Raving and Drooling – A lion’s tail

Mum challenged me recently to do the Gold Coast Half Marathon in July 2009 and it’s a big challenge for someone in my shape but I took it on wholeheartedly. I’m going to lose close to 20 kg and get in the best shape of my life before July so that I can do the Half Marathon and get a T-shirt for the second time.

I went out jogging with Jake this evening and we did our usual course up the hills behind our house. It was really a walk, but it’s a very tough walk due to the steep hills involved. We committed to doing it again Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. That’s every two days. After we got back I was so pumped that I started some weight training. I have the weakest arms though and I quickly got tired just lifting 3kg weights on each arm. Jake laughed when I told him but I don’t care because I can run circles around him !

I’ve just finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was the first anime that Josh and I watched together on SBS back in Hervey Bay so many years ago. It was what made us both fall instantly in love with the genre and we both became the most avid consumers over the following years. Watching it by myself again was both hard and wonderful. I remember watching episode 22 together when Shinji met the other boy pilot and how we both struggled to hold back our tears in front of each other.

Next I’m going to watch more of his anime. He left so much on his hard drives. 280 gig on hard drive and much more on DVD. His favourite series and the one I remember him loving the most was Hikaru No Go and I look forward to watching that but first I’m going to watch his massive Inu Yasha collection. This is really oldschool anime and some stuff that’s really worthy of respect. It’s many years old and a really long series that dragged on for ages. I think I respect it because unlike other fight-of-the-day anime it’s still a love story at heart and it’s inspired many amazing AMV’s.

I’m listening to Lou Reed and crying a bit for thinking of Josh. I feel awesome after so much exercise though and I could get up and box 12 rounds right now. Josh loved Lupin the Third a lot as well, aka Monkey Punch, or Miyazaki’s alter ego. This semester I’m going to watch a lot of Josh’s anime and make him proud of me with Uni and life and my daughter. Josh I wish you’d been there to see Suki born. You were the uncle I always wanted to have for my children and you’ll be there in spirit through all those years to come. I’m going to have to be twice the father to make up for you not being there, but I know I can provide enough love for both of us. Take care up there and I hope you’re looking down on Suki every night.

I got up this morning and took my laundry downstairs. By a funny chance of coincidence, both my flatmates were already sitting downstairs waiting for their laundry as well. It’s so funny that we are a house of separated men and that we all get along so well. We divided up the yardwork first thing. Jake agreed to mow the front and Chris the back and I said I’d whippersnipper.

I watched a really amazing anime first thing. It was a movie called Origin – Spirits of the Past and it was truly epic. It wasn’t by a major director so I wondered if it was going to be any good but it turned out to be amazing. The animation was beautiful and the characters reminded me a lot of Shinkai Makoto (Voices of a Distant Star, Places Promised etc) and the story was a dead ringer for a Miyazaki. Specifically Princess Mononoke, because the story is about humankind’s battle with a dangerous forest. I’m going to write a proper review of it later because it was truly a great story of the likes of the best japanese anime directors I could name. The theme was traditional but never cliched and while I recognised many familiar themes I never felt it tried to mimic anything else. As usual I was deeply in love with the female lead by the end of the movie and it succeeded in making me cry when I thought her hero was dead.

I encouraged everyone in the house downstairs this afternoon and I put The Wall on the iMac and turned on the outside speakers. I had it right up to the top and all the doors open so everyone nearby would have known what we were listening to. I opened a nice bottle of red that Chris had suggested I chill because he was a barman and said that wine was nice cold. I gave it a try and it really was beautiful. I sat outside with my powerbook and posted to a few web communities (the USQ Addicted to Anime club) about a planned event next Sunday.

I resolved to have an anime screening and games night at the end of O-week and open my house to anyone who came along to watch stuff on the plasma. I’ve done it before a few times and it’s always been a great (though tiring !) way to meet like-minded people. We watch anime until late and then we play GameCube and Wii games until everyone finally agrees to GTFO as I complain how sleepy I am. (Those damned anime fans can go all night!)

As Chris starts the back lawn I put on my favourite internet radio station, WJOE – All Pink Floyd, All the time, No interruptions whatsoever. I love it and I sit outside all afternoon posting and talking online listening to really LOUD Pink Floyd. I try to get Jake interested in Home Brewing, but he’s too stoned^H^H^H^H^H^Htired and sleeping on the bed so I boil the billy for hot water and do the brew up myself. It’s a ginger beer one this time which I love because they’re really easy and always come out good. Oh and they don’t take too long for their secondary fermentation either !

