filled with bees!"
"I never thought of it that way," said Phoebe, with perfect honesty, activating the machine.
To her relief, Colbert had morphed from skeptic to expert. It was a pose she had seen him take many times since becoming a regular Report viewer, usually on subjects which he clearly knew nothing about. Now the pose worked in her favor: as the conducting gel was rubbed over his stomach, he acted as nonchalantly as if he sat through this every day.
He was still talking about houses, and she was moving the transducer around his stomach, when his face clouded over. "The house after that was the worst."
"What was wrong with it?"
"Well, the house was fine. Pretty little beach front property, nice kitchen, room that would be a perfect nursery, the works. But the people! Absolutely unbelievable!"
"How so?"
Colbert hesitated. "I should warn you, it's a little shocking."
"I'm a doctor, Stephen. I see all kinds of shocking things. Try me."
Still Colbert paused, clearly trying to gather the courage to approach whatever terrible thing had occurred.
"They were great on the phone when I arranged the visit. But when we showed up at the door, they were suddenly all closed off and reluctant, and one of them finally said..." He took a deep breath. "She said they weren't comfortable selling to 'people like us'. Now, I'm a rich Christian male and people tell me I'm white, so I couldn't figure out what she meant, but I asked, and it turned out — do you know what they thought?"
Phoebe had a guess. "What?"
"They thought Jon and I were gay!"
He let the word hang dramatically in the air.
When it got no reaction, he started to look indignant. "Why aren't you more offended?"
"Should I be?"
Now he looked as though she had asked whether it was such a bad idea to run with scissors. "Of course you should! Because we're not. I mean, we spend a lot of completely platonic time together, and he's always been there for me, and he's really handsome in a short and Jewy kind of way, and when he laughs it's like sunshine and I kissed him at Christmas and sometimes when I'm alone at night I imagine him doing dirty unspeakable things to me, but that doesn't make us gay!"
For the first time in her life, Phoebe Moreau had absolutely no idea what to say.
Colbert finally broke the silence. "That had better fall under doctor-patient confidentiality."
"Of course."
"And it certainly won't come up during, say, your appearance on Jon's show next week."
"You have my word as a physician."
After all, what good could it do to reveal the information? The Jerry Falwell types had more than enough reason to hate her already without getting homosexuality into the mix; Stewart was a nice guy who really didn't need to deal with the fallout it would bring; and she was getting so much money out of Colbert already that she had bought everything she could think of, up to and including a pony for her granddaughter.
Still Colbert looked wary, defensive; it was time to change the subject again.
"Look at the screen," she said, tracing a circle in the mass of grey static. "This is your son's head. He's facing towards you — do you see where the eyes are?"
He didn't, at first — and then he put it together, and all the suspicion and all the defensiveness melted away as if the whole conversation were forgotten. Which, for the moment, it probably was.
March 6, 2007
20 Weeks
"Tremendous show for you tonight, folks: Dr. Phoebe Moreau will be joining us! As you've all heard by now, she's the woman who got my friend knocked up, which is funny, because usually that works the other way around."
Jon put on his best awkward smile, and the audience rewarded him with an appreciative laugh.
Within an hour, No Fact Zone's Senior Pregnancy Correspondent (a nurse practitioner by day and active Colbert Nation hero by night, who had joined the blog a month into the pregnancy to help sift the news from the nonsense) had posted the following:
This Week In Pregnancy (3/7/07)
by Demosthenes — published on March 7, 2007
Good morning, Nation! We always recommend that you watch The Daily Show, on the off chance that Stephen will appear; but we know that it can be hard to stomach Jon Stewart's liberal agenda, so here's a heads-up: despite the guest (one Dr. Moreau), tonight's show is one you won't mind missing the rerun of. Stephen was hardly mentioned.
In case you want to know what happened anyway without having to sit through it, here's a transcript (hooray for TiVo!) which you can skim at your leisure:
JON
Tonight's guest is a physician with more degrees than a reasonable person should have. She's here on behalf of RYT Hospital-Dwayne Medical Center, an establishment known for its innovative and often controversial medical procedures. You already know her as the doctor in charge of the team working on the world's first male pregnancy — starring our own good friend Stephen Colbert. Please welcome Dr. Phoebe Moreau!
[Enter the doctor, wearing pretty much the same thing she wore on the Report. She smiles at the audience again, too. For a brainiac on the nerd patrol, she seems awfully nice.]
DR. MOREAU
Lovely audience you have, Mr. Stewart. [Audience, hearing itself referenced, cheers some more.] It's nice to finally meet you somewhere other than a hospital.
[Note: Stephen has been hospitalized twice in the past five months, once on February 7 for an anemia-related condition and once from February 17-18 for an infection that turned out to be a bad cold. In both cases, several reports independently confirmed that Jon accompanied Stephen, presumably for moral support, though your humble correspondent cannot imagine the good Doctor Colbert needing it. For more details, refer to NoFactZone's previous coverage of both events.]
JON
I agree. For one thing, I now have these little cards that tell me what to say. Oh, and I'm not — what's the word? — freaked the (bleep) out.
DR. MOREAU
Oh, you handle yourself just fine. Besides, you have kids, right? You've dealt with this before.
JON
My kids — and let me tell you, I am very grateful for this — aren't making medical history.
DR. MOREAU
Thirty years ago, my father would have said the same thing. Give it time.
JON
Fair enough. So, listen, I'm sure our viewers all know the basic idea of what you and Stephen are up to, and the media has talked every aspect of it to death, including the fact — and I chalk this up to either a feat of impressive investigative journalism or the fact that someone at CNN took English Lit in college — that "Doctor Moreau" is the name of the crazy mad scientist from an H. G. Wells novel.
