The first week in hospital blurs in my memory ... a time of gourmet food, lots of visitors, sore nipples and not enough husband.

Lots of well-meaning souls had told us what a waste of time it would be for Fraser to take time off while I was in hospital: "you will need him so much more when you get home". Well in a way they were right - I DID need him when I got home, but I needed him when I was in hospital too, and trying to keep up with work as well made it a much more stressful time for Fraser than it need have been. Every morning, he would drive to the hospital (around 4 blocks from his office) and park in the "early bird parking", come up to drop off anything I had asked for from home and say good morning to me and Claudia around 8.30, go to work and field any calls I made during the day, often come up for lunch, then be back after work around 5.30 or 6 for visiting hours, which finished at 8. Then a little time alone as a family before home to do any washing I needed, look things out for the next day, try to finish getting the nursery ready, and then hopefully catch a little sleep before starting over the next morning.

On the Saturday night of my hospital stay, Fraser went home telling me "if you and Claudia are still alive in the morning, don't call before 11am.". He unplugged the phone in the bedroom so that the answering machine would take any calls, then lay down to sleep ... kindly leaving the mobile phone on in case I needed to reach him. They warn you that the baby blues kick in around day 3 or 4 ... I had a terrible case of them! After waiting what seemed like hours, I finally rang him at 7.30am Sunday, saying "get here NOW, I don't care if you aren't dressed, you can shower here, I NEED YOU". He describes this as "Melissa's psycho day". I was having a severe case of husband withdrawal - with all the visitors and nurses, I hadn't seen him alone (without other adults present) for more than 10 minutes on Saturday.

I have a theory that every woman grows to hate one of the midwives who are responsible for her hospital care. My buddy Amanda talks in horror of the "hygiene nazi" who terrorized her on her third day in hospital. Coincidentally, my horror story also dates back to day 3. Even allowing for my fragile state of mind, I am sure that this woman was trying to pick a fight with me - and if she wasn't, then I'd hate to meet someone who was!.

A visitor had brought a gift for Claudia, with an "Original Pooh" card. She commented that she knew which kind of Pooh to get for me. The midwife, who was helping feed Claudia, questioned what was the "right" or "wrong" kind of Pooh. I explained that I adore A.A. Milne's Winnie The Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, but that the Disney stuff leaves me cold. "Oh," she said, "but they sold the rights to Disney so they can do whatever they like. Anyway, I tried to read that book (Winnie The Pooh) but I couldn't understand it, it was too hard." [at this point, Gentle Reader, I leave you to make up your own minds]. She continued: "It's like those Beatrice [sic] Potter books, I got them for my kids because I was told they were really good, but they're really hard. No-one speaks like that. I threw them away."

I managed to change the subject, and we continued with the feed. We were cup-feeding Claudia at this stage, because she was having trouble sucking well enough to breastfeed. The somewhat wearing cycle involved breastfeeding Claudia for as long as she would suck, then cup-feeding expressed breast milk topped up with infant formula, then hooking myself up to a breast pump to express for the next feed. I had read enough to be concerned (in retrospect, possibly unjustifiably) about nipple confusion if Claudia was given a bottle at this stage, and had insisted that she be cup-fed rather than bottle-fed. The midwife was unimpressed. "Humph," she said, "I'm going to drown her if she keeps being cup-fed, she has to have a bottle." Quite logically and sensibly, I burst into tears. "I want to hear that from her pediatrician," I said, feeling (but not, despite temptation, saying) that someone who couldn't read children's books was possibly not the best person to be making what seemed to be major decisions on my daughter's behalf. This did not go down well - she had been a midwife for 16 years, had raised 2 children of her own, how dare I question her ability, etc etc etc. I responded that I was NOT questioning her ability (a lie) but wanted to discuss my options with Claudia's pediatrician. Eventually she went to call the pediatrician, who spoke to Fraser and very kindly explained our options - that if the nurse couldn't cup feed Claudia then she had to have a bottle, and if that didn't work she would have to be tube fed through her nose. He said that the risks of nipple confusion were over-rated and that in his opinion the bottle would be the better option. We agreed - we weren't keen on the idea of tubes going into our baby - and so the bottle arrived on the scene.

I later had a very polite conversation with the nurse where we agreed that we didn't suit and it would be better if someone else cared for me during her shifts.

Released on Wednesday morning to pouring rain (August in Australia is the end of winter), we stopped at Fraser's work to show Claudia off before continuing home. What a change - he hadn't been joking about those sleepless nights - we had a clear space for Claudia's stuff and a beautifully warm house - fireplace going and the new electric nursery proving its worth. After fielding some phone calls, we settled in ... after a couple of hours we were feeling smug, with a fed baby asleep in her cradle in her nursery (none of this sleeping in the parents' bedroom for OUR baby).

We even fielded a visitor - our pregnant friend Jane had been sick while I was in hospital, and her doctor had finally cleared her to visit a baby. She very kindly brought lunch (something we hadn't even thought of in all the fuss of coming home) and we chatted while Claudia had a marathon hour-long feed. I felt on top of the world and very proud of how well we were managing. Ha!

When night time came, the first of our plans went out the window. Claudia could sleep in her nursery during the day, but overnight she was going to be with her mum & dad. Fraser wasn't overjoyed - he could see the sense in having her close, but was woken every half hour or so by the little snuffles and grunts she would make in her sleep. Whoever coined the term "sleeps like a baby" had never tried to sleep next to a newborn!

