New York Times, Monday, October 4, 2021

CHRISTINA: I reached out to Andrea a little over a year ago to see if she'd be interested in a collaboration. I love the collaborative process and have learned so much from each constructor I've worked with, so it was fun working with a pro like Andrea!

The idea I originally pitched was a lot more convoluted, with some wacky phrases relating to labor. She suggested doing a simpler Monday puzzle, and we came up with this. My daughter was a newborn at the time, so I clearly had birthing on my mind! I also had "Here Comes My Baby" stuck in my head for a long time while this puzzle was in the works!

ANDREA: As Prissy said in GWTW, "I don't know nothin' about birthin' babies!" But I do know this collaboration was a labor of love! Though virtual strangers (no more!) Christina and I discovered we share Minnesota roots and we had so much fun and laughter putting this together… And I love the idea of two making a baby without no men in sight … how 2020 is that?!

Hey, this isn't the correct progression! It's race to the hospital, be told that it's false labor, go home, rush back hours later, no progress, walk around the hospital for two hours at 2:30 am trying to induce labor, return home, pass out, dash back …

That might not all fit in a crossword.

Christina and I both have two little kids, so it was super fun to solve this one with her stories in mind. LABOR, PUSH, DELIVERY make for a tidy theme.

Unlike the actual childbirth process.

I appreciated that LABOR was disguised, pointing more toward general work with LABOR DAY. And such a colorful phrase in LABOR DAY WEEKEND.

PUSH THE ENVELOPE also performed some obfuscation, since it's an idiom. Great phrase selection, again.

I had an inkling what was going on by now, and DELIVERY SERVICE sealed the deal. Signed, sealed, delivered, "Name That Tune" was mine! It'd have been great to get more misdirection, but that's tough with a DELIVERY ___ phrase. Maybe DELIVERY ROUTE could have been slightly better, since I've heard DELIVERY SERVICE punnily described as in Ob/Gyn's job?

Only four themers, but the fact that they're grid-spanners does bring up some challenges. The tricky areas are usually the west and east sections, where so many adjacent Down answers have to thread through the middle two themers. I'm impressed that they escaped with only ENO and WVA in the east.

Getting these regions solidly filled, though, often locks things in, removing precious flexibility elsewhere. While I love SORE EYES, having to accept some ELEM isn't ideal. The opposite location is super-clean, but TARGETED isn't that interesting a bonus.

I feel blessed to have the opportunity to get to know a lot of constructors, and that enhanced my solving experience today. It gave this childbirth puzzle more meaning to me, even more than the last one.