It’s almost 6pm so I reheat last night’s fantastic spaghetti and bolognaise meatballs and sit outside eating my italian alfresco with my chilled red and listening to Division Bell. I’m feeling very house-proud lately and I spent the day scrubbing the kitchen and washing out all the bins. I’ve spent many hours recently sitting on my front and back patios listening to very loud music and watching the world go by. The view from my front yard is truly beautiful and I try to appreciate it whenever I can. I’m normally such a busy person that I can’t find much time to reflect and watch the world go by but lately I’ve needed that time to contemplate what sort of future I want and take steps to make it happen.

I’m really excited about going back to Uni. Since I don’t know for sure what course I’ll be accepted into I’ll be attending several orientation tours depending on whether I get IT, Arts, General Studies or Psychology. I’d also like to attend the instrumental and vocal auditions for the music course as I’d love to meet up with another musician to expand our musical horizons. Jake and I came up with a name for our collaboration. We call it “Japanese Suicide Death-Pact Car”, which is a tongue-of-cheek nickname for his Toyota Delica. I’ll be putting some music online soon. I fired up Reason for the first time in a while the other night and straight off I knocked out a great little electronic tune that I was really happy with. I just want to hook up Abletron Live and overdub some guitar solos on it and then I will post it here, I promise !

The back yard looks awesome. So many great Australian plants. I just want a nice tree to provide shade and a home for birds. One in the front and one in the back would be great. Maybe two in the front. Mum replanted a potted one in the back yard recently but we really need some in the front to attract the birds, because the cats LOVE birds, even though they rarely catch anything.

I’ve finished my chilled red we’re still listening to Floyd and it’s almost sun-down. I’m not sure what I’m going to do tonight but I’d like to do a little coding and admin for either Suki’s site or my new one that I’ve registered. I bought “ismyhome.com.au” so that I can create forums and photo galleries and stuff on subdomains such as “toowoomba.ismyhome.com.au” and “brisbane.ismyhome.com.au” and all manner of places over Australia. 2009 is going to be a very busy Web year for me with a lot of personal projects on the table.

Ja ne readers and kom ban wa for a beautiful cool Toowoomba evening and I hope the sky is beautiful where you are in the world tonight.

I wasn’t planning to blog about my personal life because, well… it’s personal :”) But I wrote a really long email today and it was just some stuff about where I was in life and what I wanted from the future and I thought that it’s something that I might like to read again someday, so I’ve decided to put it online, warts and all so that maybe one day I can look back on this weekend from a different place and hopefully have progressed a lot in the intervening time and I don’t know, god forbid maybe one day my kids will want to know personal stuff about me and they’ll read this, if I keep it online long enough.

Today has been really hard. It’s the first weekend since I started seeing Suki that I don’t get to see her and looking at her photos makes me cry so much. I have a really nice one in which she’s wearing a cute bonnet that I want to print out really big and frame to put on the wall in my office. I went shopping for the second time since really breaking up with Jo today and it really brought me down despite my resolve to move on from her. It was a familiar place where we’d been so many times and I thought of the many times we’d bought sushi together there. I passed bra shops and women’s clothes shops and jewelry shops and at every one I instinctively thought about what I could buy for Jo. It made me angry at myself that I was still so attached to her despite everything she’d done and my conviction to forget about her.

I don’t want to get back together with Jo because I know that things could never be the same as they were. It’s still really hard to accept that such a wonderful happy life could be over so suddenly though and I feel a lot of pain and anger at Jo for not having the guts to talk to me about things. Saying that she couldn’t tell me she was unhappy because she was afraid of how I would react is so hurtful when all I ever did was show her love and affection all the time. If it was over, the least she could have done was show me the respect of telling me properly instead of just running away.

I still don’t know whether to believe her words or whether she’s just saying she was unhappy to make things easier on herself or to hurt me. Having her refuse to look at me and refuse to be in the same room with me after all the love and happy times we shared really tears my heart out but in some ways it makes it easier on me. I feel cheated by all the happy times but if Jo really wants her own life now I’d rather she have what she want. I feel so stupid though because I truly thought we were forever. I thought we shared so much and that we were so perfect that we would be together until we grew old and that I could tell her everything and now my trust has been betrayed and I feel like everything was a lie

I desperately want to meet someone new because I feel like my heart is overflowing with love and there’s no place for it to go. I want to cook meals for someone and share time together and go shopping and on picnics and things but I know it’s not going to be that easy to find someone I can care for like I cared for Jo and who feels like the right person to spend my life with especially when I lack friends and a social life. I don’t want to be alone like my friends, living in a share house when I’m forty because I care too much about others to be like that. I need to be needed by someone to feel complete. I feel like I have no worth unless there’s someone who relies on me to do things for them.

