Bringing it back

It is true what they say, that you don't magically cease to be infertile (or, though this is a bit more obvious since it is a historical fact, to be the parent of children who have died) once you become the parent of a living child (a very cute living child currently wearing a Small Paul t-shirt, $2 in the resale shop thank you very much, and throwing up over his Moses basket sheet, and yes I am supposed to be changing his sheet, not blogging in my pyjamas).

It seems to have hit Mr Spouse more than me, just now, as confronted with the reality of a baby (in fact, besotted with the reality of a baby, it is so sweet to watch him!). He was contemplating how many children we in fact would have had if either NigelandDelia or Sproutetta had been born, and the fact that probably Baby Spouse would not have been here in that case. I wondered whether even if we'd had NigelandDelia, we might have had the subsequent problems anyway, and as it was so many years down the line, perhaps Baby Spouse (in some incarnation) might also have been added to our family.


I had said when I got my implant, and I had continued to say, both to Mr Spouse and the GP, that an early removal might be on the cards if we had a baby in the house, and he (Mr Spouse) was much happier with the idea of trying to get pregnant (again, at my vastly advanced age) after we had a baby than while still waiting for one.  At the time he said that he thought I'd be able to cope better with another miscarriage if we have a baby we are parenting, and I think he's right. But he's not sure he can cope with more of that. I don't feel discussions are closed on that (but I also don't feel ready to have the implant taken out yet, either).  


I really hate that we have an eight week old baby and we already need to think about whether and how we might have a second child.  But time is ticking both for any magical pregnancy and also for adoption (while I'd love to have a grown up five year old to help with a new baby, that's not as likely to be practical from the point of view of, well, all kinds of stuff, though it might turn out that way).  Mr Spouse originally said we might think about adopting a second but it would definitely be an older baby or toddler, i.e. free. But I'm not sure if he'll change his mind on that one, seeing how besotted he is (see: very sweet to watch).  He is quite realistic about the fact that we have an easy baby and we might easily not have such an easy baby another time. He's an only child, and sees advantages and disadvantages of this for Baby Spouse.


In other random facts, we have worked out it costs £2 more to run our diswasher daily on the highest temperature setting. Per month, that is. I am fairly pleased to realise this as I have been avoiding buying a steriliser on the grounds that the kitchen is already crammed with useless stuff.

And finally a random question for Blogger users. How the H E Double Hockey Sticks (as they say on Big Love) do you make it start each post in the font you've asked for??!

They do have their uses

Baby Spouse does find, especially if he's in a sling, that my 34Es are jolly useful for holding his pacifier in. And keeping his hands warm.

Although I am pretty sure those in the know, here, will not be asking why I am not breastfeeding, there has been the odd smug comment (can't possibly leave the year-old baby with husband for more than a couple of hours because he doesn't have the required anatomy - which will also be mildly irritating to the colleague who knows this person, is breastfeeding, but desperately needs to start full time work in about six weeks as her husband has lost his job...), and I've yet to meet any new random groups of mums that are not friends of friends that therefore know the full story.  

Fortunately because adoption of a baby is so rare here, no-one will have a friend of a friend of a friend who adopted and fed her baby entirely by breastfeeding and found it so easy and fulfilling. I also strongly suspect that Baby Spouse would have been sucking his thumbs or a pacifier from day 3, when he discovered said thumbs fit nicely in his mouth, however he was fed. So the "my baby's never had a dummy" brigade will be told they are just lucky.

But I did have occasion to ring up a colleague (who actually knows a lot about social care as her work is on that end of the spectrum of what I do), to talk about a project we need to get done in the next few months, for which I'll arrange some child care, and then work will owe me a day or three when I go back properly, which is fine by me. She said "oh, you won't be breastfeeding, will you, so someone else can care for the baby". Well yes, but it is not easy to find "someone else" who is not Baby Spouse's father and who will be able to take over a whole day, or three, of care, and although he may not need my actual anatomy every two hours, he still needs a knowledgable caring adult to produce feed and change him about every three hours, and preferably, some days, to sit on the sofa cuddling him most of the rest of the time.

In other news, our county council social work department are useless, but we knew that. They legally had to come and visit us within 7 days of Thursday last week, but only thought about this, and about not having anyone spare to do this (well, except for the whole team of social workers 10 minutes walk from our house) on Tuesday. So they are going to pay our own very nice social worker from our agency to do this, so we'll see her every 6 weeks, but that is fine, she doesn't even drink tea or eat cake so we don't need to get anything special in for her. She came today at very short notice, because legally she had to, and she is of course in love with the baby (especially his very fat nappy).  

