"St. Suika Roberts" <wroberts@tvi.cc.nm.us> wrote:

GK> Bake- is a Japanese prefix that indicates a ghost or spirit; as in
GK> bake-neko, the ghost cat.

I think it probably should be `Ranma no Obake' as obake is the general
form. . .

Maybe, but it loses a lot of its pun value that way.

Maybe lengthen the O to an Oo (which would be close to a `Oobaka' which
is a `great fool' varient)

Also, I think Ranma would have more sense than to go to a hospital; I
know that Japan doesn't have as well-developed a midwife community as
the States, but even there they will have doctors who make house
calls.

Why would going to a hospital be stupid? I don't get it. Remember that
in Japan, a hospital is not likely to perform a total cash-ectomy along
with its other services -- as a US hospital would.

Personal bias; most of the stories I have of hospital births scare me,
and I don't scare terribly easily. . .

Probably the best method would be to have the ob. show up, do a
belly-feeling (to make sure that the child is in the right position),
and have the child at home.

If he is stupid enough to have a hospital delivery, he will object to
being shaved, and probably make it stick.

I'll think about that; I still don't understand why he should object to
the hospital.

Because (personal opinion, that I think Ranma would probably follow)
hospitals are for sick people.  People have been having babies for
thousands of years, most of them before the invention of hospitals, so
unless there is something wrong there is no need to expose self and
baby to the germs, fumes, and aura of sickness of a hospital.

Also, we're talking about someone who gets embedded two feet into
concrete walls without passing out; I think she would object quite a
bit bit to anesthesia, not because of any macho posing but because of
just how many nasty encounters she's had with it.

As long as Kodachi's not the anesthetist... :-)

There's the bit with the white lilly mentioned here as well . . .
Sure, Akane is there to keep anything from happening, but that won't
make the fear go completely away, no matter how close they are.

Can't personally say, not having experienced this myself, but it seems
that the person who has a really nasty labor is a rarity.  

True. I deliberately decided to make Ranma's birth an exceptionally
painful one, because I wanted to show how he'd deal with it.

It kinda doesn't feel like Ranma's reaction, though. . .
He can tough out just about anything, and would probably just leave
fingermarks in the bedrails ^_^

I kinda think that Ranma would have looked at the whole thing as a
martial art problem and done a lot more research than is evident
here.

Interesting thought. I'll think about this when I'm working on the
rewrite of this chapter.

No problem, I appreciate your taking the time to read and comment on
this chapter.

you're welcome,
	Suika
--
                        wroberts@tvi.cc.nm.us
	``Literature is the lie that tells the truth . . . ''
							--Dorothy Allison
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