MWNews 34

William and Juanita are home now. William is doing ok but Juanita is still in a lot of pain. She came home because she was tired of being in the hospital. I think, altogether, it was six weeks, give or take a few days. She still has the pain and can hardly move around but it made no difference that her sitting at home and doing nothing and sitting at the hospital and doing nothing. All they are giving her is paracetemol (Panadol) and that is just like aspirin, so she can take that at home.

She does have the problem of sitting in bed and not being able to arrange herself to feed the baby without some discomfort. She has now taken all the pillow and all the cushions off the couch and made herself a little sitting up place in the bed so she does not have to move around alot.

We bought the baby a new bassinet, or new to us, from the next door neighbor. She was selling it a while back and it is very nice. It is made of bamboo and has a large woven basket that sits up in a frame. It is very nice, except I am worried about the size of the mattress in that it is really thick and not quite side to side, so there is a gap between the mattress and the side of the basket. I have to stuff a blanket in the sides but I am told that is what you are suppossed to do and the gap is there for that reason. I will have to keep an eye on it.

Maeghan has grown accustomed to the baby. Before we left the hospital, Juanita asked Maeghan if she was going to sleep in her bed. She has been sleeping in mommy's bed with daddy. She said, no, she wasn't. So, Juanita asked her where she was going to sleep. She said in mommy's bed. So where is mommy going to sleep. In mommy's bed with the baby. So Juanita asked her where daddy is going to sleep. She said, on the couch. Apparently, she had already worked this out. So, last night, she slept in mommy's bed and daddy slept in her bed. When she got up this morning, I went in to play with her like we always do. She said no, she was playing with the baby and I could not tickle her while she was playing with the baby.

Natalie and Angela have come back. They arrived this morning. You can tell Angela and the kids are back as they stopped here before they went home and all the toys are strewn all over the house. And the main one, Jarvis, was not even here to help make the mess. He stayed with his father in Brisbane, which would indicate that Angela is going back sometime soon but she has not said anything yet. She always said she was going to be there for Christmas but I am not sure how she was going to swing that finacially. Maybe the father is going to help, but I doubt it.

Natalie is here indefinitly. We are not sure what her further plans are but she has apparently left her boyfriend, at least temporarily, and is going to stay with us for some time. She says she will be here at least through Christmas, so we are hoping that is the case. We haven't had Christmas with her since last year. That is a long time to go without having family around. If Angela and the kids do not make it back to Brisbane for Christmas, then that will mean a house full of people. It will still be a house full of people, but just not as many kids.

I have no idea who is going to cook for Christmas. With my operation, I am told I will not feel like it but then if I don't do it, who will. I know Juanita says she can and she probably could, but I don't know if she has had to cook for that many people before. Her mother will be here to help and while we won't say anything about Juanita and her mother in the same kitchen, I am sure it will end up with only one of them cooking and the other staying out of the way.

I will probably be well enough anyway, if I am out of the hospital. If I am still in the hospital, then I don't really care what they eat. But if I am out, and I should be, I am sure I will be able to do it. I won't be able to lift anything in or out of the oven but they do not expect anything fancy for Christmas dinner, so I am sure anything I make will be more than they expect. Since I do not get to cook Thanksgiving dinner, I like to try to make the same things for Christmas. The main problem with that is it is hot over here for Christmas, and they are predicting the hottest summer and Christmas on record for this year. Of course, their records only go back to 1950 or so, but still, it is suppossed to be really hot here this year. I don't know what that means, it is certainly not Texas hot, but since I am not used to Texas heat anymore, it will mean I will be staying inside most of the time. But, since most of the foods we cook for Thanksgiving or Christmas are hot foods and suppossed to be for the winter, then making them on a really hot day is not something they do over here. They mostly have cold foods or room temperature foods. Like cold ham and prawns (shrimp with the heads on them) and jelly (jello) and salads. Nothing baked or in a casserole and certainly not hot turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes. Although, they do have cold turkey. A lot of families go to the beach for Christmas day and have a barbeque. I think we have tried to do that a couple of years but finding a place and barrling all the flies is always a problem and not the way I want to spend Christmas day.

So we will stay home. I will stay in bed and we will have a quiet Christmas, or as quiet as you can with a house full of people. At least we will have air conditioning and I might set it to as low as it will go just so we can pretend it is cold outside. It would cost a fortune, but it would be a nice Christmas present, I am sure.

This will be the first Christmas where Maeghan knows what is going on. Juanita, against my direct orders, has already started putting up the tree and the ornaments. I told her she had to wait until her birthday, the day after Thanksgiving, but she will not listen. I have put the decorating of the Christmas tree on hold as I am the only one who can do the lights, so maybe I can delay it until Friday. I doubt it, but I will try. I know it is probably the same over there but there have been Christmas decorations in the stores for almost two months now. Maybe longer than two months because I remember Juanita and I commenting on it before she went into the hospital. We have pointed out all the decorations to Maeghan and now, whenever she sees the decorations, she says look, Christmas trees and does an ooohhh and aaahhhh thing. Now, when she figures out that she gets presents for Christmas, she will be really estatic and want to open them right away I am sure.