We also are in love with the baby, though Mr Spouse less so with his nappy (it's fat because we're trying reusables - we were given a large stock by a friend). What I am not in love with is Mr Spouse's crazy business school coursework schedule, he has been very good about doing overnight feeds, but although I know this will get better shortly, I really don't want to be the "expert" and do everything my way without him knowing how it's done, and therefore have him in a few weeks' time when he has his evenings free, not know what he's doing and therefore leave it to me because it's easier that way for both of us.    

Did you know...

... being a parent means never having to buy anything for the baby. Except formula. Well, almost. We have been given almost everything so far, including far far too many 0-3 month babygros (I did say, but a friend sent me about 100. I am not kidding). I think she had too many anyway, but her baby slept in them, and Baby Spouse is an elasticated nightgown guy. He has this (a gift, from the friend who has lent us a cot bed, a buggy, and an entire infanthood supply of reusable nappies):

which Mr Spouse says is his Harry Potter outfit.
 
I advertised the babygros on our local Freecycle equivalent (it's slightly different, and predates Freecycle by quite some time) and someone with a baby due in July wants to come round and get some. Can I face a bouncy, second trimester, pregnant lady? I may have to be about to go out and not enter into conversation. 

Phew

Home at last. Got back yesterday and had a bad night with jetlag, Mr Spouse being unwell, and Baby Spouse not synching with us. But I managed to make it out of the house and make a new mummy friend - the family across the road have an 11 month old with an equally "unusual" name. She seems to know everyone in the street, and has invited me to go out on Friday with her, colleague with very prem girl (who told me about this family) , and wife of That Wasn't Awkward colleague, who has a baby too. I like the new neighbour and these are all "in the know" but all of these children will be at school with Baby Spouse and I just don't know how much of his story he will want to share when he is older.

And I forgot...

to mention the doctor's appointment last week. Health and growth wise, Baby Spouse is getting chubby in exactly the way he should be - he has almost added 50% to his birth weight in a month.  He didn't even scream much when he had his jab. We got the medical information we were waiting for from the hospital he was born in, which was more what we feared than what we hoped. We were told at the time of his birth that if this was the case, it would probably already have had an effect, and there was no evidence it had. So we think that it's probably something eventually we'll need to tell Baby Spouse, but that won't affect him long term. But it was a piece of information that showed that Nella had not been anywhere near as open as we had hoped; but it ties in with something that her parents had sent us in a rather nice email after we met last week.

This did not place me in a particularly good mood for our monthly phone call with Nella which was due the same day. However, I was polite, she called on time, on the right day, and it's all been quiet since then.  Let's hope it continues like this.  We have one final legal i to dot on the birth father side and I'm hoping after that to ask Nella if she might have a picture of him (he's not her favourite person, with some justification, so I've been waiting till all the loose ends are tied in case asking her this led to her being mad at him and him then being mad at her and therefore being mad at us/the social worker/the agency).  

One thing that pleases me

is when people can't work out if Baby Spouse is a boy or a girl, so use no pronoun when asking about him.  I did dress him in blue today and three people asked me about  him, one of whom said "he". I've bought yarn for three wool sweaters (it's now chillier here, after a few days of 70+F weather, and although our particular rainy part of England hasn't seen snow, it will definitely be chilly there)... in red, a lilac mix, and green.

In other news, I am ready to throttle anyone associated with the UK Border Agency.  Mr Spouse has our MP on speed dial. I could go into great detail but I'm saving my between-feed-change-and-knitting typing time for emailing persons associated with the UKBA, in a tone of politely clenched teeth.

In which I take to drink

Everyone is doing their best to take care of me and I am making sure that I get out of the house at least once a day.  Today's is a well baby appointment, which should include getting the results back of two tests, one of which will be a tick-box-he's-fine they do on all babies here, and one of which might be a bit more worrying if it reveals something we have a slight suspicion of, based on some information revealed immediately after he was born; and which will also include a booster jab for something babies don't get given in the UK, so it's probably good to get it sorted out here.
But the visa situation is beyond complicated, the right hand doesn't even know that the left hand exists, we can't have the type of visa that everyone else has been given, they haven't heard of the type we know we are supposed to get (it's really worrying when you know immigration law better than the people who work for the Border Agency).