Thursday passed in a blur - I think we made it up the road to the pharmacy for more painkillers for me - with my right breast getting a little achy. By Friday I had a big red lump which we knew wasn't good, so we called in the Maternal & Child Health Nurse (Nurse Jane). She diagnosed a blocked duct, which could lead to mastitis if not treated quickly, and stressed how important it was to empty that side. This was not a prospect that filled me with delight, as I had a huge scab across that nipple from the grazes Claudia had been giving me, but we gave it a try.

After a traumatic night, with me bleeding from BOTH nipples now and screaming in pain every time I tried to feed Claudia, and her screaming from what in retrospect we think was wind pain, and the blocked duct getting worse and worse (about the size of a boiled egg), my obstetrician re-admitted me to hospital. Claudia had lost more weight since being discharged, so our focus was getting the mastitis under control (thankyou flucloxacillin) and her weight back to gaining. This was a very different hospital stay - I wasn't in maternity but in the overflow maternity area, so no more 5 star meals, and we didn't tell anyone I was there so no visitors. The staff were less concerned with teaching us how to care for Claudia (they even folded nappies for us!) and more with getting me well & getting feeding working properly, and I left on Monday feeling much more confident and even reasonably well-rested, carrying two packs of antibiotics and the name of a good nipple cream.

Fraser had 3 days at home before returning to work, and we managed to get to the supermarket. I stunned myself by detouring to Kmart to buy leggings, as I wasn't ready to wear my jeans yet & wanted something comfy to wear (but vowed no-one would EVER see me wear them - ha!). The first of many baby-driven clothing decisions. Within a week, I was wearing these every day, even to go out, and didn't care who saw me in them. So long, vanity.

With Fraser back at work, I was confronted with another clothing dilemma: how do I get dressed on my own? Don't get me wrong - it wasn't that my brain could no longer cope with buttons (although zips were quite a challenge) - but that Claudia didn't sleep for long periods during the day and would cry if left on her own. Our housekeeper comes for a couple of hours every week, and I think she thought Claudia never stopped crying. I quickly learnt that I needed to shower *before* Fraser left for work (which seemed safer anyway, as I was still a little shaky from the surgery), and that I needed to revise my expectations down down down - I was lucky to get even ONE thing done a day.

Fraser's birthday was that Friday, and coincidentally it marked the end of the 2 week period where I wasn't allowed to drive. After that, we were told, we should only drive if we absolutely HAD to - well I considered my husband's 35th birthday reason enough to venture out with baby, pram and credit card. And nanna in tow in case I needed backup.

Going shopping felt like a real treat. The night before, I ironed a shirt and skirt to wear, and looked out a pair of pantyhose. Having lived in leggings and t-shirts for 2 weeks, I was ready to feel human again. And nice clothes go a long way to curing sleep deprivation, I have found. It didn't matter that I was so tired I could hardly think straight, at least today I had washed and brushed my hair.

Getting into town was the next trick. Mum had made it to our place, and we decided to wait for Claudia to feed then go, in the hope of getting back before she needed to feed again. We were all ready to go - except for one problem. I had never had to fold the pram before, and couldn't work it out. I had visions of the pram perched beside Claudia on the back seat of the car before I found the instruction book with the little diagram - I'm sure I would NEVER have figured it out on my own! We took the book shopping with us in case we forgot when it came time to come home.

Claudia, bless her heart, slept for the entire shopping trip (except of course for the bit where she chose her daddy's birthday present and wrote on the card!). We were home in time for the next feed, and mum even went to the supermarket to buy food for lunch. I think this was the first time I had eaten lunch since Fraser went back to work...

One thing no-one had warned me was how much longer shopping takes with a young baby. It's not that you need to walk much further to reach lifts, or that there are many places you can't go with a pram ... it's just that every second person wants to look at the baby, asking is it a boy or a girl, how old is s/he, etc - and when I'd tell them she was 15 days old, I'd be told how brave I was to be out with her - 10 minutes later we would be on our way again. It was really nice, and very good for the ego (of course they were stopping me because they could see how perfect MY baby was).

Feeding was still really hard for me - I was in a lot of pain and had a bad case of nipple thrush (undiagnosed for a while). Once we got that under control, things started to get better, although I had a relapse of the mastitis which required another course of antibiotics. Claudia was gaining weight convincingly (one week she gained 520g) but I still wasn't confident that I was feeding her properly.

The Freemasons hospital, where Claudia was born, run a day breastfeeding clinic led by a trained lactation consultant. At 4 weeks, I went in to spend the day with nurse Deb and 2 other new mothers. Claudia understood quickly that this was a day for boobs, and spent most of the 6 hours feeding. I learnt a bit more about attaching her correctly (I was having trouble because I had developed a bad case of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in pregnancy and still couldn't use my wrists fully), and got some practice feeding her in different positions. I left feeling quite confident.

Home again, none of the new tricks I had been shown worked. I couldn't get her on properly, couldn't get her on without pain, and was thoroughly miserable. Sticking with what I had been shown, within 2 days I was in much less pain and feeling that I was not such a failure after all. Maybe I finally had understood the users guide for my boobs.