And, of course, it will be William's first Christmas. We got him a little ornament and a big teddy bear. The teddy bear is like the one we got in America for Maeghan in that it has the year on it. I think we might have gotten it from the same store as we got the one for William at Kmart.

By the way, I know I mention it all the time. The fact that when I am writing these things, I keep getting interupted and am usually doing something else at the same time. Well, this time, it is William interupting me. I have been typing this for about two hours now and William keeps making little noises where I have to go in and check on him and play with him for a few minutes. He is doing this about every fifteen minutes. Juanita is alseep on the couch. she only woke up to feed him once but since then, I have been typing and watching him in the other room. I put him on the floor, on a pillow, and he seems to like that. He is looking around and having the hic-cups. Maeghan is laying down next to him but she will not lay on the same pillow so I can take a picture. She is laying on her own pillow next to him and reaches over and kisses him every once and a while. I have pictures and will upload them to the Kodak site as soon as I can. I the meantime, I might include one of them in this blog but I have so many others to include, I might not get around to it.

William is feeding every one and a half to two hours. I don't think that is a lot, as I would do the same if I could, but Juanita seems to think it is a lot. I am sure he will slow down at some point but I seem to recall that Maeghan did the same thing. Maybe it is just faulty memory.

I think I mentioned earlier, that I do not have a date for my operation yet. That is another thing I did during this typing session, is call the doctor to find out if there was any news. They did not know and are to call me back but have not done so yet. I suppose I will have to call them everyday for this as I have to make plans and we have to make plans for when I am off work and when Juanita will have to make arrangements to do things. It also would help to arrange to have someone here while I am in the hospital, if we cannot find someone. That is not as necessary right now because the girls are back, but who knows how long they will stay and the more people Juanita has around her the better. Laura, my sister for anyone who does not know the family, has told me she will be here whenever I have a permanent date. I really appreciate that and I wanted to say so in here. I know it will not be a very fun trip, but I really appreciate it, not only for Juanita's sake, but for mine as well.

I think it is time to go. I did get some work done this morning but I need to do some more. If have not sent you a link to the pictures or have not included you in some list I have created, send me your email address and I will add you to the list. Don't pot it here, just send it directly to me. Most everyone has and address for myself or Juanita, so send your address there and I will get you added to the list of people who can view the pictures. Of course, if you are reading this, then you already know how to get to this list, so that is not a problem. I recently opened this up to anyone who would care to look at it, so if you ever see some strange comments at the end or stange things happen, it probably means someone has hacked into the list and done something and I have not yet had a chance to clean it up.

Ok, bye for now.

Talk to you soon 

MWNews 33

William Lee Jernigan (or William David Lee Jernigan). 3.54 kg (7 lbs 13 oz) 15 cm (17 in). Born Friday, Nov. 18, 08:59.

The little boy is here. Both mother and baby are doing fine. Everything went just fine and they are expected to come home either Monday or Tuesday.

I have lots of pitcures but I wasn't sure how to send them all. I might just put them on the Kodak site and have you look at them there. I will start uploading them as soon as I finish this. For some reason, I don't have a lot of good pictures of William, although he is in every picture. He is wrapped up all the time and all you can see is his face. There are a couple when he was unwrapped but they are not really very good. I'll take more pictures today.

Maeghan wasn't too happy at first. She would not talk to me or anyone else when I brought the baby back. I canme back before Juanita did and she let me pick her up and show her the baby, but she started crying as soon as she saw the baby. She wouldn't talk to me and wanted to go back to Michael. She started crying for mommy, but when mommy got there a few minutes later, she was still crying and would not talk to either of us. I had to pick her up and take her down to the kiosk to get a coke before she would start talking.

I don't know if she was upset about the baby or the fact that we had left her and I didn't come back with mommy or what the problem was. She got over it after I had spent some time with her and she then wanted to hold the baby all the time. She kept getting herself arranged so she could hold the baby but I had help her hold William most of the time. She still does not call the baby William and everytime you tell her it is William, she says it is the baby. She also calls William her, but she will get that after a while and we stopped trying to correct her.

I am not sure if she knows the baby is coming home with us to live. She always knew she was going to get a brother but I don't think she realizes that the baby is her brother. She kept telling us that the baby was making a noise and to go fix it when William would cry or make a little noise, so I think she is ok with having the baby, but maybe not when we bring the baby home.

William seemed big to me, but did not weigh that much and the nurses said they thought he looked bigger to them to and were suprised he didn't weigh more. He doesn't have the puffy cheeks Maeghan had and, according to everyone else, he has big feet. I don't know if they are big or not but that is what Juanita said. They keep him wrapped up so much that you can hardly tell you are holding a baby. All you can see is his head but I suppose they have a lot of practice at wrapping up babies, so they do it kind of tight. He pokes his tongue out a lot and doesn't cry very much. he cried a couple of times but only one little cry at a time and he would go back to sleep after making a little cry. Juanita says he sounds like Maeghan but I can't tell. He just sounds like a little baby to me.