If nothing happens by later today I am going to ring up the consulate and pretend I have been arrested (this is the only way to speak to a person, apparently).

Unfortunately as I can't go for a run, and there are lots of fattening foods available, some of them in the convenience store next door to the apartment, this is not going to be good for my waistline. I also discovered they sell Smirnoff and Cranberry (very reasonably priced too), so I decided that I needed to watch Unforgettable and eat chips (they do constitute dinner, if you also have a mango and some cottage cheese, don't they?), and that if Baby Spouse spiked a fever in the middle of the night I'd have to call 911. 

Home alone

Or not home, as the case may be. Mr Spouse went home yesterday, and two night time feedings are more than twice as tiring when you don't have anyone to share them with. I am aware that we are very lucky it's only two.

Everyone is taking care of me though, I'm at the foster carer's house for dinner, and tomorrow I'm meeting the adoptive parents my friend introduced me to, again.

I have a few bits and pieces of paperwork to get done - I just picked out the ten photos the agency gets us to print for the first month, and written a draft of a letter for N to put in her scrap book. We have another well baby appointment on Thurs, and I'm thinking about going to a Mommy Matinee.

The visa agents have a status check facility on their website, and we were pleased to see the paperwork not only arrived at their offices but was sent to the embassy. We were very surprised to see an estimated back-in-office time of next Weds later in the day. We'll believe it when we see it, but perhaps Mr Spouse's obsessive form-filling side has helped. We actually have one supposedly essential piece of paper missing, which we cannot get, though we got a court order to circumvent this. So we are crossing our fingers they noticed this already and don't mind, rather than that didn't notice and are going to object when they do.

Moving

In my Google Reader feed I have categories of Adoption, Parents, Infertility/Loss and also UK (which is where I look first in case you are interested) as well as other categories for non-IAL blogs (though non IAL parents go in Parents too).

I just added the category Parents to my feed.

This is going to get confusing

I may need some new pseudonyms.

We met N today (let's call her Nella, nothing like her real name but also not close to any of the other Ns involved in the situation!) and had a social afternoon, then met her parents and her daughter that lives with them. I'll think up some pseudonyms for them later if I need them I think.

Nella shed a few tears, but I think appreciated the visit, and we have heard from several other adoptive families that this is an unusual time to have a visit, and that many birth parents want a break but come back for visits later, so I do think she was brave to do it now since she knows she can't see him for another year at least, now.


The daughter (let's call her Montana) is in her teens, and had a nice time holding the baby, and trying to feed and burp him (it was lovely actually that all the adults present could tell her it was OK to bang his back a bit harder! Nella and I also bonded over telling a random man in a diner that no, he could NOT hold the baby. Sheesh.)


All in all it was good, we got some great photos, and we gave them the written (but legally unenforceable) open adoption agreement that Nella had asked for. I am coming round to the idea that she has some fairly major educational difficulties as she got her dad to read it for her, plus another comment she made about looking for work; he suggested some helpful ideas on visits which I think he would not have suggested had we not met, and he also (I think it's OK to give more details now) asked if we'd like to get photos of her older son, who was removed through Child Protective Services and has been adopted, to which we said, yes please.

One issue which we think she did not notice, or she would have objected to, was the means and timing of contact which we'd suggested in our agreement. Because of the crisis she was having, Nella called us almost every day in the two-three weeks leading up to his birth, and almost every day since then too.  We aren't really sure we want to carry on having calls that often, and we have a number that can be diverted to voicemail which she uses, and we think we will turn it off apart from times when we are expecting a call. 

Nella's dad suggested we email them photos, but again because we are wary of not living up to expectations about returning emails, we may do that through a photo sharing site rather than from our own email. One worry was that Nella would return to her previous precarious (very very precarious, believe me) living situation and lose her phone number, though she'd have ours, but we got her dad's number so if we need to call we can contact her through him.

I hope this does not make us sound like bad people. We know some families have a lot more contact than this, but this level of contact is unusual for families working with our agency, we have been told. We have set up for monthly photos, letters, and calls for the next six months, and I know Nella is happy for that to happen, and we are happy too.  After that, I'm hoping for a repeat of my childhood, to be honest, with visits to a sunny US destination annually, both to bolster my American identity and to have family visits. We do want normality, but parenting an adopted child will never be entirely the same as parenting a birth child, and I hope we manage to bear that in mind. 

