callistra | Odds and Sods

I have written my birth story, but I want to go over a few things because a lot of it was kind of hazy before I post it. Expect a bit of baby-ness on this blog for a while.

:-)

So, anyway, on to other things. Below, I try and answer a few questions people have asked.

Were we in hospital for a long time? Well, I started to feel guilty so I asked too, and the midwife said that most people stay for 5 - 7 days. We were there for 7, really, not including the day we had Vincent. I didn't want to come home, but knew that I could feed, bathe and change him, and that beyond that it was just a security blanket thing. The midwives were wonderful and did say to me on about day 5 or 6 "You don't have to go home on Wednesday if you don't want to..."

Why did you want to stay? I think it's because it was a security thing for me. If I couldn't cope there were multitudes of midwives who would take the baby away and leave me sometime to sleep or think or recover. And then when I felt better there were multitudes of midwives who were happy to help with questions, problems, and teaching us how to look after the baby. Food was amply provided. (We selected "Medium" meals and were always full. I even stopped ordering full hot breakfasts after a few days.) If we came home, we had to deal with the real world. Bills. Money. Emails. Food preparation, purchasing, planning. Cooking. Visitors. Cleaning. Dishes. Linen. Washing linen. The baby linen would also be refilled every morning by the cleaning staff, which was handy because Vincent has a knack of peeing through all his clothes and the wrap and the basinette sheet. If he got too much, I could give him to people I trust to look after him. Or else know that John had him in the sun room while I slept. Everything was only about five steps away. On most days, I didn't even leave the room unless it was to get Vincent from the nursery or to drop him off there. Plus they gave me drugs. It was so nice to just not have to deal with everything. Just for a bit. We spent the first day just staring at him, going WOW! I didn't have to answer the phone, check the mail, *anything*.

What's with the hospital food comments?

A typical day:

6:00 coffee ladies come around.

8:00 breakfast. Your choice of eggs (scrambled, fried, poached) sausages, mushrooms, tomato, toast, fruit toast, croissant, nutrigrain, porridge, Just right, fruit salad, strawberries, jam, honey, butter, margarine, tomato juice, pineapple juice, etc etc etc. You can select as much or as little as you like.

10:30/11:00ish coffee ladies come around with a sweet or savoury. The fairy cakes were bloody beautiful. Mini lemon meringue pies were nice too. Still not too sure about the strawberry lamingtons. :-)

12:00 - 12:30ish - Lunch. You choice of three main courses (such as pork fillets, seafood kebab, or creamy sundried tomato and pine nut pasta) with vegetables or salad (or both) plus a choice of four or five desserts plus drinks.

2:30ish - Coffee time again. And they usually offer you a sweet or savoury again too.

5:00 - Dinner. See lunch. For example, french lamb cutlets with rich gravy, potatoes in cream, buttered (frozen) green beans and brussel sprouts. (also frozen.) Probably my only whinge would be that some of the veg were frozen veg. Not really a big issue. *cheeky grin*

7:00 - Coffee time. Usually no offers of sweet things though. :-)

In between this, we were going through water like there was no tomorrow. I was clocking up about three x 750 mL Pump bottles of water a day. They just started giving us two or three jugs of water every time they came through because we'd just need more. The water tasted better than the tap water. The tap water just tasted like every other big building water supply - awful!

The funny thing about the 6:00 coffee was that the trolley sounded like Vincent's trolley, and on the first few days i was awake at 4 or 5, and so already with baby and had coffee etc. The last few days, they would trundle past, and I'd think it was a midwife bringing Vincent in for a morning feed and spend the next two hours waking up every 10 - 20 minutes going "Is he in here?" "Is Vincent in the room?" "Where is Vincent? I thought he was here..."

Was Vincent Price instrumental in name choice? Or Vin Deisel?
Yes, Vincent Price was an influence in name choice. Vin Deisel was not. :-)

VanillaThe current plan on the vanilla is that I will order it after the 28th (when my CC pays out.) I was going to do it on the monday before we had Vincent, but it didn't happen plus I realised we would probably be in the hospital when it was delivered anyway. So it is coming! I haven't taken money just to run for the hills. *grin* I'm just still not yet up to the normal Sarah I was before. :-)