Wednesday, January 06, 2010

it could've been serious, but at least there was great food

4 Jan 2005, my Mum and I spent most of the day at Heathrow Airport waiting for our flight home that evening.
Unbeknown to me, one of my oldest and dearest friends spent the day in hospital, trying to stave off and eventually reconciling herself to, the very premature birth of her son.
He was 1.4kg at birth and spent 4 weeks in hospital before going home.

On Monday Frieda and I went to Matthew's 5th birthday party, a gorgeous young lad, jumping in and out of the swimming pool and wildly playing his birthday drum kit (is his mother mad?).

My friend and I have often shared a wry grin over the last few months that her due date with Matthew was early March, the same as mine is with this baby, and on Monday I nearly pushed the joke too far, and seemed to displease the birth gods.
With the kids being dinosaurs in the pool, I turned to my friend and jokingly said well, I've made it through the 4th!

An hour later I discovered I was having a bleed, 3 hours later I was in hospital hooked up to a heart-rate monitor and cursing my wise-ass mouth.

All is currently as it should be, I spent the last 2 nights under observation, had a big scan and my little girl's doing great, weighing a very healthy 1.8kg, placenta's fine, bleeding's all but stopped.

I managed to spend the hottest day of the summer so far in an air-conditioned hospital room while the rest of Cape Town sweltered and stewed, being served great food by a very sweet lady-guy called Ingrid, reading the last book in the Millennium Trilogy and being completely spoilt with a peri-peri 'katkop' (cat head - slang for that indulgent carb-laden deliciousness of hot chips on a fresh white roll, slathered in peri-peri sauce), courtesy of my Muslim room-mate's husband.

Now home and nothing to do but take it easy, keep tabs on myself and incubate, incubate, incubate ... and keep fingers (and legs!) crossed that we make it to term, this bouncy little self-starter and I.

You just never know what's coming down that road ahead, and you never know who's listening as you jest with the gods.

6 comments:

Amanda said...

Molly, thinking of you, and hoping the gods have been appeased by the fabulous sounding meal you had! :)

Fi said...

Sounds like you had a lovely holiday ;)

Keeping everything crossed for you, hope the new girl stays put for a while longer yet. Rest! xxxx

MissBuckle said...

I had pre-aclampsia the last month. Don't let it wear you down.

Take it as easy as you can with a tw year old in the house :-)

Tooting Squared said...

Glad that all is well. Now SIT down, and put your feet up, and enjoy that book!

Sarah said...

Oh Molly, I gasped in horror and then smiled with joy at this story. I am happy your little baby on board is OK. I will keep all things crossed here too!

julochka said...

keeping fingers crossed and hoping it's all ok! but being born early doesn't have to be all bad..sabin was ten weeks early and weighed 1570 grams. what's important is that shot they give to develop the baby's lungs.

thinking of you!!!

xox,
/j