Hospital Recovery

Thomas went with Margaux and one of the nursing staff to have Margaux weighed and measured (and thankfully not found wanting!) while I stayed in the delivery room, shuddering with shock and comforted by a heated bed sheet. 
 

Once she was relatively cleaned up, Margaux and I were reunited and Thomas joined us. He immediately telephoned his family with the good news, and then passed the phone to me. Hmm, who to call first? I decided on Dad, who was over the moon. I swore him to secrecy should Mum call, to which he reluctantly agreed. Emily burst into tears when I told her she was an aunty, much to her own surprise, and remained emotional when I divulged that she was the namesake of Margaux’s middle name.

 

It was a little while later when I had Mum on the phone – I don’t know how long, but it was long enough that she had called home to check on any updates and Dad had breezed over the topic – and I suddenly didn’t know how to break the news. “I’m not pregnant anymore” was what fell out of my lips… obviously I should have been more specific, because poor Mum of course imagined the worst. Reassured that she was, indeed, a grandmother, she was very keen to join us all in the hospital.

 

 

 

The three days and nights that I spent in the hospital are a bit of a blur. I remember waking up multiple times each night, to frustratingly find Thomas and Margaux fast asleep:

I tried to get the hang of breastfeeding (more painful at the start than words could describe), of responding to all her cries and noises, and of being responsible for this perfect little being, while recovering from childbirth. I still couldn’t believe that I had been carrying this entire human inside me, and that she had been smaller than even her little fingernail only 9 months earlier.

 

It was beautiful watching Thomas bond with our daughter. When he held Margaux he just wanted to gaze at her, and he handled her like she was a porcelain doll.

 

 

 

We learnt about bathing her, keeping her warm, tricks to wake her up when she needed to be fed, how to fit her into her baby seat securely, and many other things that I’ve forgotten now.

 

While I was getting the hang of being a mother, Thomas was rushing around getting all sorts of administrative things organised – such as her pluralingual birth certificate and organising the creation of her French passport with the Embassy in Lisbon. The passport was urgent because we were off to the wedding of Marie and Scholastie on January 3^rd…