DR. MOREAU
I take solace in the fact that Dwayne Medical Center's website has finally outstripped Wikipedia's article about the novel in a Google search.
[Classical literature and respect for Wikipedia? Doc, you seem nice enough and you've got our beloved Stephen's life in your hands, but you're killing us here.]
JON
Being a famous literary character must give you a big advantage in Googlewhacking.
DR. MOREAU
What's that?
JON
Oh, it's this thing where you Google your name and see if you get more hits than some other name. It's very silly. I mean, "Jon Stewart" beats "Doctor Moreau", but loses to "orange juice". Not that I check these things often, or anything.
[He looks very embarrassed by this. Incidentally, "Jon Stewart" loses a Googlewhack to "Stephen Colbert" by approximately twelve million results. No, I didn't use Google; I just looked it up in my gut.]
DR. MOREAU
That sounds like an excellent waste of time.
JON
It is. So, listen, here's the thing: Since everything that's out about this pregnancy has been talked to death, give us something new. Right now. Let's break some news. What's a development so new that even you don't know about it?
DR. MOREAU
Honestly? There's nothing interesting going on right now. He's just under twenty weeks along...
JON
Now, hang on a second. [He does some scribbling on one of those cards.] The implantation was on October 26, right? Wasn't that eighteen weeks ago?
DR. MOREAU
Yes, but pregnancy isn't counted from conception. There's no good reason for it; it's just conventional that pregnancy is counted from the end of the mother's last menstrual period, about two weeks before. All of the pregnancy milestones — when you can hear the heartbeat, for example, or when you can feel the fetus kicking — are measured based on this calendar. So we're continuing to use it with Stephen to get a sense of how his fetus is developing in relation to the average, even though he doesn't menstruate.
[Jon has this adorably flustered look on his face. I can see why Stephen puts up with him: it must be so much fun to fluster him on the toss every night.]
DR. MOREAU (cont.)
Something wrong?
JON
Uh...no, not at all.
DR. MOREAU
[She looks all amused now.] Typical male. You'll do jokes about sex or feces without batting an eye, but start talking about periods and you get tongue-tied.
JON
Well, it is — if I may — icky girl stuff.
DR. MOREAU
My point is that we're in the second trimester, and that's generally the easy one. In the first, Stephen's body was still adjusting to the pregnancy. In the third, if all goes well, it will be seriously preparing to give birth. Right now there's simply nothing new going on.
JON
Could you maybe make something up?
DR. MOREAU
Sure. He's developing an acute case of quispiam averus.
JON
Wow, that sounds bad. What does it mean?
DR. MOREAU
It's Latin for "something made up."
JON
Okay, how about this: Tell us a bit about yourself. Do you have kids of your own?
DR. MOREAU
One. A daughter, back in the sixties.
JON
Were you a flower child?
DR. MOREAU
I guess you could have called me that — very briefly. It's hard to study medicine when you're testing hallucinogens on yourself, and I wanted to do the first, so I quit the second pretty quickly. [To the audience.] Don't do drugs, kids. You make a lot more money without 'em.
[Not like that'll make much difference to Jon's stoned slackers — but she could try!]
JON
And did your daughter ever look into mad science?
DR. MOREAU
Oh, no. I think my granddaughter's got the bug, though. Every time I see her, she tells me about her latest class science project.
JON
And how old is she?
DR. MOREAU
She's eight. How about your kids?
JON
Well, the oldest is twenty-six...
[Audience laughter. I think they were getting a little bored. Well, so was I! Less talk about your kids, more about Stephen!]
JON
Listen, we gotta go. Anything you want to plug, really quick? A book, maybe? What To Expect When He's Expecting?
DR. MOREAU
Nope. The What To Expect franchise actually gave me a call, but right now we still have no idea what to expect. Besides, it's hard to keep doctor-patient confidentiality when there's only one patient you could be writing about.
JON
Good point. Well, it was a pleasure to talk to you, and I hope you can come back after the birth and tell us how it went. Dr. Phoebe Moreau, everybody!
As usual, NoFactZone posted a recap of the day's Report, including a video of the toss. It can still be seen there, and runs as follows:
(The camera zooms in from a limited angle; we can only see the half of the desk where JON is sitting.)
JON
That's our show! Before we go, as always, we check in with our good friend StephenColbertatTheColbertReportStephen!
STEPHEN
Thanks, Jon. Tonight...
(DR. MOREAU leans over JON's shoulder into the frame.)
DR. MOREAU
Stephen?
STEPHEN
Oh...hi, Doc! What is it?
DR. MOREAU
I saw your show last night. You said you couldn't eat ice cream because you'd given up sweets for Lent?
STEPHEN
That's right.
DR. MOREAU
You can't do that.
STEPHEN
But I promised.
DR. MOREAU
You'll have to take a rain check. Right now the developing fetus needs sugars and fats as well as nutrients. You can't cut them out of your diet.
STEPHEN
I can't?
DR. MOREAU
You can't. Doctor's orders.
(Before she has finished speaking, STEPHEN reaches behind his desk, retrieves a spoon and a pint of Americone Dream, tears the pint open, and begins shoveling the ice cream into his mouth.)
STEPHEN (mouth full)
Comin' up nehst: zuh Colbeah Rupoah!
DR. MOREAU
Save room for your vegetables!
(The shot cuts back to JON's frame only. DR. MOREAU stands up and backs away.)
JON
That's our show! Join us tomorrow, hereitisyourMomentofZen!
(A clip is played from the 1958 teen pregnancy/family planning short "How Much Affection?" — "Well, it's tiring, but it's not too bad when Fred gives me a hand. 'Course, he's not used to babies, but he's a real whiz at changing diapers — you should see him!")