Road trip

We've just had a three hour drive with a baby (translation - a 4 1/2 hour drive) to go and get Baby Spouse's passport and are being introduced to the joys of not-very-baby-friendly hotels. We got the crib (= UK cot, enormous, but he's such a wriggler he'll enjoy exploring the far reaches, it looks like something out of a 1950s movie, all white metal curved bars), but although the hotel said it had kitchenettes with microwaves, it only has a fridge and a coffee maker. And neither of those are any good for sterilising bottles.

It is interesting how people react to such a tiny baby (he's probably topped 8lb now), especially in the sling - I don't think they are that common here, but I'm anxious not to schlep him into shops and restaurants in the car seat, given his history, he needs a break. We've had people do double takes because they didn't realise he was there, and so many people ask how old he is.

We also had a service person in a store enquire about the paperwork we were copying, for the passport, ask "did you plan for him to be born here?" which is a fair question, as it's not too unlikely he could have been born either before the last date for flying, or after getting stuck here for some reason. We explained, as we have to quite a lot of people, that he is being adopted. "Awesome" was the reply (which is nice, as though most people are very positive, some are caught short for an answer) followed by a tale of his sister and her adopted daughter and, erm, the daughter's dreadful birth parents. As I said to Mr Spouse, I hope we bring up Baby Spouse to have more respect for his birth family.

You'll be relieved to hear

we finally got custody today.

We are sitting here playing on our computers with Baby Spouse gurgling away in the background (or possibly trying to work out how to escape from his swaddler. Probably the latter.)

Lots more paperwork starts now, though after talking to the completely useless passport expiditing service, we found out we can make an appointment for Monday morning and get the passport that afternoon, about 3 hours away. We spend quite a while this afternoon trying to get a suitable photo. We'll just have to see if it is OK.

If you are on the Book of Face, and you are in a suitable group of my friends, you can now see some photos for yourself. If you think you should be, and you are a regular commenter, you can always email me.

12 days old

We went out to a local touristy place today with the foster carer, her daughter, our son (obviously!) and a very old friend of mine who has been living in Agency-ville for 7 years (and is from here originally).  It has been so good to see her - she's the kind of friend you can see after however-many years and then see again 2 days later and still have loads of (even non-baby-related) stuff to talk about, plus she has two little boys and is lending us her bassinet etc. etc. - I am not sure if I said this already, sorry if so.

There was a teeny awkward moment when FC's husband, who had joined us, asked something about Baby Spouse that we aren't making public (but FC needs to know), and I fudged, and had to tell FC the full story later.  If it had been really crucial, I'd have told FC the minute I saw her (or the agency would have given her the full medical records, or we would). But it's hard, having some people know some things and some not.

N has called every day so far, but didn't call today. Though I'm happy to have a little break, I do want her to feel we are not neglecting her, especially if we are trying to set up initial visits with other birth family members (which we are), even if it ends up just being a one-off for his photo book, it will be worth it. So I'll probably call tomorrow to tell her how MUCH he is eating and how his cheeks are getting chubby!  He's still a bit of a skinny minny but we are taking bets on whether he'll have gained a full pound or not by his next doctor's appointment.

The odd thing today was, walking around the touristy place with Baby Spouse in a wrap (that's Mr Spouse carrying him, it was his turn today), everyone says "ooh how tiny, how old is he" (and thankfully the wrap stops them from poking him) and then is amazed at how young he is, oh, only 12 days! It seems so old to me!

Another thought

A brief thought, I hope.
I was emailing someone I know who isn't really a friend but who I know likes older kids, and who asked how it was all going, so I was about to write "you must come round and have a cuddle". She's younger, in a relationship, unlikely to be weepy over the thougt of someone else, not her, having a baby. But I had second thoughts and added "if you like babies that is". I must remember, I must tell myself to remember, it is not easy for everyone to love small babies. And how quickly I forgot that. I am not about to thrust my own ex-preemie with query breathing difficulties into everyone's arms during flu and cold season (after the NICU, Mr Spouse suggests we have a washing notice as people enter our house*). But I need to think.

*Three minutes washing here - I can't remember the Countdown song well enough so have the Jeopardy tune on internal repeat. 

Countdown

We don't think we'll get custody tomorrow (boooo) but we will definitely be having a crucial phone call with our social worker tomorrow, at an early time here (hooray!). Then it's waiting for a UK letter that could be issued on Monday and if it is issued on Monday and if the OHP is in the office (or picking up email) on Monday (which is MLK Day but not all offices take that day off) then we could get custody that day. Otherwise we are rooting for Tuesday.

