The birth of Setriakor: day 6.

In the morning we packed up our things so we could be ready to leave as soon as we had arranged Setri's discharge. As had become practice, we discussed strategy in case roadblocks were again thrown in our way.

We stayed in the Special Care Nursery from an early hour after asking to see a doctor. We expected to have to fight for an early discharge against medical advice. Instead we were informed by a nurse that she would be arranging discharge and that after being seen by the registrar on duty and being given his hearing check, we would be on our way. “Huh. Well that can only be a good thing,” I said to Gam.

Setri had a feed and we waited. People came and went; the doctors did their morning rounds in a whirl, spending all of about 10 seconds in the nursery, apparently without so much of a glance at Setri. It wouldn't have surprised us to learn that that was the full extent of the attention they paid to him throughout his stay, such was the magnitude of their mistake in keeping him in Special Care for 5 nights.

A blood test nurse came by. One more heel prick test to ensure Setri's jaundice was subsiding, she said. It seemed pretty obvious that it was, especially since he had been tested 2 days prior and we were told bilirubin levels were within normal range, and his minimal jaundice had only diminished since he started feeding again. After the ordeal of the last tests, where one nurse had had to hold Setri down in the isolette to stop him from army-crawling away while another nurse tried repeatedly to get blood from his heel, Setri screaming all the while, we feared the worst. This nurse surprised us by taking her time. She swapped the newborn heelprick needle for a larger one more suited to Setri's enormous size and spent a number of minutes patiently squeezing tiny drop after tiny drop from Setri's reluctant heel. Setri was uncomfortable but not traumatised, and we were grateful.

The hearing test nurse stopped by with a trolley. My stomach twisted itself in knots. She was wearing a cheery purple shirt and not her midwife's uniform, but I recognised her instantly as the midwife who had caused me so much trouble on my second night in hospital, bringing the registrars who had alternately confused me with another patient, treated me scornfully and threatened to remove Setri from my care. She stopped to announce her presence to the nurse on duty and I pointed her out to Gam. “That's the one”. “Are you alright?”, he asked. I didn't feel alright. I felt sick and scared all over again. “I'll be ok, I said.”

She recognised me too. She greeted me cheerfully, but it was obvious that there was some strain. I was there because of her. Setri was there because of her. Setri fed, was quiet and passed the test. She told us about her sons. Don't believe anyone who tells you that boys are trouble, she said. Hers were good boys who had never caused her any trouble. Trying to find common ground. “I hope you don't hold anything against me for the other night”, she said before she left. “I hope you don't hold anything against me”. I did. I couldn't help it. I was swelling with resentment. If it hadn't been for her, I could have gone home. At the same time I knew she had been acting on legitimate concerns and followed them up appropriately, if somewhat overzealously. It was the doctors who were responsible for keeping us there, not her. I shook my head. “You were just doing your job”.

We waited some more.

The registrar- a fit, good-looking Scandinavian import whose appearance made me feel even more conscious of my bloated, pale body, dark under-eye circles and unkempt appearance- came by while Setri was having a feed. Oh she couldn't possibly do the requisite checks now, she said, he would get too agitated. She would come back shortly.

We waited. A couple of hours passed. We didn't dare leave in case the registrar came back. We took turns going to the bathroom. We grew impatient. We chatted with the nice nurses on duty. One- it was her first day in Special Care- was a lactation consultant. I wondered what she would have made of the registrars arbitrarily placing Setri nil-by-mouth and then failing to give me any breastfeeding support. She offered advice if I needed it, but noted that Setri was feeding well.

Gam changed Setri's wet nappy. Setri still hadn't pooed. We felt safe enough with the nurse on duty to ask: When should we be worried? It had been 3 days. If he hadn't pooed within 48 hours, she said, bring him back to hospital. Not to this one, Gam muttered to me. Setri was never coming back to Special Care.

How long until Setri's bellybutton stump fell off?, we asked the nurse. It looked pretty dried out to us. “Oh probably another 5 days at least,” she said. 10 minutes later, the stump and its plastic clip fell off. We showed the surprised nurse. I told Gam that I had read that some people keep it as a memento, along with keepsakes such as a lock of the baby's hair, or first teeth. We agreed that was pretty gross, but neither of us could make the first move to throw out the stump. Gam stowed it in my bag, as we joked that we'd probably find it in a few months' time being batted around by one of the cats, covered in lint.

More time passed. We grew annoyed. It was now after lunch time. Neither of us had even had breakfast, let alone lunch. Even my 'comfortable' chair was now causing me pain, but I didn't yet have the strength for taking walks just to stretch my legs. Gam went looking for the registrar but couldn't find her. I overheard the nurses talking about how full the Special Care Nursery now was. Was that why Setri was being discharged? It was Saturday- as far as we had been informed, he was supposed to be released on Monday. No-one had given us a reason for the sudden change of plans, and we didn't dare ask in case we somehow jinxed things. The symptom for which he had been hospitalised, the fast breathing, was still present. Somehow they had abandoned the idea that he was about to drop dead, without explaining why they had suddenly changed their minds.

Eventually the registrar came back. Setri was still breathing somewhat fast but passed all the health checks except one. The registrar couldn't find a pulse in his femoral artery. She tried and she tried, and still couldn't find one. Was it really necessary? We asked. Clearly he had a pulse- he was alive, wasn't he? She was insistent that it had to be done. She went away, came back. Gam and I gritted our teeth After 20 minutes she finally found the pulse she was looking for and we were free to go, just like that.

“I have been inside this building for nearly a week”, I said to Gam as we approached the front door of the hospital building. “And I had to go out this door every night without you and Setri”, he said. I tried to imagine what that must have felt like. How on earth could things have gone so wrong when a perfect birth had produced such a healthy baby?

Outside, I blinked in the bright sunlight. The weather had turned from unseasonably warm remnants of summer when I went into labour to cold Autumn while I was inside, and I hadn't packed a jacket. I felt I'd had a taste of what it was like to be released from prison.