I would have done anything for Jo and if she’d just asked me to I could have changed in so many ways because I wanted to be there for her and be what she needed but now that she’s thrown me away like an empty can of beer I feel like I was a failure and I didn’t even realise because I stupidly thought that she loved me the way I was. I just don’t know what I did wrong other than get in a little trouble with the police a couple of times. I worked for her and I paid the mortgage and fed her and bought her clothes whenever she wanted them and spent quality time with her. Whenever she said she wanted something, I made sure I got it for her. I never treated her poorly or disrespected her or neglected her. I thought I was the perfect husband because she told me so often that I was and that she was so happy with me, so I keep looking back and thinking “Fuck. What did I do wrong ?”

I wasn’t always happy with her addiction to painkillers and her lack of motivation to do anything with her life but I thought she would be a great mother and that was good enough for me, but now I want something more. I want a girl who’ll challenge me. Someone I have to work to keep up with. Someone who wants more than to sit at home and watch TV. I want someone who wants their own life too. Someone who gives a fuck about more than when she’s going to have her next mersyndol tablet. I just hope that I can find someone like that who is actually interested in me. I’ve joined a few dating web sites and I put up a personal ad on the noticeboard at Uni but I’m feeling very old at the moment and I can’t see there being too many Uni girls interested in a 30 year old divorcee. Uni’s probably my best chance of meeting someone like me though since the dating sites are all full of girls who just want to go clubbing and drinking and shit that I don’t like.

All I want out of life is to run a business and spend time with someone I love and raise beautiful children and teach them about computers and life and the world. I have so much love to give and giving it is the most important thing in the world to me. I’m saddened that I’ve wasted 8 years with Jo that I’m never going to get to live again and I think of it now as a terrible mistake but at least I’ve got one good thing which came out of it which is Suki who’s going to be the most beautiful girl in the world and who’s life I’m going to be a part of somehow no matter what, but I know that in other ways she’s going to be a constant reminder until the day I die of the love that I thought I had and lost.

I’m very afraid that I’m never going to be happy again. I’m afraid that it might be years until I find love again and that by then it will be a different kind of love, and not the same as the way you feel when you are young and think you’ve been blessed by finding the most perfect person on the face of the planet. All my life I’ve never had any kind of enduring relationship with anyone, no friends that I could say I’d known since I was young that I’d shared my life with and it’s something I’ve always wanted. I want to be familiar with someone. I want to know them like my mum has known my dad – since forever and having shared all your experiences with them. And that chance is gone now. I’ll never have another childhood love and I’ll never have another magical wedding like my first.

But I’m going to keep living anyway even if my life is filled with nothing but pain, because I would never take myself away from Suki. She’s always going to need me, even if I only see her for a few hours each week and I feel a bond with her stronger even than my love for Jo. I was always afraid before Suki was born that I wouldn’t feel the love that you’re supposed to feel. I always felt like I was deficient in that sort of feeling and that I wouldn’t know that sort of bond. But I do feel it. I feel it so much more strongly than I ever expected and it’s an amazing feeling. When I saw her last Wednesday and I held her in my arms I just held her and stared at her for about four hours solid without even getting tired and it was like nothing I’d ever felt before.

When I look at her my heart is filled in a way that it’s never been filled before and I feel strong and that I could do anything. She gives me hope for the future and makes me feel like I’ve done an amazing thing by giving her life. While the prospect of not seeing her every day fills me with sorrow and makes me feel like I can’t bear to live, the moments I do have with her are so precious to me that I want to fill my life with as many of them as I can.

Fuck Jo for leaving me and wasting my precious time but thank god something good came out of that time that I can treasure forever and that is going to bring me joy for the rest of my life. Suki, I love you so much and we’re going to have the greatest times together. We’re going to go to the park together and fly kites. We’re going to go to movies together and see awesome stories and anime. I’m going to take you to Timezone and we’re going to play something stupid and fun like Dance Dance Revolution. We’re going to go bowling and play golf and travel and do so many things together.