We have all the paperwork we then need for Baby Spouse's passport on the starting line (one court order - in this state they will grant a court order to change the baby's name legally before the new birth certificate is issued, so the passport will be in our names - he's having both our surnames, but not hyphenated). So there should be fewer suspicious immigration officials.

Then the next two hurdles are birth father issues (the word here is, just hope no one says anything) and Baby Spouse's UK visa, for which we are supposed to produce a long list of documents almost all of which we already produced in order to be approved to adopt by the UK. Gah.  One of them Mr Spouse, bad boy, has had to send for (at not too great cost). One further document is rarely available here (we're guessing the list was drawn up for international adoption in general) so we have to find out what we can get instead of this.

OK, you're bored now, I can tell. You want to know:

How cute is the baby? answer: very very very cute.  We went over today between the FC's school drop-off and pick-up times, we are thinking of doing the same tomorrow as it worked well, but seeing if we can go out somewhere (less boring, good practice, etc. etc.). We are in a fairly major touristy town but it is only about 10C and overcast and most of the attractions are outdoors, so maybe the mall.  Mr Spouse wants to go to the Gap. Sounds thrilling, no? But at least the new Moby will get an outing.

How well is Dr Spouse? answer: much better. Urgent care diagnosed not strep, but severe enough inflammation to warrant some steroids. So I'm now sporting an Eastern European style moustache actually able to swallow water, solids, and tablets. And codeine for the night-time cough. Bet you're thrilled at that. But you do feel proper ill when they give you something that you can't get on prescription. We're chilling out after a somewhat home-cooked meal (as home-cooked as the slightly sub-standard kitchen will allow - no corkscrew, I ask you!), and might watch some trash on TV shortly. My vote, as always, is for Law and Order.

Not Impressed Of The Day

We bought a Moby wrap (after trying a couple of other ones at the foster carer's - they are just too big for our weeny baby, though did I say, I think I forgot, that either he regained his birth weight or (more likely I think) he had a very very wet nappy when weighed yesterday. But he put on some weight, anyway). Took it over the foster carer's and tried it out on Mr Spouse, when the FC's daughter said "I smell something funny". No, we all said, nothing funny, but then we realised - the wrap had been used. By someone who smoked. And it did indeed stink.  

Not only that, but the big box store claimed they "never resell things" when I took it back.

In other news, Baby Spouse may possibly have learned to cry, we gave him a bath tonight and his grizzling could be heard downstairs.  This will reassure my mother who was panicking on the phone that there must be something wrong with him if he isn't crying (the doctors aren't worried so we aren't!).  My mother also wanted to Skype with him which, frankly, is  not going to happen any time until he can set it up himself. I hate Skype - she loves it and uses it all the time with my nieces - once we used it when she was with us, and I could not tell which of my nieces (then aged 3 and 6, I think) I was talking to, the picture was so bad. I told her there was no point as he does not look different in a still picture than in live action as he is so placid.

State of play

Baby Spouse: still at foster carer's (it's a Hague thing), but FC is lovely and very lovely as well and in addition extremely lovely, and lets us hang out with him and annoy her all the time, and also lets us ask stupid questions. He had a heelstick today and did not make more than a teeny squeak (though he was off his milk for the next two feeds, and we don't know past that).

Us: we moved into a rental apartment today, which is a bit of a relief.  My throat and cough are still hellish, so I dined on ice cream, and had to get Mr Spouse to do all the phone calls today. If it's no better by Weds I'll be off to Urgent Care.

Paperwork: we got our side of the Hague paperwork sent in-country, next it has to be completed by OHP, sent to the UK, sent to our UK SW, and she has a phone conversation with us (have you seen the baby? do you like him? do you want to keep him?) and then we all the info goes back down the chain and we get custody. Astonishingly this seems to be taking about a week.

Birth family: N still calling frequently, but in a good way.  I don't mind at all being a listening ear but both she and I have very poor cell reception so it can be a bit frustrating.  We're trying to reassure her re. contact but it's hard to get us, NLA, and her on the same page. We're going to be making some notes about what we might suggest, and talking to the SW here.
Birth father issues still not solved, but probably closer to being solved - though the steps to solve them are a bit nerve-wracking. It's that document we have to sign that says "At Risk Placement" that's a bit scary. 

