Memory.

November 2005, re new baby girl.

She's really something. What a good sleeper as well. I have to keep waking her to feed her. She's a bit jaundiced (but within normal range according to her bilirubin test) and was losing weight, but that should change shortly. I just drank about a litre of fenugreek tea to get things going, and then the milk truck arrived in a big way about five minutes ago. She nurses like a champ, anyhow.

I am doing spectacularly well physically. I feel better, in fact, than I have for months. The labour was quick, smooth and relatively painless. My epidural was the stuff I had always dreamed of. The worst pains are the afterbirth pains but they are really not that bad either, the least painful I've ever had, in fact.

They have actual "bathe me" notifications that they stick to the baby's bed, but they had apparently run out, so the nurse wrote a cheerful post-it note to remind the next nurse to bathe her.

Almost 5 years ago when I had my last baby, one of the student nurses who was taking care of me actually bawled her eyes out in my presence, overwhelmed by how much sympathy she had for the severe pain I was in.

Although I really did appreciate on some level that she cared so much and was so affected, it did annoy me, because then I felt like I was supposed to try to assuage her feelings, when she was actually there to take care of *me*. I didn't think she'd last long as a nurse unless she grew a tougher hide.

Well there she was, taking care of me this morning! and she has grown into a competent, confident, even bossy, young nurse! You know how you don't usually get to see how things turn out in situations like that? It was nice to see that she's a great nurse now, because she certainly had enough caring to be one. For some reason, that little detail just makes this whole thing that much sweeter to me.