I just wish the time until I next see you could pass faster. It’s only been three days but they have felt like the longest days in my entire life. When I see you next, I’m going to have some new books to read to you. I know you probably don’t care what I read right now but I’d still like to get you new stories so that by the time you are old enough to know the difference that I have a massive library of kids books, because you’re going to be an avid reader like me if I have anything to do with it. My training for you has started already ! :”)

Today is Suki’s Term day ! It’s an amazing milestone that she’s finally made it to Term ! Happy Term Day Suki !

I had vowed to have a good day with Suki mid-week because it is likely that she will be going home before the end of the week to Joanna’s house in Beenleigh and I’m not welcome there yet so it was most probably the last time I was going to see Suki for a long time and I wanted it to be special.

I arrived before 7am and she was starting to demand breakfast already so straight away I got to bottle feed her. She really is a hungry little baby and I can’t believe the size of her feeds ! She took over 90ml and she sucked every last drop out of the bottle and she would have drunk more if she’d been allowed. She burped so loud both times that I burped her that the nurses commented. She didn’t throw up anything at all but she’d dribbled a lot on her jumpsuit throughout the night. I put her down for a little bit but she was really restless and didn’t want to go to sleep.

I asked the nurse if it was best to let them lay down after a meal or if it was ok to pick her up and cuddle her if she was restless. The nurse said it’s totally up to the parent but that it wasn’t good to get them reliant on cuddles to go to sleep unless you wanted to have to do it every single time ! I wanted to spoil her today so I decided to hold her and she smiled and made happy noises and fell asleep.

I read many fairy tales to her but mostly I just held her and looked at her. I didn’t put her down once between 9am and 12 noon, just holding her close as she slept and stroking her hair whenever she woke up or got restless. She really loves having her hair stroked. It calms her down in seconds !

At midday Jo arrived and I had to say goodbye. I kissed her on the forehead and told her how much I loved her and how much I was going to miss not seeing her for so long and then left the hospital for the final time, tears in my eyes at having to leave her.

Suki, I don’t know how I’m going to handle not seeing you and I hope it isn’t too long before you’re well and Jo lets me visit you. I have your photos up on my monitor and I look at you every second of the day and I think about you all the time.

With All My Love,
your Dad, David.

EEK, third post in one day ! Get away from the WordPress Dad !

I just had to update about her eye test. Suki got back from the Mater this afternoon and I rang to enquire how it went. The nurse explained to me the terminology first how the eye is divided into zones and Suki had previously shown signs of vascular disease in zone 2, but he said that the report said it had “resolved” ! So it’s better ! They still want to see her again in two weeks to make sure, but so far it looks great !

The nurse also explained that Suki is not listed in the computer system at Joanna’s request which is why they said she did not exist and were so rude. Hopefully Jo is willing to change that status eventually, but it doesn’t matter because I can always ring straight through to the ICN who are happy to talk to me and love telling me about her.

Anyway, three cheers for Suki’s eyes !

After getting back from Logan, the first thing I wanted to do was print my photos, but sleep got the better of me and it had to wait until today. I don’t want this blog to be image heavy but until Suki’s proper site on RobinsonFamily is finished I thought I’d better share a few photos at least.

I woke early this morning with a heavy heart. I so desperately wanted to go to the hospital and see her and read to her and feed her and be with her, but Suki is over 150 km away from me now and I have to wait a whole week before I can see her again. I decided to ring the hospital and talk to them about her to reassure me. I couldn’t find my card with the SCN number on it so I rang the switchboard and asked for the number. They asked the patient’s name and then came back and said “I’m sorry that person is not a patient at this hospital”. I laughed and said “No, you must have missed it. It’s Suki, S-U-K-I. She’s in the SCN.” She said “OK, well she’s not listed. I’ll just double check for you”. She went away and when she came back she said “No sir I’m sorry but you’re mistaken. There is no such patient at this hospital.”

I laughed again at the ridiculousness of the situation and said “Look, I understand what you’re saying but I assure you. I’m not mistaken. You’re at the corner of Armstrong Street” and she said “Yes” and I continued. “When you walk in the front door, the gift store and water cooler is on the left, you turn right and go to the end of the hall and turn left, when the path splits in two you take the right hand path and the first door on the right is the SCN. The basin is on the left and the nurses station is on the right when you enter. If you go to the right hand side of the room and turn left and go to the end, the last baby on the right has a large blue Eeyore bear and a pink sign on her crib that says Suki. I assure you, if you go down there you will see that she really is there and she really is a patient.”