Annoying things: the fact that the only person at work who's asked the department secretary to email me is someone with some perfectly solveable paperwork issues that I didn't have time to do, rather than anyone with questions that they can't solve themselves. My throat. My cough. Did I mention my throat?

Cough

I had a rotten cold the day we flew and was left with very painful sinuses and I still have a horrendous cough.  The NICU has a large sign saying DON'T visit with a cough and I was initially worried they would make me wear a mask but I have been scrubbing as instructed for three minutes on entering the unit and trying to cough away from the baby.  

But this cough is getting very very old.  We had a very long day yesterday - decent sleep between feeds and only up for 8am feed but then driving about 5 hours plus multiple stops, with my nerves a bit frazzled because Baby Spouse is so quiet, and then on to the foster carer's, arriving very late and starting with a feed, then chatting to the foster carer and her family.  By the time I was able to get to bed, I was gasping for breath and suffering other unfortunate side effects.  

I'm feeling a bit better this  morning - I could do with a little more sleep, but we do have a few nights without Baby Spouse (not that he is really much bother!).  I am wondering about going to the urgent care but, although Baby Spouse has 30 days Medicaid, and we do have travel insurance, it could be expensive. I can't work out how much of this is because of lack of sleep and a punishing schedule, and stress, and how much is something I should be worried about.
In other news, today we will probably go and have a look at a condo we might stay in for a couple of weeks (or longer - basically till we go home, apart from visits to Hospital City), and meet up with my very very old friend who lives in SLA-ville. Oh, and visit Baby Spouse at his new temporary home.  By the time he gets home, he'll be the best travelled newborn around.

Squeak

Baby Spouse is incredibly quiet, and we have to keep checking he is breathing - he doesn't cry when he's hungry, which does mean we have to make sure we stick to a schedule, and check how much/long he feeds for. He does squeak occasionally and he sounds like one of those toys you give dogs.

I'm happy to say he passed his car seat test with flying colours (he seemed to be healthier in the car seat, than in the higher dependency room he went into first in the NICU... it is very weird as he was 36+6 so only just preemie, and he's a respectable weight (over 6lb still, put on an ounce yesterday), so he's huge compared to even some of the older/healthier babies in the low dependency room, but he's swimming in all the newborn stuff. It helps though that we can put his tops on from the bottom up as they are so big. As I say he doesn't cry but he wriggles madly if he's unhappy, which is a bit awkward when trying to change him.

We're just waiting to see if we're being discharged, but as everything went well I think that's fairly likely. We'll head for the foster carer's then, and find a motel for ourselves nearby. More shopping is on the horizon too... there are quite a few odd things we forgot in our haste, and poor Baby Spouse has almost no clothes. I think they are going to send us away with quite a few supplies though. 

Yesterday N asked us to pick us up early-ish, then she was going to get a ride, then she wanted a ride at 11, then she wanted one at 2, and eventually she decided not to come at all. She knows we are moving on to SLA-town later today, and says she'll just see us when we come back to Hospital-town.  I think her dad does want to see us, possibly her mother too, and I'm not sure if she's just having Drama type issues, or if she is taking a break for her own sanity (and if so, how long that will last).  I am hoping we'll see her again when we come back to Hospital-town, but even if we don't, we got some cute photos for Baby Spouse's life story book, with her, us, and him.


I may be a bit paranoid, but I was kind of hoping to avoid revealing my last name (Mr Spouse's last name is dead common but mine is not) but the hospital told her (or the SW did, not sure which). I am 100% Googleable and anyone can find my work address/email but I am ex-directory and have stepped up the privacy on FB too. Part of the recent Drama involved a nasty ex and though I really don't think anyone will be chasing us down across an ocean, it's just one of those things.

I hate to stereotype but...

The new car seat we bought, and its manual, has been a source of endless excitement to Mr Spouse. Typical bloke and his gadgets. 

Baby Spouse ate loads in the last 12h and we got a reasonable amount of sleep though my cough and cold are still incredibly disgusting and he will be lucky not to catch them (though I am following all the instructions on the walls about what to do if you have a cough).  He's a very placid baby and seems to sleep, eat, and wriggle if you are doing something he doesn't like - he managed a cry when he had a blood test. Hopefully he will continue to be a good ad for babies. 

He's just about to do his car seat test again in the new seat and then we'll know if he's in the NICU for another week. He's in the lower dependency room now and he's supposed to sleep in our room tonight and if both of those go OK we can take him away.