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We've decided to keep him!

It's been primarily a day of responding to Eden's needs for regular switching from eating to sleeping, while we recuperate from the events of yesterday. (I also returned the DVDs that, inexplicably, we didn't find time to get back yesterday.) Eden's feeding well, and is settled and appears happy basically most of the time. When he starts to get upset, he's quickly reassured. He loves cuddles and seems to have his mother's even-keeled temperament. While people who know me now might be suprised by this, I also seem to recall my mother reported I only cried if there was a reason. Whatever the reason, Eden is delightful.

It was a posture something like this while coming down the birth canal that ensured that, while Eden arrived fine, his mother would require a subsequent surgical procedure one of the hospital midwifes reassuringly described as “almost as bad as a caesarian” this afternoon. Ironically after virtually no intervention during the actual labour and delivery, an anaethetist was called in to perform a spinal block for the procedure. This done, he somewhat dramatically enquired, “We're ready... Where's that Dr Mystery?” It turned out the good Doctor Mistry was a surgical registrar, not a Bond villain. However, she appears to have done an excellent job according to all subsequent reviewers, and Bronwyn seems to be making excellent progress.

Eden met his cousin Fin for the first time this afternoon, pictured here with his Uncle Tim. Fin seemed somewhat distrubed by suggestions he might have been traded in by his Dad for a newer model, but I suspect in the long run they'll get on famously... We're sad though that Fin and his parents are moving to Hamilton this week, meaning they'll see less of each other at least for the next little while.

Hospitals the world over seem to be plagued by the same problems, including the urgent need for staff on night shifts to talk loudly while they wash noisy dishes in the early hours of the morning. The ward Bronwyn's in has the additional excellent historic piece of the original foghorn from the Titanic, wired to the nurse-call buttons so it is activated any time anyone on the ward needs the help of the nurses. Eden seems to like the way the room shakes whenever the foghorn is activated, though his mother finds it somewhat hard to sleep at such times... so she's still had little sleep, and has been feeling pretty exhausted.

Tomorrow Bronwyn's parents arrive, so Eden meets his first grandparent. Cause, he'll be twice as old by then so well experienced enough to cope with it...