I feel like reading Horton to the call centre staff – “A person’s a person, no matter how small”. Maybe they should take a leaf from Dr Seuss. Anyway, the other thing I forgot to mention in yesterday’s journal post was my new name for Suki. When my Dad was there he called her “Snookums” or something, and I’ve never felt comfortable using words like that because they’re so generic and everyone uses them. So I thought to myself “What can I call Suki that’s unique to just her.” Instantly a word sprung to mind – Sunflower. Because her face is so bright and she looks toward the light like a sunflower.

Maybe I might call her Hana as well, which is the Japanese word for “flower petal”. I can’t wait to see you again Suki, my little sunflower.

I don’t know the Japanese word for joy, so Namida no Suki is the closest translation I can think of to explain the tears of joy I have wept lately. I never understood the phrase and I thought it was only something that happened in romance novels until I had my first child and now I understand it so well. I can scarcely write these posts without weeping from sheer happiness and every time I talk about Suki to my friends, tears run from my eyes.

I had an amazing morning with Suki. It was indescribable. I woke up late, having intended to be at the hospital at 7am but I didn’t get there until 8:30 and I was so worried that I would miss out on her feed. Fortunately I was in for an even better treat than that. When I arrived at the hospital they told me that she’d been fed at 6:30 and probably wouldn’t be due until around 11am. She was quite restless though so the nurse suggested I cuddle her and as soon as I picked her up she cooed and smiled and went to sleep so I read to her as I held her for half an hour and then put her back in her crib and she slept soundly. I didn’t think I would be able to stay until 11:00 so I was disappointed at first, but around 10am the nurse asked me if I’d like to give her a bath.

“A bath ?” I cried. “That would be incredible. I haven’t bathed her yet !”. I was a little afraid, but a first experience like that was something I wouldn’t miss out on for the world, so I removed a very smelly nappy (I had to swallow the vomit that ended up in my throat – I have a very strong gag reflex) and we wheeled her over and weighed her. She’d lost about 24 grams since the last weigh-in but the nurse said that was no cause for concern and it was just because she was adjusting to the bottle feeds.

Then I filled the bathtub with water and lifted her in. I expected her to cry out because I thought babies didn’t like baths but it turns out I had no idea because she absolutely loved it to bits. I cleaned her all over with a wet cloth, taking care to get behind the ears and in between the folds of skin under her chubby chin and then the nurse said to just let her play in the water for a bit. It was clear she enjoyed it a lot because she was kicking her legs and when I turned her over she paddled at the water with her arms making cute happy noises.

I was sad when I had to take her out and dry her off because I didn’t want the fun to stop and neither did she but I lifted her out and carefully dried her off, again making sure to get under the folds of skin so she didn’t get a rash, and then it was that magical time when I get to feed her. She was still very sleepy looking and had her eyes closed for a lot of the time so I didn’t think she was going to take the bottle but as soon as it touched her lips she latched on and started sucking hungrily straight away.

I still find it amazing how strongly she grips the teat. A couple of times I thought she needed to be burped and I tried to remove the bottle but she wouldn’t let go. She was holding on to it even stronger than yesterday so I let her continue until she started blowing bubbles and then I put down the bottle and held her upright and rubbed her back and she let out the most massive burp ! I’m so glad that I know how to do all this stuff so well. Both my mum yesterday and the nurse today said I’m a natural at feeding and burping her which made me feel really good. I’m so happy to know that I can give her what she needs and take care of her just as well as Jo.

I gave her the bottle for a little bit longer but she seemed to be dozing off to sleep and the nurse came to help me finish off her feed. By the time I put her back in the crib she was already fast asleep. I’m getting really good at wrapping her up snugly and keeping her arms tucked in. All the nurses do it in a different way so I’m learning a few methods and I’ll figure out what works best in time. I read Dr Seuss to her for about the millionth time while she slept and she made some really cute smiles so I knew that she was incredibly content after her bath and her feed. I’m just so happy that I can do everything she needs. I’m great at nappies and I’m awesome at feeding and burping and now I can weigh her and bathe her and clothe her and wrap her up too. I feel like there’s nothing I can’t do for her now.