Juanita says he has my nose. I don't know why everyone always says that but they said it with Rachael and then with Maeghan and now William. Juanita says he looks like her family. Again, I have no idea, he just looks like a baby to me. Today, we will get to go up and spend more time with him and take him out of his blankets so we can hold him properly. As far as I know, he stays in the room with Juanita but since she cannot get out of bed yet, I am not sure how that works. I know we put him next to her bed when we left but she cannot reach over and get him if he cries. Juanita said she will call the nurses to pick him up and give him to her when he cries but I don't know how often that will work and Juanita was sleeping most of the time. I have seen the nurses pushing babies around a lot, so maybe at some point them come and get the baby and take him someplace so they can watch him. I guess I should have found that out before I left, yesterday but I am sure I will find out eventually.

Now that Juanita will be coming home, I have to get started on cleaning the house. I need to make it look like I was doing that all along. I have to get William's bed from the next door neighbor. Apparently, we bought their old bassinet and I have to go get it. I than have to find a way to fit it into our room. Since we moved a tv into our room, there is not a lot of room to put anything else. I suppose I could move the dresser out and into William's room until we move him into there. I know it would be too much trouble to move the TV and besides, William likes TV and can't go to sleep unless there is something making noise in the room. At least, that is what he told me yesterday. He told me I could leave the TV in my room as long as I fixed the one that is in his room. So I have until he moves into his own room to get his TV fixed.

Maeghan went to sleep right away last night. That is an unusual occurance lately. She had even had a nap earlier in the day, so she should not have been that tired. She did have to get up really early yesterday to go to the hospital, but the nap should have taken care of that. Now that I think about it, she was acting a little strangely. She kept hiding under the blankets, something she normally does not do and always tells me to take the blankets off her. Last night, she would crawl under them and just sit there. Thinking about it, maybe it has something to do with William being wrapped up in blankets all the time. Maybe that is why she was doing it. I know I will have to try to spend more time with Maeghan, although we have been spending all day everyday together. I will just need to play with her more so she does not get jealous of William too much.

I suppose I need to be going now. I have a lot of stuff to do. I need to get some work done as I will be taking off starting sometime next week. At this point, I still have no idea when my operation will be but I need to start making preparations for it. Getting things in order and making sure everything is taken care of at work and at home so I don't have to worry about it. I already asked Juanita who we are going to get to cook while I am bedridden. She said she is going to do it but as she has not had to cook anything in about four years, I am not sure if she remembers how. Actually, Juanita is a good cook, she is just out of practice and I am not sure she will feel up to it right away. Hopefully, she will be fully recovered by the time I have to go to the hospital.

And, since Joanne called last night and I was asleep and I have no idea what she said or what I said but I know she mentioned this blog at some point, I assume she was calling about the baby and I need to tell her that everything is alright and the baby and mother are doing fine and if she wants to try again tonight or sometime later, I will try to be a little more coherent. It was a long day yesterday and I thought it was my work calling and I was confused when it wasn't. So, if the conversation was confusing, I appologise and look forward to hearing from you again.

For everyone else who might be reading this, I will try to call you as soon as we get everything settled and under control to let you know more about the baby and how the rest of us are doing. And, look for the pictures on my picture site. I still need to organize that thing as it doesn't use the same format that I have on my computer and I keep getting lost as to what I have posted and what I have not.

Talk to you later 

MWNews 32

No baby today. In another wonderful confidense builder in the Australian medical system, they forgot to put Juanita on the schedule for the ceaserean today. They found the note where the doctor said to do it but they didn't and now the schedule is full and she is waiting for an opening to occur in the next week. Maybe tomorrow, but probably not.

She is still in a lot of pain and cannot get in and out of bed without help. She cannot walk anywhere and has to be pushed around in a wheelchair. She has been put into a private room but there is a sign on the wall that says this room is used for emergency cases only and she is subject to being moved with no notice if someone with more problems than her comes in. I am not sure what that means but it does mean she has no one to talk to all day long. At least in the other room, there was a constant stream of ladies coming through who were waiting to have their babies. Now, there is no one and she does not have anyone to talk to. And, since she cannot get out of bed and no one comes by to visit her, she has to stay there all day long by herself.

So far, I am the only visitor she has had. Another reason we need to move away from Sydney and go someplace where we know people. Not that they would visit either, but at least there would be more friends around to help her out. I guess I need to get serious about asking to work from home on a permanent basis. I basically do it now, but it is unofficial and I need to make it official. It would make it harder for advancement in the company but that wasn't something that was likely to happen anyway. Being American, I am not allowed to work on Australian accounts and living in Australia, I am not allowed to work on most American accounts. Which only leaves management but Australia frowns on managers working from home.

So, we could move anywhere we want and it would not affect what I do now. Basically, fix problems that come up, hold meetings with people who do not report to me so have no reason to listen to what I have to say, and answer everyone's question about why things they do don't work. The last one would go away as if I am not sitting there, they do not approach me to solve their problems, so I would lose further touch with the people I work with. But, if we moved, we would be amoung more of Juanita's friends and she could have more support than just me.

