Doctors and Nurses come to call.

by Peter Fogarty
(Bucharest)

Our wonderful private nurse.

This was the day of medical consultations. The doctor needed to call as she comes when we come home and in a month's time to check on little Victor's progress.

She was really great to chat to as I could ask all sorts of questions and find out I was pretty much right in the way I was doing things.

I now have a baby book (from Tom) and so I could build up my knowledge of breast feeding (another of the hundreds of useless facts I will never need to directly put into practice, but find fascinating - such as breasts simultaneously make 2 different sorts of milk - and the good stuff in the stuff which arrives at the very end, when little Victor has given up waiting and gone back to sleep!).

We discussed the new weigh scales and could not get them to give us a proper reading, and I was ready to pack them back into their box and head back for my money.

After she had left, our great nurse arrived - she taught up the finer points on how to give a child a bath - the poor mite screamed and yelped - and went an amazing red colour. He then prompty did what Victor does, and fell asleep!

I also was proven right again here, as we watched the nurse give a massage to the baby, a really hard little rub, so when they next seem me on my faint foot massages, I guess I will have no more troubles.

The nurse was a pro with the scales - and pointed out that they were just extremely sensitive and I needed to treat them with more care, leaving more time before switching it on, pressing buttons and dropping a baby on it... which is still pretty hard when you have the sleeping baby resting in both hands!

Another great achievement for me today was realising I still remember all the words to lots of lullabies, and so I have been wandering around the house, with a sleepy bundle in my arms, singing songs all day - a great way to get along!

I also learnt how to put 48 photos onto my mini computer - I then wandered over to an old couple dying to see the child and deciding that 48 almost identical shots of the child was too much for them! Or it could have been we mentioned we were not having visitors in the hospital and them seeing the one or two who slipped in without much warning!

Tomorrow is Saturday, so hopefully, if Doina is here all day, I can slip off out and have a break - do a bit of mindless Mothercare shopping - get a CD player, so I can play lots of children's songs to Victor while he sleeps (never too early to start!), and hopefully have another nice day.