I’d purchased some tiny computer speakers the previous day and I set up the iPod and the speakers near her crib. The nurse was amazed and asked how I’d managed to record myself reading on the iPod. I told her it was easy as I had a microphone attachment for my iPod and she said I must be very smart which was flattering. I asked her if she could tell all the other nurses that I’d like them to play the iPod every morning during her morning feeds and she said “I can do better than that” and disappeared for a few minutes.

When she came back she’d printed up a big note on a piece of pink paper with frilly edges that said “Please play my iPod for me during my morning feeds as I love it when Daddy reads to me” and she stuck it to the front of her chart. I was thrilled that they were so accommodating and helpful but the nurse just dismissed my comments and said what a beautiful idea it was to bring the iPod in so that she could hear me read to her every day.

I’m so thankful to all the wonderful staff in her new nursery and how understanding and thoughtful they’ve all been. They really made me feel like I was such an important party of Suki’s life and my heart was warmed so much by all their praise. I just can’t thank them enough for letting me stick up photos and bring in the iPod and constantly tell me what a great father I am. There are no words that could be kinder than hearing someone tell you that you’re a really caring dad and when I grudgingly left the hospital at 12:30 I felt so rewarded and happy.

I cried a lot on the way home but it wasn’t because I wouldn’t see her for a week but tears of joy at all the wonderful experiences I’d had this weekend. I couldn’t have asked for a better two days. My heart overflows with joy at the closeness I had with my daughter and how rewarding it felt to read to her and bathe her and cuddle her. I was always worried before she was born that I wouldn’t feel the way everyone says you’re supposed to when you have a child but now I’ve felt every bit of pure ecstatic joy that they talk about and more. I cannot believe how strong the emotions have been and how many times I’ve cried tears of sheer happiness.

I’m no longer a man. I’m a father and nothing could ever take away the happiness that I feel right now. My life could not possibly get better than this and I now have a new benchmark for what true happiness is and I realise that everything I’ve felt before in my past was nothing compared to the way I feel now. I am complete as a human and I have the greatest thing in the world to live for. Words simply cannot express the way I feel so all I can do is steal briefly from Dire Straits and say this:

Suki, I love you like the stars above. I will love you ’till I die.

Sunday was my Suki day. My parents were still in Brisbane since my Dad had come down for chemo, so I turned up at the new hospital at Logan around 7:30am and went straight into the SCN. At first they didn’t even know Suki’s name because she hadn’t been there long, but the night nurse saw me and invited me over to Suki. I read several Dr Seuss books to her before my parents arrived and they came in. It was Dad’s first visit to the new SCN and it was nice that the new hospital allowed all three visitors at once so we all got to sit down and enjoy her company.

She was asleep for about an hour before she started getting restless and emitted the loudest cry I’d heard so far. The nurse quickly brought a bottle. It held a massive 100ml of formula and being my first time feeding her by bottle, she showed me how to correctly feed her by a bottle. I had been used to holding her in the crook of my arm but she showed me how to sit her on my knee while holding her with my hand for the best bottle feeding position and how to best burp her. My mum suggested over the shoulder, but the nurse had a much better position which worked really well and the nurse said I was a natural at it.

I feed her for at least twenty minutes with several short breaks but she consumed at least 85ml of the formula which the nurse said was higher than yesterday. Suki was pretty greedy though and her eyes were bigger than her stomach, so after laying back down she threw up a good bit, and I changer her sheets. After a while she spat up a tiny bit more, but she was very contented and while I read her more Dr Seuss she quickly feel asleep with some very happy gurgles and smiles.

Later that night I returned to the hospital and just missed out on her feed which Jo had given and she was just getting to sleep. She slept soundly for a while, but started flatulating a lot and Stefan and I were concerned she had messed and she became very restless and cried a bit so I asked the nurse if it was OK if I changed her and she said sure. I changed her while Stefan stayed a safe distance but she was only wet. Nevertheless when I put on a fresh nappy and rugged her up she was instantly calmed and settled back to sleep in seconds and I felt amazingly pleased with myself. I had recognised her problem and fixed it and she was now at rest. I felt like the most powerful force in her life for a moment and I was immensely happy.

I dropped Stefan home towards 9 and I just couldn’t face driving back to Toowomba yet. I was on such a high from the nappy change and I just couldn’t go home and commit to another 7 days without physical contact so I appealed to some friends for a couch to sleep on so that I could stay another day and give Suki another feed and a cuddle in the morning.