I still say Tasmania would be nice but Juanita does have a point that if you actually live there, there is a very limited amount of things you can do once you have done everything. I enjoy visiting the forests and driving around the small towns, but there are only about four or five towns that you would actually want to re-visit and that would get old really quickly as there is not that much there in the first place. Hobart is ok, but I have driven through part of the other big city, Launceston, and it looked like there was not much there and what was there was built around the shipping industry and that is not really something you want to visit a lot. Plus, it is four hours away from Hobart, so it would have to be a long drive to a place you don't really want to see anyway.

Not that I am giving up on the idea. Maybe someday. For now, our best option is Brisbane. Not that I really want to live in Brisbane but someplace north of there or even south along the coast would be nice. There are some really nice areas near the Queensland/New South Wales border. It wouldn't be real close to her friends so it kind of defeats the purpose of moving there, but since she does all the visiting anyway, at least it is within the realm of possibilities. probably someplace north of Brisbane would be best. I'd like to go all the way to Moroochidore ( I have not idea how to spell that but since it is meaningless to everyone else, I guess it doesn't really matter.) That is about two hours north of Brisbane. Close enough for a day visit but far enough away to enjoy some space. Juanita has family that lives there and I like all those people, or all the ones we met. That is where we went to have Maeghan Christened. They are really nice people there and the area is really nice. We drove up there when family visited and showed them the ocean. We didn't look around a lot as I was recovering from a heart attack but I found out later it is a nice area.

We will probably end up someplace between there and Brisbane. Maybe even Redcliff, where we got married. And, Brisbane has the added bonus of being only an hour away from the Steve Irwin's zoo. You would know him as the crocodile hunter. His zoo is located just north of Brisbane. Not that I think he lives there anymore, I think he moved to Las Vegas to do some kind of show, but he visits every once and a while I am sure.

Brisbane itself is an ok town. About two million people live there. It is third largest in Australia. The amusement parks are near there, on the gold coast. I have only been to one, Dreamworld, a Six Flags wannabe. It was ok, but having to been to the amusement parks in America, it doesn't really compare. They also have a Sea World and a Movie World and a Wet and Wild, all in the same area, so there is a lot to do in the area. Plus, there are some large hills they like to call mountains but are not really anything that would approach real mountains. Of course, being from Texas, they look big enough for me.

Anyway, Brisbane has a lot to offer. The beaches are not as spectacular as they are here in the Sydney area, and if you want to visit anything in Australia, Brisbane is not on the way anywhere. Except maybe north to the great barrier reef, which is in far north Queesland. I suppose it is not any different that any other place in Australia but from Sydney, you can go north to Brisbane and south to Melbourne and then anywhere else you want to go. In Brisbane, you have to drive 12 hours just to get to Sydney and then another 12 hours to get to Melbourne and from there, you have already traveled two days and you are stuck in Melbourne. Not that I think Melbourne is a bad place. Juanita hates it and from what I have seen, it is big and sprawling and not a lot going for it, but I would like to visit it for real someday and find out what all the fuss is about. Sydney and Melbourne compete to be the best city in Australia and according to a lot of people, Melbourne has the best food but Sydney has the best attractions. Someday, we will spend more than a few hours in Melbourne and find out what it is all about.

Another place I would like to go is Adelaide. It is farther west from Melbourne and seems like it would be a neat city. It is designed in concentric circles, with each circle being a different zone. Like one for housing, and one for business and one for the city itself. That is what it looks like on the maps but I am sure it is not really like that. We will go there someday also.

One place we have to go before we leave Sydney is Canberra. That is the nations capitol and is in the ACT, which is kind of like a state in that Washington D.C. is a kind of like a state. It is about three hours from Sydney, four hours from where we live, and I have always wanted to go down there but we have never have had the time. I feel sure we will this time as Juanita's father has a relative that lives there and we always plan on visiting when he is here but never do. This time, I will try to make sure we find a way to do it. Canberra is not really a destination, so if we lived in Brisbane, we would not make a trip to Canberra. It is not on the way to anywhere, except the real Australian mountains, and if we were going to the mountains, something we plan on doing, we would not stop in Canberra.

But enough of the Australian travelogue. We were talking about William and when he is going to be born. Right now, I cannot say when. Unless she goes into labor, she is apparently not a high priority. She has an official schedule to deliver next Thursday, but I don't think she can last that long. She is just not handling the pain very well right now and has even started allowing them to give her morphine. She says it doesn't do any good but maybe it is because it is such a small dose because of the baby. If she has to stay on it for a week, then it might cause problems for the baby when he is born. So, we do not want that.

