Week 4- the final week

I have been sent home from RPA now. But felt like I needed to finish off my last week in RPA. In a brief overview here is what happened;
- I had many visitors
- Found the nicest custard tart at the bakery down the road from the hospital
- Found yummy Mexican in Newtown, that nice I had it 5 times in one week. I guess one of the perks of being pregnant, I have an excuse to 'need' certain foods over and over again
- Had some nice home made meals, made by Sam, Joey and Debbie
- On the weekend we went to Darling Harbour to the Polish festival. The food we had was nice (no idea what it is called). But the people were very rude and kept trying to push in. Ava had fun playing with the water fountains at Darling Harbour
- Monday my last day I got to enjoy and internal and external ultrasound

Home time
Monday the 7th of December the bell rang and it was time to finally go home. The past month has felt like one of the long school days that never ends.

All the doctors, midwives, and service staff were very nice at RPA and made the stay a lot more pleasant. I will give mention to the very cranky food service lady who had a hissy fit if I left my food tray on the chair. And if I didnt eat my fruit, she would put it on the table.

Anyways I am off. I guess now I will continue with my being home adventures

ttfn

The food at RPA

I thought it was time I posted about the food at RPA. I am up to week 4 here and now 27weeks pregnant (today).

I have tried to tolerate the food as much as possible for the first few weeks. But last week I snapped. I have been lucky enough people have been making me food. A big thanks to Kirby, Sam, Debbie, Will and soon to be Joey. I am looking forward to Joey's meatballs.

Sam made me Pho, which we put in the fridge clearly labeled with my name and some jerk ate it. A few days later I had a vitamin water in the fridge, once again clearly labeled, and some jerk drank this. You may wonder what I am going to do about this. Simple, I am going to put a 'Vitamin Water' in the fridge which is filled with water and food colouring and some small holes around the lid.

I was in the kitchen/tea room this morning and a lady was going through the fridge, she asked me what the deal was with it. I said you are 'meant' to bring in your own food and hope that no one eats it. She told me that her food has gone missing and someone has pinched her coke that was open and she had been drinking about. I offered her some of my bread from my room, but she didn't want any.

The meals here:
Breakfast: Breakfast usually consists of, hot water, a 110ml oj, cereal, a piece of fruit, cold toast or a bread roll and either; one dried out pancake, baked beans or processed scrambled eggs, sometimes with a rasher of bacon.

I noticed after eating the breakfast for a few days my face started to dry out and get really itchy. The only new thing I was eating was the processed scrambled eggs and the cup of tea. So once i stopped with both the itching went away and my face texture is returning to normal.

Lunch: Lunch usually consists of some sort of meal, a piece of fruit, a 110ml apple juice, a slice of bread and yoghurt. You are usually given a choice of two meals, the meal is not very big and usually not very nice. Sometimes you can get a sandwich, which is half filled with filling. But don't ask the service ladies what is on the sandwich when they ask you what meal you want, because if you ask, you are given the one you ask about.

Dinner: Dinner usually consists of a main meal (a choice between two), a desert of some sort, a cup of hot water, a slice of bread, soup (that smells like baby food, but tastes very sweet), and a main plate of food.

Snacks: The snack lady/man comes at 10am, 3pm and 7pm every single day. You have a choice of tea, coffee, water or cordial to drink. But never ask for two drinks. They also give you yoghurt during the day and cheese and cracker during the everning.

I have mentioned that I am given a choice of main meals, what I forgot to mention is that if you are near the end of distribution. But if you get a nice lady or man, they will go and find you the other meal if thats what you really want.

I learnt a valuable lesson the other day. After being here for three weeks already and never faced an issue with this before and didn't see the big problem. I like to use the table to put my laptop on. If I use the laptop on my lap, it gets really hot. So when I finish my meal I put the tray on my chair. The chair is not low, I never put the tray on the floor. Anyways the food service lady had a minor hissy fit at me for putting it on the chair and told me I was 'not allowed to'. So now I sit around a dirty tray waiting for them not to collect it in case cranky lady comes back.

I am sick of talking about the crappy food here. Ava will be here in two hours so I need to make sure I am ready for the day.

Week 3- the weekend

The weekend is my favourite part of the week being here at RPA. The reason why, is because I get a gate pass. This allows me to go out for a couple of hours each weekend day to somewhere close-ish to the hospital.

The past weekend we did the following activities.

Friday night: Sam took me out to dinner in New Town to 'African Feeling', the food was so nice, like being in Africa again... and the ugali was all I expected it to be and more. I will go back before I leave here. Pity they are only open during the evenings.

Saturday: Saturday Ava was out being her usual social self at her Grandma's work xmas party, where she had a great time. After that Sam brought her up here. We went to Westfield Burwood where we stalked down Santa to get our photo with him. Ava didn't want t o line up and kept walking up to Santa, but stayed far enough away that she was not too close. When is was time for our photo, she was not so keen on Santa. She started pulling my top down to expose me, so she had to go to Sam. Santa would not let Sam sit on him, as he 'would break his legs'. What a joke, he had two larger ladies sit on his lap at the same time, which I am sure weighted a lot more than Sam.