What can I say ? I am TOTALLY addicted to Suki, and I would extend every moment for as long as I could manage. I never thought I would look to a dirty nappy change as an amazing experience of beautiful intimacy with my child, but that’s exactly what it’s been and the chance for another such experience in the morning fills me with joy.

Last night I began recording myself reading some stories from Grimm’s Fairy Tales to the iPod. I read Rapunzel and some other lesser known stories to it. Grimm’s stories are typically quite short but they are often hard to read due to the old style of english language and grammar used. I stumbled on a few words and probably mispronounced a couple but it was still enjoyable reading them aloud. I’m so glad I’ve found something that I really enjoy doing for Suki and that can make a difference in her life.

I didn’t ring and say goodnight to Suki last night but I rang first thing this morning, and the REAL big news is that SUKI IS TAKING A BOTTLE NOW !!! After her sleep study they determined that she could breathe OK while drinking from a bottle, so tomorrow I should be able to feed her for real ! I’m SO excited. This was a huge milestone for Suki and one that weighed heavily in my mind. I had asked the Mater so many times when she would have the awful tube removed that went up her nose and down into her stomach and they said that first she needs to be able to breathe well enough that she can drink and breathe at the same time. Well, they determined in the sleep study the night before last that she was ready, and now she’s drinking from a bottle !

This is just MASSIVE news to me and I’m just so excited I can’t contain myself. I ran straight downstairs to tell my flatmate as soon as I heard and he was really happy for me. He said “That’s incredible news. It’s amazing that something so fragile and tiny could be so strong and have such a will to live”.

And she’s not even TERM yet ! She’s still almost a week away from her due date and she’s already out of the ICU, in a regional hospital, off the breahthing apparatus, and DRINKING FROM A BOTTLE !

I am so happy that words fail me and I am crying tears of joy. For a baby that was never supposed to make it into the world alive she’s proved everyone’s gloomiest forecasts wrong and proved herself to be the strongest little battler that ever was. The staff at the Mater must have been sad to see her go because she’s such an amazing little child. MY amazing little child.

I am happy beyond belief and I don’t think anything could ruin the high that I’m on this morning. I think this is the second happiest moment in my life !

My new flatmate has some Dr Seuss books and I borrowed them to read to Suki on the iPod tonight. I have a microphone and I put it on my stomach as I lay in bed and I read them aloud. I started practicing Horton Hears a Who! but I found it was so fluent and easy to read that I stopped and hit record and read it live. It was truly a joy to read, and the most amusing story to do voices to. I can imagine the nurses in the ICN listening to it and it amuses me. Horton goes for about quarter of an hour, and then the other books take another twenty five minutes or so. It should be a good amount to read to her because it goes for about three quarters of an hour, which I think is about as much as any human could stand of my voice despite the expression I attempt to imbue into it.

I wish I had more books to read. Jake has Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but I’m not sure if that will be a good book as some of those german fairy tales can be pretty heavy stuff. I plan to go in search of children’s books at the charity stores tomorrow and see what I can find. Some Little Golden Books would be awesome and I make a mental list of my favourite children’s books. I can’t wait to read to her about the Saggy Baggy Elephant and the Tawny Scrawny Lion and Scuffy the Tugboat and the Little Train that Could. It gives me something to look forward to tomorrow.

I ring the hospital to ask about Suki but the nurse asks “Didn’t Jo tell you ? She’s having a sleep study done tonight”. Jo hasn’t contacted me in days so I would have no idea what was going on if I hadn’t asked the staff. I’m a bit annoyed. Jo is supposed to be still keeping contact over Suki’s medical progress and I’m disappointed that she couldn’t be bothered telling me about this important event. I try and go to sleep and wonder if Suki’s having as much trouble sleeping lately as I am. I bet she’s sleeping just fine if everything I’ve seen is an indication. I wish I could say goodnight again tonight, but it will have to wait until tomorrow night.

I had a terrible night’s sleep tonight after waking up at 4:00 in the morning from an incredibly vivid dream about Joanna’s house. It’s odd because later Chris tells me that he slept poorly and had bad dreams too and I wonder if there was something in the air that night. It’s been windy lately and maybe an ill wind blew. I feel terribly lost and lonely after waking suddenly thinking about Joanna. I remember the previous day in the courthouse and I am saddened and depressed. I decide to ring the hospital. It seems like the perfect time because things are quiet and the nurse is happy to talk to me.

