At the hospital

After only all too few hours of sleep a nurse came in at 8.30 and presented herself as the one in charge of us on the new shift, and that we had better go get some food before the breakfast would close.

This was a new life. We got a small room with 2 beds in it plus Magnus' bed-on-wheels; our family room. If we needed anything, we could go out to the duty room and find help, and otherwise, we were checked up on at every changing-of-the-guards each 8hrs. Mama preferred to stay put in the room; she hurt in her body after the past couple of days of hard labor and was mostly preoccupied with feeding and sleeping.

Daddy was the one to go get food for each meal. There was a line consisting of 200 (many, at least) tired-looking ladies, half of which were bringing with them beds-on-wheels with cute and crying babies in them, and then there was me, the only rooster in the basket. (Actually not true, there were a couple more family rooms with daddies in them, but they were few) At first I felt kinda out of place, with a slight touch of red in my cheeks pronouncing "family room" so I'd get two portions of food. After a while, however, I felt more at home in these new surroundings. But none of those babies were as cute as mine, of course. Fortunately for the others they didn't need to discover this since Magnus was with his mama while daddy was on the chow line.

Now, the biggest duty of the day was learning to feed Magnus - we couldn't go home until he could be fed. This could be difficult, and unfortunately all the brochures and books around were in norwegian, so daddy had to read it all and explain. I quickly became an expert in breast feeding. And seeing as many of the vacation-influenced hospitals nurses and midwives were swedish temps, swedish being a rather difficult norwegian accent for Muna, guess who had to go ask all the questions over in the duty room when something was not working out? Yep, you guessed it, every time catching the smiles of every nurse and midwife in the immediate vicinity. "Hey, here is a daddy with questions about breastfeeding!"

The ultimate episode was when I was sent out to get some hemmoroid-soothing cream for the hurting mama. Now, these nurses were all too used to all the sore and hurting nipples in the area, and didn't catch that it was hemmoroid-cream I asked for. This woman, after digging out some cream in a cabinet turned to me and said "But surely you don't have sore nipples!"I think they will remember me for some time to come...

Another duty was learning how to change diapers. Mama was previously a pronounced sceptic of diapers and the changing thereof, and although daddy had tried this before what needed to be learned was how this little breakable baby body was supposed to be handled during the process. But as a matter of course; it wasn't all that difficult anyway. Unfortunately for Nurse Carina we had to name her pooping Carina, because she was the one to teach us the art of diaper-changing, and strangely enough every time she came to look at Magnus (take his temperature, for example) he just pooped and pooped a lot.

The greatest duty was to learn how to clean Magnus. We took station in a sort of labroom with a couple of sinks, and daddy was taken through the bathing process. What a joy! Although Magnus was a bit of a sceptic in the beginning, he obviously enjoyed being sunk into water. To have those big eyes look trustingly up at you with a pleasurable smile of sorts while you go through the motions of cleaning eyes and ear, neck and hair is just amazing. And a wet baby with wild hair in a big towel is an incredibly cute sight.

In the afternoon on the first day, a bundle of grandparents came to visit, which was very nice. Magnus seemed to like it, too - he slept equally well on everybody's arm and looked real good on pictures. Somehow everybody looks good with him around. Daddy fell asleep in the middle of the visit, but hey, who cares about such details. Both cell phones were beeping non-stop all day, pouring in SMS's with congratulations and well-wishes for the fresh family.

Second day was a hard day for mama. Daddy went out for some errands, and somebody came and took baby away for vaccines and tests. Mama just wanted to cry when baby was not there. She had to go back three times to look before they admitted that he was ready now. Also Magnus had his first doctor's visit, and everything was pronounced to be fine.

Daddy was busy picking up a car seat from the store, getting a haircut and other little things, like getting a gift for the exhausted mama. That was an incredibly gratifying thing to do. I both looked and felt tired when I walked into this jewelry store, and a lady came over and asked if I needed any help. Yes, I was thinking to find something for my wife. She asked if there was a special occation, and yes, I had to admit so. She had just given birth to our first baby, which was cause for some celebration. Now the lady completely melted and called the rest of the staff over; the rest of the store did no longer exist, and they tripped over themselves in finding the right thing for my wife, the freshly baked mama. They ended up rummaging through the back of the store where they knew they had a beautiful golden heart that used to be nicely discounted, and I was offered both the expired discount and a card to go with it and a lot of wellwishing on the way out. That was a definite highlight of the day, and along with Muna's tearful smile when she opened the gift, it completely made my day, not to mention the whole week.

Some time during that day we started thinking about going home. We didn't know how long we could stay in the hospital, and would rather make a decision than suddenly be told we had to leave. We arranged for an exit-interview with the midwife-in-charge that evening so we could leave the next morning. More visitors came today, and also a photographer from the newspaper. That is nice, we'll get our picture in the newspaper!

Thursday morning started with a another nurse knocking at our door (there sure are many of them around this place). She was wondering if she could borrow Magnus for some more blood sample. Okay, if you must, just remember to bring him back! She came back alright, and regretted to say that his bilirubin numbers were too high - baby was turning yellow. Unfortunately this meant we could not go home after all. The midwife complainted that the only exit interview she got to do the previous day turned out to be for a couple that didn't leave after all.

So in order to reduce Magnus' bilirubin level, he had to go to the beach. He was fitted with special baby sunglasses of sorts and put in a solarium box. He had to stay there all the time except for feeding time. It was kind of weird to see him in there, but we didn't have much to say about it. Our family room was now strangely empty. At the first feeding, or rather a bit before expected, the nurse came into our room with a wildly screaming baby who thought he had been abandoned, that was soooo sad, but when he got his familiar breast back he shortly became happy. Later feedings were fortunately more streamlined.

Already next morning; Friday; he could come out of the box. We still had to wait because they were doing more tests to see that his yellowness stabilized, and in the afternoon it became clear that he was doing fine. We were asked to come back for another checkup, but we could leave if we wanted.

After staying in the hospital so long - almost a week, we had gathered quite some stuff - everybody brought something in, but nobody brought anything out. So Daddy had to run several times down to the car to get everything out. The nurses just lauged at us. A new experience was getting the baby car seat properly installed in the backseat. Next was to get the family ready to go. The mommy pretty much had enough with herself, staying in the bathroom most of the time, so daddy and Magnus set off on a cooperative journey to the unknown lands of getting out of hospital clothes and into civilian uniform.

I have as of that day pronounced that babyclothes are torture instruments specifically designed to humiliate and defeat poor unsuspecting papas. Getting the old one off was fine. But man-oh-man. The opening for the head was SO SMALL. Not to mention kicking legs and all these tiny little fingers and toes to look out for. We got the top over the head somehow, but now what? By now Magnus was already not happy about the state of things, going through a second birth being pushed against his will through some dark and constricting tunnel. So "gentle" lost priority to "quick" in order to describe the process of getting the arms in the right place. Oh, careful to get a good count and not lose any of the 5 fingers on each hand - we want them all to be in the same place when they emerge through the arm of the sweater. Yeeay, made it! On with the pants! Yeah, that's fine, go kick it - soccer players make good money and you can support your daddy when he gets old. Look out for these little socks! Hmm, is the top supposed to be on the outside of the pants or the other way around? Who cares, Magnus doesn't know anyway. Now, we're going outside for the very first time, you should wear a jacket. Look at this nicely knit jacket from your very proud grandma. Now where did the matching hat go?

OKAY - we're ready to go home, mama. Are you done soon ?