After Santa photo, we went for a walk, got a snack to share, Ava some cute lil sandals and some fruit. By this time Ava was extremely tired. So we headed back to RPA, Ava had a power nap, dinner and a quick shower. Sam and Ava went to stay in Cronulla with Aunty Tess and Uncle Nat.

Sunday: Today we went to the Sydney Aquarium with Ava's Nanna (Debbie) and Poppy (David). This was fun. Ava enjoyed looking and pointing at the fishies. After this we went to the pub near RPA for a quick lunch as Ava was getting tired and cranky and David (Poppy) was hanging to get home to the porch. Debbie and David left, while Sam and Ava walked me up to my room. Sam collected my dirty washing and Ava found something to snack on. Then they went home as Ava was very tired.

Week 3- the past week

Welcome to Week 3.

Week 3 has had its ups and downs.

Monday; started out with an internal and external ultrasound. Yep some of you may be thinking 'I am living the dream' with having 3 internal ultrasounds in a matter of weeks. This is not what I was thinking. Not much else happened on Monday apart from me trying to save the Princess. I don't know what the Princess if playing at, I have saved her many times before in other games and she still manages to get kidnapped by Bowser again and again. Maybe its a cover for a secret love affair, who knows.

Tuesday; I had lots of visitors, in order of arrival; Debbie, Tess, Melaine, April, Jesse, Sam, Joey, David, Aunt and Simon. This was a very nice day having so many people come see me.

And I have learnt that the nurses don't like people coming out of visiting hours, even when I warn them I will be having visitors that have a fair distance to drive.

Wednesday; Sam came up, we went for a walk. We were given a tour of the baby ICU. They showed us what they will do to the baby and where the baby will be. They also showed us some small babies. This was good as it will be less of a shock when/if the baby has to go in there. But it was not nice seeing such tiny babies. I can see why we are here now for the service they can provide the baby. I think they are also very strict with visiting, something I will have to find out more about in the future. No Ava today :(

Thursday; The day started off great, Will brought me a basket of freshly baked pastries, and I ate and ate them all day. Once Will left, ladies started to gather out the front of my room. Of course I shared. Later on Sam came up and we went for a walk to Newtown. We shared a Noodle soup, was nice. Sam got a book and magazine and I got some air drying clay. Later that day Sam went home and I started to play with my clay. I made a dodgy looking elephant. No Ava again today :(


Friday; Well today is Friday the 27th of November. My day does not have much planned. I don't get to see Ava again. I am missing her so much. Ava is with Uncle Dave today, so I am sure she will have a fun day. Uncle rang this morning, it was nice to hear from him. He will be up next week, so I am looking forward to that.

Sam will be leaving to come up after lunch. We are going to go out to Newtown to an African restaurant for dinner. I am looking forward to stew and ugali.

While I wait I will get back to saving the Princess as no one else has saved her yet.

ttfn
mel

The following few weeks

I am trying to catch up on the past 2.5 weeks of my RPA adventure quickly. Once this is done I plan to blog every few days.

To continue from my last blog; My first full day at RPA was fun and exciting with another internal and external ultrasound. I also got to taste what was to come for the next few weeks in the way of 'hospital food'.
Over the past few weeks the following exciting events have happened:
- Many visitors- family and friends
- Joey brought me a wii (I know what a cool mother)
- I got to see Ava most days
- Kirby and Sam cooked me some decent meals
- Walked down to the pub for lunch
- Went to Mc Cafe many times. Mc Cafe does not sell the nice dirty burgers I have been craving
- More family visits
- Will brought me in some yummy pastries, see picture
- I was allowed for a few hours each day last weekend. So Sam, Ava and myself went for lunch at Leichhardt and to the park on the Saturday. On Sunday we went to look for Santa, but ended up at Darling Harbour. This was good as they were having a Thai festival, so we had Pad Thai for lunch and we played in the fountains

Thats about it for my first two weeks. Look out for my next blog on the past weeks.

Peace out

mel

How I ended up here.

I thought I should start the blog off with explaining the purpose of this blog and how I ended up in RPA.

The purpose of the blog is to tell people whats happening, allow me to let out my frustrations from being in here and to give me something to do.

About 2.5 weeks again (I was 24 weeks pregnant at the time), I had a huge bleed. Not knowing what to do, we called my mother to come watch Ava. Sam took me up to the local hospital. Once we got there we were straight in. After two needles put into my arm and two hours of sitting I was in an ambulance to Wollongong Hospital. Once there we were taken up to birthing unit where I was given more needles, the midwife 'needed' to have a look inside me, and seen the doctor. The staff basically told us that we may loose the baby, and will be transfered to Sydney when they can get me a bed. The following day I had two ultrasounds, on internal and one external. Not very pleasant at all.

Not long after lunch I was transfered to RPA Hospital in Sydney. I was taken to birthing unit here where I was given some food, and got to talk to more doctors.
We were basically told that intensive care is not usually given to babies under 25 weeks, and week 25 was a grey week.

Later that night I was moved up stair to my room/cell. I was lucky enough to get my own room.

I will leave this here and continue the story in the next post.

WARNING: I will not be using technical terms, just the 'dumbed' down ones the staff use to explain stuff to me.