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.