I didn't hear from the hospital about when my operation is scheduled, so it will be next week before they can schedule me for a class and then get me scheduled for surgery. Who knows when that will happen. Maeghan is getting board with playing with me all the time. She has started telling me she is busy when I ask her something or tell her to do something. That is what I say to her when I am working and she wants to play, so she is just repeating it to me. I suppose I have been saying it a lot to her lately because I have been leaving my work to pile up while I have been working from home. I need to get some of it done but she is always wanting to do something with me, so it makes it hard. We have been together, Maeghan and I, for over six weeks now. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. I know we both enjoy it a lot, it is probably getting on her nerves as much as it is mine. I love playing with Maeghan and would rather do that than anything else, but I have work to do and she doesn't understand and I feel bad when I have to put her in front of the television and have her sit there for hours and not have anyone to play with. Hopefully, Juanita will be better soon and she will have William to play with and watch and I can get some work done so I can give her my full attention again. I know watching kids is something mothers do all the time but they do need a break now and again and I am ready for a break now or at least some time with Maeghan where I don't have to worry about all the other things I should be doing.

But it is fun. Maeghan and I still have lots of fun together and she is always wanting me to watch her or play with her or just hold her. I really do love doing that and wish it was all I had to do each day. And, I get the added bonus of her being so entertaining and funny all the time that I don't have to do anything else to be entertained. She was trying to sing a song last night and kept telling me to watch her. Whenever I would look away, she would stand in front of me and say here I am, watch me and keep repeating it until I said I was watching and would look right at her. She would then go back across the room and start her song again, until I turned away again. She would then repeat the process over and over again. The problem was, the song she was singing, she was making up as she went and it didn't really make sense and the dancing part of the show was nothing she doesn't always do. When I tried to sing with her or dance with her, she would tell me she was singing that and I had to sing something else and to stop dancing because she was dancing. She was being the ballerina and I was not allowed to do the ballerina stuff.

Maeghan also has this new thing where she will sing one song and tell you to sing another. I don't remember if I had told you that before. She will tell you to sing Twinkle Twinkle or Baa Baa Black sheep and then when you start singing, she will sing something else. I have no idea how she does that as I get confused when she starts singing another song and start singing her song, but she can somehow keep it straight and keeps singing her song, never missing a word or beat. She started that behaviour a while back when she would make up some of her sounds or words and then I would say them along with her. She will always tell me that she is saying that and then tells me what I should be saying. If she is saying grip grip grip, then she will tell you you have to say heep heep heep. And, when you do it together, she laughs and laughs and laughs and thinks it is really really funny. I think she gets it from Anna because Anna is always telling the other kids what they should be saying. Anna doesn't do the you say this and I will say that kind of thing, but she tells the other kids what they should say while she is doing something else. I think that is where Maeghan gets the idea from.

Well. Maeghan is awake now so I have to go in and get her ready. I was just going to tell you no baby today and then describe the picture I have included but apparently, I cannot create a short one of these. The picture is from camping and Maeghan is having her favorite meal of noodles. She still wants noodles all the time, although lately, she will ask for them but not eat them. She will eat everything but the noodles but she still asks for noodles.

We have to go. Maybe today, we will go visit Mommy early and then leave early. If I don't get there before 12:00, they tell us visiting hours are over and to come back at three. We usually get away with taking Juanita with us, so the time is not wasted but it really bugs me when they tell us we have to leave. They say it is because they want the babies and the mommies to have time together but I think that is a crock. The only reason they do it is so the nurses have time to do their work and not have to work around visitors and so they can have a quiet time so they can have lunch and coffee. It has nothing to do with the patients and the babies. I don't know of anyone in the hospital that does not want visitors, no matter what time of the day it is. If the patients would rather sleep, then they can say they want to go to sleep and the babies sleep all the time anyway, so why do they have times when no visitors are allowed. Is is just a way for the nurses to assert that they are the ones in charge and we have to obey their rules.

It is kind of like when they told me and the other people in the hospital, when I was in the hospital after the heart attack, that we were not allowed to get out of bed between the hours of 9 at night and 6 in the morning. They said those were the rules for the hospital and they did not allow us to move around during the night. I asked what if we had to go to the toilet and they said to ring them and they would bring us a bedpan. I told them there was no way they could make me stay in bed when I did not want to be in bed and got up every night just to piss them off. And, it worked, because they complained to the doctors and the doctors told them there was no reason for us to stay in bed and if we felt like moving around then it was probably better for us to get our circulation going instead of sitting in bed all the time. This visiting hour rule is the same thing. I know it is probably for the other patients so that there are not visitors all the time disturbing the other patients, but still, it is always better if you can make one patient feel better by having visitors than it is to not allow them and have most of the patients feel bad because they want someone to come visit them or at least to have their family around and not have them pushed out.

But again, I digress. It is just another thing I have against the medical profession. Not just here in Australia, but everywhere. And it pisses me off.

Oh wait, that is not a nice thing to say. I guess I will have to refrain from putting personnal opinion in these blogs. It is here for news and not editorial. But I guess we passed that point a long time ago.

I am going to get Maeghan ready now. If we make it before lunch, they might offer me some so they don't have to waste the food or whatever they do with the food no one wants.

Talk to you soon. 

MWNews 31

We have a date for William. He is to be born this Thursday, which I think is Nov. 17. Right now, Juanita wants them to take him even earlier but it is only two days away, so I don't see that happening. It is suppossed to be first thing in the morning but they take emergency cases first and then scheduled cases so it might be a while.

