sending us home

I don't know how they know to time it this way, but there's something about letting us out this morning, when I was ready to be done with certain things:  the gruffer of the nurses, the food, the worry over our neighbors, the desire to be in my own home as I hobble from room to room, that rickety long walk to the bathroom and back, the audience, the scrutiny.  After a few days of unbelievable recovery-pain, I needed to be home and start to feel our way towards what being four meant. 

My first several clumps of sleep post-birth were frightening:  one dream had a room lit on fire with people burning to a crisp, another had a pregnant woman in danger, another had Maya in need of a shot to save her life, etc.  I'm not sure why, but my face would begin sweating all over whenever I'd fall asleep.  And after my first nap home, I woke up and began one of those all-over shivers that reminded me of a dog wagging over water--the shiver starting at my head and working its way through my body.  Which hurts, lemme tell you, once it hits my abdomen, and frightens me, and I had to call Ryan downstairs so he could pile blankets and quilts on top of me.  No fever though--or rather, it hit 100.1 and came back down--and though I'm sore and red at the incision site, I don't seem to be infected, which is a relief.   

He has some mild jaundice; it was in at a higher level but has consistently dropped since the first reading, which is a relief.  Aside from putting him under lights, which they never did, treatment for jaundice is frequent feedings, which pushes the bilirubin out.  Little yellow nose and cheeks and the whites of his eyes becoming more opaque, that blue-y color fading to tile.

We loaded our little froglet into the car and went home.  We went home!

And the dogs gave him a good sniff, which he ignored, and then Ryan made pancakes and we're at home again.  He rearranged the living room completely so that I could be on one floor for a while--the futon has been moved from my study into the living room, the walls flanked by sofas, and I can putter between our nest, the bathroom, the fridge with all its liquids that seem to never want to slip out.  (I'm a balloon woman.  I'm pretty sure that's how the Percocet-induced poem began.  It was pretty awful.)

Last night, Maya told Finn he was a Naughty baby! when he woke her up.  I'm pretty sure she was only half-awake and fell right back to sleep.

She also reassured him, Baby don't-a worry when he was fussing earlier in the day.

I asked her:  Can we take the baby home with us?

She's so fond of no, I was a little nervous at her answer, but she confirmed that baby, indeed, could come home with us.

Since, she's told Ryan, Mommy, baby back! because he gets a little fussy when he's held by anyone that doesn't smell like milk.  She still snuggles with me.  So far, she hasn't changed much, which is a relief.  I didn't want this to disrupt her trajectory.  I didn't want to become less close, more close, anything different.  So she's sweetly come uppy, mama! and we're making our way towards understanding where it's OK to sit just now.  (Bouncing off the just c-sectioned belly?  Hurts, for the record.)

Ryan:  Hey, should I hold him up like in The Lion King?

Me:  Um, sure?

Below:  You can see how absolutely swollen I am by that little peg of an elbow-bone.  My feet are huge, my knees have absolutely disappeared, and I'm still wearing braces on my wrists most of the time.  Actually, while in the hospital, I wrote a bit of a poem in my notebook in the middle of the night and hours later, I felt as if I'd left a string wrapped around my middle finger for days.  It hurt almost as much as the incision, and that's been one of those pestering, festering pains.

Ryan and Maya headed up to bed early, which left me and Finn to fend for ourselves downstairs, and I caught up on some terrible television and read some of a novel and by the time the dual pain killers kicked in, I was able to curl up in our nest and we slept for five hours straight.  Pretty impressive for the first night home, yes?