EXCERPT FROM EMAIL TO FRIEND IN THE UK This is again my Australian friend living in the UK whose baby girl is just 10 days older than Rose. "Rose is settling in beautifully, and is truly behaving like a normal little baby, so I imagine my life resembles yours in a number of ways at the moment, except that you have one more little bod to organize!" (This particular friend has four children) "I'm on my way to bed, but I wanted to assure you that things are very much better than when I was sending you those harrowing tales. Rose looked positively chubby in the bath tonight. Of course she's still jaundiced, and she has a long road ahead of her, but we do feel positive when we see how well she seems to be doing at the moment. And it's such a relief that at last she's started to gain some weight, at the same time as remaining as devoted to the breast as ever. It's just that she's also a formula guzzler. I really enjoy the fact that Shane can have a fee...
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EXCERPT OF EMAIL TO A FRIEND This friend yesterday dropped lots of frozen packages of her home-made minestrone on our door step. She had gone to all that trouble, only to encounter a "baby sleeping - please don't knock on the door" sign I had placed on our front door. Desperate to protect Rose's sleeping times, I have taken to placing the sign up when she goes to sleep, but I sometimes forget to remove it when she awakens. ". . . you're a darling! Sorry you encountered my "Beware: Rabid sleep-deprived woman within" sign on the door yesterday. Rose's sleep times have assumed a perhaps exaggerated prominence in my life at the moment, hence the strident signage on the door when the little darling is slumbering. I think I need to revise the wording of the sign, though - tone it down a bit, eh?"
EXCERPT OF EMAIL TO A FRIEND WHO HADN'T HEARD ALL OF OUR EARLIER NEWS "I guess you've heard that after a blissful first fortnight with Rose, we started on the very stressful road to finding out that she has a serious liver condition called biliary atresia. Since then, she's had a hospital admission for major surgery, and another hospital admission for suspected cholangitis. 17 days in all - more days in hospital than Shane, Lewis, Hannah and me in our combined lifetimes! Things seem to be settling down now, she's finally gaining a bit of weight, and we're all getting used to the idea that she'll be living with this condition. The big idea to get used to is that she'll in all likelihood need a liver transplant at some stage. Very scary. Until then, we need to grow her as big as possible, and medically manage the tricky things that can be associated with the biliary atresia. Rose is getting on with life despite all this - she's doing all the stuff a 1...
EXCERPT OF EMAIL TO A FRIEND "I'm feeling heaps better about Rose already, since I sent off that howlingly cathartic missive. Rose is now getting a little bit of fat on her, thanks to the addition of formula to her diet, and I can't tell you how gratifying it is! A few weeks ago I remember feeling her thigh when I was changing her nappy, and all I could really detect was femur, sheathed in a bag of skin! Now she has some nice fat layered on, well, one thigh-crease worth anyway, and even a bit of arse on her! And she gives us all so much joy."