That means they should be getting out of the hospital by Monday or Tuesday so they will be home for Juanita's birthday. I would say Thanksgiving, but we know that is not a holiday over here and is not celebrated. I tried to do it a couple of times, but since no one else knows anything about it and therefor, doesn't come over for dinner and football, it really wasn't the same. So I stopped trying. We might go out to eat or something but with the new baby, that may not happen.

My surgery has been put up in the air again. Not that I am not going to have it but when I called to find out when, they said they had never heard of me. They are going to have to find my paperwork, again, and schedule me for the pre-op class. Once I take that, they will schedule the surgery. It could still happen, and probaby will, in the first part of December, but it kind of worries me that this is the third time they have lost my paper work and not bothered to call me and tell me. It has been three different hospitals that have done it, so it is not like one place is incompetent. It just means they are all incompetent.

The problem with this one was I did not go to the 'regular' lady that does all the scheduling for the surgeon I am seeing. She had just left when I got there and they had me go to a different person. I don't know if that is where the mixup happened, but when I called the 'regular' lady today, she had never heard of me and said she would have to go find my paperwork and schedule me for the class. She told me she would call me back either this week or next to tell me when the class is, but if they wait until next week and then have to schedule the surgery after that, then with the waiting list for this type of thing, I don't know if that puts me all the way back to Christmas or not. I am hoping I am not in the hospital for Christmas since it will be William's first and the first one where Maeghan really knows what is going on. But I do not want to put it off until after Christmas, so if that is when it is, then I will take it.

It does mean I might get to see Maeghan's recital. That is on Dec. 17, so I hope to be there when she does it. She is really proud of herself and really likes doing it. I am not sure how she will handle doing it in front of all those people, but hopefully, she will be ok. She is still the only one who follows the teacher. All the others never do what the teacher says but Maeghan watches and follows right behind her. When we were there the other day, they gave us her new costume for the recital. She is a purple butterfly. The ended the class early so everyone could try on their costumes and when they had all done that, she wanted to get back up on the stage and keep dancing. When I told her we have to go, she said she was not finished yet and she still had to sing. They don't sing in this class but she probably meant dance. We had to wait until everyone else had left before she would get off the stage and leave.

There are a couple of other classes after hers and some on other days. All of them will be performing at the recital. Maeghan's group is second onstage, but they have to wait until the end as all the students are in the final act. I think they just go up on stage and bow, but we are not allowed to see anything they are going to do until the night of the play, so we don't know what they are going to do.

I asked about video and photography. They are thinking about having their own video guy do a professional job, which means no one else will be allowed to do it. If they do, then it will cost $30 dollars for the DVD but I am sure it won't be copy protected, so I can make copies when I get home. It will be the whole program, which is about two hours long, but maybe I can edit it and only keep the parts with Maeghan in it.

I don't know about flash photography. I will assume they will discourage it during the performance but we can get pictures before and after, so that won't be a problem. They have a photo day on Dec. 3 where they have someone coming in to take pictures. We will get some then and make copies on the computer to send. I will take some pictures also, just so we have lots, and send them to everyone.

We are kind of worried about when I have my operation in that if ist is still going to be Dec. 7 or 14, Juanita will have to be here by herself to go through it. I don't want that to happen but I do not under any circumstances want anyone coming over from America. I will be fine. It is just Juanita having to go through it while watching William and Maeghan, and having to do it all by herself. When we find out the actual date, I will look at what options we have and make arrangements for someone to be here with her. her parents are not scheduled to be here until Dec. 17, but I can move their tickets up if we have to. I will also see if Natalie can come down for it but she is having boy friend problems and I am not sure that will be possible. Angela will probably be back by then, but she has four kids or her own to watch and I don't think having them all at the hospital will be a good idea. If she does come, then maybe Michael can watch a couple of the kids and Angela can take the baby with her to be with Juanita.

Like I said, this is for Juanita and not for me. I don't want anyone to come over and waste their time sitting around the hospital while I recover. If anyone is going to come over, wait until after I recover in a few months and then we can show them around and have a real visit but it is not necessary to be here for the operation. There is very little risk in the operation, even though it sounds like there is a lot, but they do this all the time now and it won't be a problem. I just worry about Juanita.

I was even thinking about sending her over to Tasmania so she would not have to be alone but I am sure that is not even a remote possibility as she won't leave. But, she could go over there, I could have the operation, and then she could come back when her parents come over. That way, she would not have to be alone during the operation and she could see me before I get out of the hospital and be there to bring me home.

I know that is not very likely, but I do not want her to be by herself. We will work something out. Hopefully, she will be fully recovered from the pregnancy by then and not have any lingering pain. I think the best option is to get her parents over here, but if we were going to do that, we should have done it before the baby was born so they could be here to help me take care of Juanita, the baby, and Maeghan. But, it is too late now.

I will let everyone know as the situation changes. William will probably be here the next time I write, so wish us luck with that. One lady that was in the hospital with Juanita and was a week behind her in the pregnancy, had her baby last night. So, it is possible Juanita will go into labor soon but probably not very likely. Juanita is jealous and called the other lady names when she brought the baby around but her baby is healthy and well so there should not be any problems with William.

