the RPA way

It's Ivy's two week birthday today - it feels like we've had her forever but in other ways the time has flown. We stayed in hospital for 8 nights in total. Partly cause my labour was such a shocker and partly cause Ivy developed jaundice which left her looking like a piece of pumpkin.

Hospital was good.......and very bad. The shock of a 24 hour labour, major abdominal surgery and then being left to recover in a shared room with someone with a screaming baby, your own crying baby who you can't comfort because you can't actually move didn't really help ease the way. Nor did the nurse who I called after Ivy had been crying for over an hour who just told me "it's best if you just get used to not sleeping now cause it's going to be like this anyway" gee thanks. I started to dread the nights when Ed had to go home at 8pm and I was left in the dark with an inconsolable Ivy and no idea what to do.

Things improved a few days later after a lot of tears from me, total exhaustion, hideous problems learning to feed, jaundice from Ivy and culminating in me doing a runner from the hospital one morning after it all became too much! (I did go back.....) Luck turned around when on day 5 Ed was told to pack his bags and that we were going to be moved to a private room where he could stay overnight and help out. I have to say it was one of the best days of my life, it was such a major turning point and it was so wonderful to have Ed all night long with us. In fact the memory still makes me want to cry over a week later.

Things got better day by day as we inhabited our little hotel-like hospital room, taking turns looking after madame, watching some bad telly and eating some bad meals. And then finally it was time to go.....in some ways I couldn't wait to get home but in other ways I still miss the hospital. There's something really comforting about institutions: the sounds, the smells, the routine, the people, the daily bustle and cycle of life. It was a pretty amazing time holed up in that room just the three of us getting to know each other (with help always just a button press away.) Our own house feels so much bigger and looser and it's so weird that one minute you have midwives invading your space every ten minutes telling you what to do and then when it's time to leave it's just "okay then, good luck" the doors open, the training wheels are off and here we are at home.

Hopefully Ivy will forgive having such novices as parents, we're learning as fast as we can and hopefully one day we'll know what we are doing.