She tells me that Suki weighs 2.495 kg, which is almost three times her birth weight which is amazing. She’s put on 28 grams since her last weigh in two days earlier which means she’s increasing at a rate of 14 grams per day which is just amazing ! She’s on pretty big feeds now, well over 50 ml which means it doesn’t even fit in one syringe all at once. The nurse asks if I’ll be there in the morning but sadly I tell her that I won’t be there for a few more days. I mention about the plans to read books to her and the nurse says it’s a good idea. I ask to say goodnight to her and the nurse kindly puts the receiver into Suki’s crib and even though she’s asleep I say “Goodnight Suki. Sleep well little one”. I manage to get back to sleep, feeling a lot better than when I’d woken up.

I had to appear in court today to answer Jo’s protection order. I feel horrible that she wants to cut off all contact with me for 2 whole years. On some people’s advice I give in and accept the order without fighting it. On the way out I can’t even say goodbye to the woman I love and I cry a lot on my way to the hospital. But when I get there I become determined that even though I’ve lost Jo, that I still have a wonderful gift in being able to see Suki.

This time I have something more compact than a broadsheet, a Terry Brooks Discworld novel. Unfortunately it was a terrible choice as Brooks writes very long-winded nonsensical sentences full of double negatives and other traps. I still try and make it seem as lively as possible all the same. I’m sitting very close to Suki and talking very quietly as the ward is fairly busy.

I talked to a really amazing male nurse. I explained why I was there on my own and what had happened that morning and the weekend before and he listened to me and asked me lots of questions. He told me that it’s important to realise which battles you can win, which battles you need to fight, and forget about the rest. He said I had to fight really hard to stay in Suki’s life because now that I could have no contact with Jo I’m going to miss out on Suki’s first words, and miss out on her first steps. The thought of missing those joyous moments fills me with fear and sadness but I appreciate the advice a lot. He said that if I was there for my daughter that eventually Jo might come to rely on me for some things in the future and that eventually we might reach a better plane than we were on right now. I’m filled with hope by his words.

I do her cares for her and the nurse generously says I’m a natural at changing her nappy and cleaning her bottom. I’m flattered but I don’t believe him as I have to hold in my breath even over the tiny bit of poo. I wrap her back up in her jumpsuit and snuggle her in the swaddling blankets. I must have done a fairly good job because the nurse doesn’t help me out with any of it. I felt pretty damned proud of myself actually. It was the first time I’d done it without any direction and I think I did well.

While he goes out for tea, one of the other nurses comes over with an amazing idea. She’s heard me reading to Suki and she suggests that I could find some good children’s books and record myself reading to Suki on an iPod and leave the iPod in the ICN and they could play it for Suki so that she could hear my voice even though I’m not there. I’m continually amazed and grateful at the lengths the hospital will go to to help parents connect with their child. They really are wonderful, wonderful people there at the Mater Mothers and I feel so lucky that my daughter is so well cared for.

I had a long weekend this week as I had to drive to Bundaberg for work. I came home via Brisbane which allowed me to go up to the hospital on Saturday night. I had decided that I would try reading to Suki since she was often asleep when I visited, and it seemed a good way for her to get to know me. I didn’t have anything prepared to read, so I read from the Weekend Australian. We discussed the World financial crisis and Suki was quite vocal about Britain’s bail-out packages. I started sentences several times only to be interrupted by a gurgle or a cry from the crib. I read to her for a couple of hours but I was feeling very guilty about making so much noise rustling a broadsheet newspaper so I left and went to Pat and Tony’s house to stay the night.

I woke up very early on Sunday morning. The light comes through the back verandah very early in that house which was great as I had an early start planned. I drove in to the Hospital and this time I pre-folded my newspaper and continued reading to her for a couple more hours. Then Joanna arrived to breast-feed later in the morning and I said goodbye to Suki. I asked Jo if she would talk to me but she refused. You may not realise this since I haven’t mentioned it on my blog, but in the last week and a half Jo and I have broken up. Some events have happened in my life recently that she’s unhappy about (I got busted for computer hacking) and she’s decided she doesn’t want to be a part of my life anymore. It also seems she’s found someone else. I don’t know exactly when that happened, and I may never know, but I have my suspicions she may have been talking to him for a while.

It’s really hard being shut out of her life like this. I cried a lot on the drive home but I was very happy with the time that I’d spent with Suki as it had really felt like quality time. I found that after I left I was talking aloud to myself after being in the habit of thinking aloud while around her. I vowed to have something more convenient to read next time.