Maeghan has just woken up from a nap, so I have to go get her. I will write as soon as the baby is born.

Talk to you next time 

MWNews 30

This email is more about me that the kids but some might say all of them are more about me than the kids. Maybe, but this one is definitely about me.

I just set up Skype on this computer but I do not have it starting automatically. I also have to share my headphones with Juanita on her computer but as soon as I set it up on there, it won't matter. I can send invitations but you might get annoyed with the Skype emails, so I can just include our address and if you get Skype, you can contact us there. It is catf1sh_gypsy. Notice that catf1sh is spelled with a 1(one) instead of an I(eye). Just look for catf1sh and it will find us, although it told me I could not use that as a user name because someone else already had it. I will have to setup Juanita's as a different number, I think, but I will do that later.

I am going to be scheduled for surgery. Probably on Dec. 14, but I do not have an exact date yet. Yes, it is bypass surgery, but I am not really worried about the operation. It is the recovery after the operation that I worry about and the being in the hospital and having anesthesia, which I have never had before. My mouth gets really dry at night and I panic when I cannot swallow and I cannot sleep on my back and all these things I am going to have to do when I am in the hospital and I just worry that I will be disoriented and panic and then do something that will cause a problem, so I am not looking forward to being in the hospital. And you cannot really explain that to the doctors and nurses so I will have to find a way to get around it. But the operation itself, I am not worried about.

They tell me I will be in the hospital for a week and then about 5 to 6 weeks rest before I can return to lite duties at work. Of course, I do not know what lite duties are when you work on a computer but I assume that means not working for long stretches at a time, which I don't do anyway. Since I work on a computer and work from home, I should not have any problems going back to work.

Anyway, when I know the exact date, I will let you know. I haven't been sending emails or adding to the blog because I wasn't sure what they were going to do. There is still the possibility that they will not do anything, but it doesn't seem likely. The surgeon got the pictures from my angiogram and he did not call me to tell me he had changed his mind, so I am assuming it is going ahead. It turns out it is the same three blockages that have always been there. The surgeon said they should have operated the first time they found them but he said cardiologist never seem to think that is the first thing they should do and usually leave it until it is too late to do anything. He said, in my case, it was good to do it now as they can see no damage to the heart and can only see the blockages. If they can fix them, then I should not have any more problems and I should be 100% better.

Everyone tells me I will be a new man and I will feel much, much better after the operation. They say I don't realise what kind of problems it is causing me now. They say you just get used to the pains and tiredness and problems and you do not notice them or you learn to live with them. But when they do the operation, you notice that you can do a lot of things that you just didn't do before, so you feel a whole lot better. I hope so. I hope it allows me to carry Meaghan and the other kids around more often. Right now, I can only carry them for short periods of time before I get tired and have to rest but after the operation, I hope I can carry both kids for as long as they want me to.

They are doing the operation in Newcastle, at John Hunter hospital. I think it is a new hospital but it doesn't look that new. I had my choice of going into Sydney or to Newcastle and I picked Newcastle because I don't think Juanita could have driven into Sydney to visit me. And, Newcastle is a lot closer, so it only takes about 45 minutes to get there. Then you have to find parking, which takes another 45 minutes, but maybe she can get lucky sometimes.

We are hoping she will be better by then. William is scheduled to be born on Nov. 23, but that might get moved up to this week after the ultra-sound she is having today. They are checking if the baby is ok and ready to be born. If so, they are going to try to move her up in the schedule but since they said the Nov. 23 date was the first one available, I don't see how they can move it up. She is 37 weeks as of this coming Thursday, so everything should be ok. I was, and still am, worried about them taking the baby too early, but everyone tells me 37 weeks is just fine.

Juanita is in a lot of pain and it is getting worse. She cannot get in and out of bed now and, depending on which doctor you talk to, the pain might go for several weeks or even months after the baby is born. If that happens, she will not be able to drive me to the hospital and back. I will have to take the train and a taxi or bus to the doctors. Juanita's parents get here on Dec. 17, so they can drive to pick me up when I get out but I will have to find another way to get there.

There is the possibility of having the operation on Dec. 7 or even Dec. 21 but the doctor said he would get me out of the hospital before Christmas, so that lets out Dec. 21, and they have a waiting list so Dec. 7 is not likely. I should find out for sure today or tomorrow. I have to go in for a whole day class before the operation. I was suppossed to go to one after the last operation but the only thing I went to was a thing that took about an hour and it was a waste of time. This one is all day and they even serve me lunch. I don't know how often they have the classes nor how many people attend but I guess they will tell me that beforehand.

Maeghan just called out to me. She is waking up. It is 07:30 in the morining here. She has not been waking up until 9 or 9:30 lately, since she has been home alone with Daddy. Of course, she has not been going to bed before 10:00 each night, so that is why she sleeps so late. Not that she doesn't want to go to bed earlier, she asks me each night to go to bed, but I am usually busy doing something and since she is sleeping in my bed with me, I have to go to bed with her and I am usually not ready until 10 or so. She usually asks to go to bed around 8:30 or 9 but if I put her in bed at that time, and I do not stay with her until she falls asleep, then she just wakes up and gets back up anyway. If I stay until she falls asleep, then I usually fall asleep too, so I don't get to watch my late night programs. Also, we just got the TV fixed in the bedroom, so if I try to watch TV while she is going to sleep, she does not go to sleep and wants to play all the time. I have to turn the TV off before she will sleep, which is really annoying, because when I am sleeping by myself, the only way I can fall asleep is to leave the tv on so I fall asleep while watching.

It is a real problem. I did have her sleeping in her bed but since I have washed the sheets and have not put them back on her bed, it was easier to put her in my bed. Maybe today, I will put her sheets on her bed and she can go back to sleeping in it. Then again, maybe not. I don't seem to have a lot of time these days to do anything. Juanita has been in the hospital for six weeks now, or maybe it is just four but it seems longer. I spend most of my days working in the morning, giving Maeghan and myself a shower when she wakes up. Getting Maeghan something to eat and getting snacks or lunch ready for us to take to the hospital. Then driving 45 minutes to the hospital, staying there for about 3 hours, then driving back home. When I get home, it is time to make dinner. I then make dinner, clean the dishes and by that time, it is time for one of my shows to be on, although lately, I have not been able to watch them, and then it is time for bed. It doesn't leave a whole lot of time for anything else, like writing emails or blogs or working or cleaning the rest of the house or doing the laundry or playing with Maeghan. Plus, we have to worry about Juanita and William and my impending operation and all the other things that happen, so we have a full day each day.

One thing we have been making time for is Maeghan's ballet and play group. I am going to miss her ballet play, which is on Dec. 17. I will probably be in the hospital during that time. Juanita says she will tape it for me but I am sure it will not be the same. Maeghan still loves ballet and it is just about the only thing she will do with other people and not have to have mommy or daddy around with her. We are not allowed to see the ballet rehearsals as it is suppossed to be a secret. We have a long list of things she has to have and do for the play. She has to have her hair up and new clothes, although they will be wearing costumes so I don't know why she needs new clothes. I bought her a new ballet outfit. It is a size three, which is the smallest they make, but it fits her better than the one the teacher made for her. That one is too baggy and bunches up in the middle and the elastic sticks Maeghan and causes her to get red marks all over her. Her new one has butterflies and sparkles on it. I still have to find her some tights and new ballet shoes. She does not have to have the ballet shoes as she wears her braces and they said that would be ok for her to wear her regular shoes but I want to find her some real ballet shoes and she can just forgoe the braces for one night.

She likes her new shoes though. They have butterflies on them and they light up when she walks. Now, people have even more reason to stop and stare at her when we are walking around. Not only do they stare at her because she is so cute, but they see her sparkly shoes and they stop and comment on them. Everyone at the hospital knows her as they all stop and talk to her everytime we go up there. She has gotten a little more comfortable with everyone there as she does not immediately go and hide when they talk to her but she still does not talk back to them. She spends a lot of her time in Juanita's room singing and dancing around and everyone that walks past stops and stares at her. She used to stop and sit beside me when they stopped and stared but now she just keeps on dancing. All of them comment on her shoes and say they have kids or grandkids or someone they know who would love to have sparkly shoes.

But back to Maeghan's play. It is on Dec. 17. We are only allowed to buy 6 tickets per family but since I will not be able to go, that will not be a problem. As I said, Juanita's family arrives that same day, in the morning, so Juanita will have to take the train to the airport, it is too long and complicated a drive for her to do by herself, and pick them up, bring them back on the train, then get Maeghan ready for the play by 6:00 pm. Hopefully, Juanita will not be in too much pain by then to do it. The train goes straight to the airport, so that is not a problem and she can park the car at the train station until she gets back. It does mean that no one will visit me that day but I would rather Maeghan got to do her play and they didn't have to rush anything for that than have them come up to Newcastle. The train ride is about two hours each way to the airport, so they should be really tired anyway. I just thought of the fact that I am not sure the train runs that early for her to get to the airport in time to pick them up on the weekends. I will have to check the schedule. I know it starts at around 4:30 am on weekdays, but they have cut back the timetables and it might be later on the weekends. She has to be on the train by 06:00 to get to the airport by 08:00, when they arrive. I will have to check.

Well, Juanita has her ultrasound today and I have to get ready to go. Maeghan went back to sleep so I will have to go wake her up and get her ready. I know it sounds silly to say don't worry about the operation, but I am not worried about it, so everyone else can try to not worry about it either. I know that is not going to happen, but it would be one less thing I have to worry about if I know you know I am going to be ok. I have been under a lot of stress lately, so anything I don't have to worry about helps.

I will write again soon, when I know the exact date. I am not trying to keep anything secret, I just wanted to have all the facts before I told everyone. I love you all and so does everyone else here. We look forward to talking and hearing from you soon.

Talk to you later.