Hello and welcome back to the sunny autumn hills of eastern Spain Castellón General Hospital cafeteria where I’m currently scoffing a tuna mayo roll (the easiest food to prepare in the early morning before dashing out of the house) and an iced coffee. One of the redeeming features of the hospital is that since time doesn’t exist here, it is the only place I can find that’s kept their instant-iced-coffee machine running beyond the end of August and I’m very grateful for it.
What a rollercoaster September has been. If you’ve been reading for a while you’ll know our baby has been in the NICU since July, when he was born at 30 weeks after a difficult pregnancy, and the rest of our lives have been thrown into crisis since then. Since before then, actually. Things have been okay, then bad, then okay again, then really bad… and, finally, okay. The troubles of the pregnancy itself are long forgotten, but the NICU has been a test of strength which will leave its mark on us forever, and which I can’t really find words to describe at the moment.
This month has proved the hardest, but things are finally looking better. Earlier this week, Santi graduated from the NICU (literally - he got a little certificate and everything) and moved over to the normal neonatal ward which is a huge leap forward. In the neonatal ward he’s in an open crib so we can access him whenever and however we want. We’re encouraged to basically take care of him as much as we can, leaving the nurses one less baby to take care of, which is great for them I guess because the staff ratios in the neonatal ward are nothing like those in the NICU.
Santi and I have been spending the last week spending as much time together as possible and trying to show the nurses and doctors how great we’re doing and how fine he’ll be at home. A couple of days ago he pulled his feeding tube out and the doctors decided not to put it back in and see how he did without it, so it’s boob or bottle from now on and so far he’s been doing great. I know they’re assessing him, not me, but it does also feel a bit like my parenting abilities are on display to be judged as I have to perform them in the middle of a room full of nurses and other parents who, in most cases, have been in the ward much longer and have more of an idea how everything works. Including babies. But, to turn the situation on its head, it’s pretty amazing to get the support of the nurses in everything from nappy-changing to burping techniques before we go home, because I can imagine how lost I’d be figuring everything out for myself. It’s only a matter of days now until they sign him off for discharge and we’re excited and nervous at the same time for that day to come. I haven’t even really dared to imagine it, and as a result I now feel totally unprepared. But I guess everyone feels like that anyway!
Meanwhile, back on the farm, Mauro’s been in charge of everything else and has continued work on the house. Thankfully he’s had all this time off work as paid leave, in addition to his 16 weeks of paternity leave which will kick in once Santi is discharged, so he hasn’t had to eat into any of that over these last months. Lately he’s been working on the bedroom, as I mentioned in the last newsletter, trying to get everything baby-ready. We haven’t gone overboard with the baby paraphernalia, mostly because we don’t have the space, but the bedroom definitely has had a bit of a face lift. Furniture has been built, tiles have been laid, storage has been acquired, draws have been filled with tiny clothes and nappies, walls have been painted and I even tried my hand at some electrics which went surprisingly well. The last few essentials which we couldn’t buy until we knew what size he’d be when he came home have now been purchased and we’re just waiting for an Ikea order to arrive before we can sort everything out into appropriate storage and reclaim half our floor space.
The weird thing about Santi coming home will be that I’m well beyond the normal postpartum phase, I’ll have had at least a week of experience caring for him in the neonatal ward, and although his gestational age is that of a newborn, he also has more “life experience” so he’s kinda different to a normal newborn baby. I’m also half-accustomed to the sleepless nights, having been expressing milk every 2-3 hours for the last 2 months, including through the night, to keep my body prepared for the pace of a newborn baby. So I’m finding it hard to fully relate to what most material out there tells you to expect those first weeks to be like. But mostly I just can’t believe they’re right around the corner and that any day now at the hospital is likely to be the last one.
I hear it’s been a warm September but I wouldn’t know, having mostly been in the hospital during daylight hours. When I set off in the morning, there’s a chill in the air, reminding us of winter drawing closer. We had a lot of rain earlier in the month and everything is lovely and green. We have harvested a few things from the homestead - plums, quinces, the rest of the tomatoes, and a handful (literally a handful) of almonds but one of the ways this journey has changed me is that I don’t have any problem letting things go any more. I seem to have finally come to terms with how the seasons of our life can be - I don’t have to be doing everything, all the time. Stuff I was serious about and worked hard at at one point in time can be dropped and returned to. I realise I’ve been trying to add stuff to my plate for so long - making videos, exercising, cooking from scratch every meal, the garden, the animals, the renovation, reading, crafting, socialising, practicing Spanish, learning new homesteading skills… when really, new things should come in to replace others instead of add to them, because time doesn’t expand infinitely. Or maybe it does, but unfortunately not in a way that’s actually useful for workaholics. How many things can you focus on doing well at any point in time? How many things do you really need to focus on? One day I’ll be an old lady and I can make as much plum chutney as I want, all day long, and will I think “Oh I wish I did more of this in my thirties”? Will I regret the winter garden of 2023 that never happened, the cabbages and carrots we bought from the shop instead of grew ourselves? I doubt it. This is a new season we are entering into and we have yet to see what it’ll be like, but I do know that I am entering into it with a newfound sense of perspective and calm which has been long overdue.
Oh, and by the way, I’m finally almost totally healed from my abscess surgery. I’d been wondering whose wound was going to fully heal first after their surgeries (which were on the same day, if you remember) - mine or Santi’s. And against the odds it looks like it’s his. If you hadn’t caught that story - I didn’t mention it in my newsletter - I ended up getting mastitis which turned into an abscess and I had to get it cut and drained under general anaesthetic. The operation was fine (although unexpected) and amazingly they did it the same day that I went to the emergency department to complain about the pain - thanks, Spanish public health service! But the challenge came in managing the wound. When you have an abscess (maybe this is common knowledge but I had no idea) you have to keep the whole wound open for many weeks to allow it to slowly heal from the inside out, otherwise it just heals over at the outer skin level and a new abscess can form in the inside. This means a really slow recovery. My nurse kept reminding me, whenever I went for a dressing change (which has been every day, for the last month), that at least it wasn’t on my bum. “Those poor people can’t sit down for months," she told me. Yeah, okay, maybe my boob isn’t the worst place it could have happened. Although it has been a bit of a nightmare, especially at the beginning when the would was very open and required a lot more bandaging, and was also continually leaking milk. I won’t describe this situation in any more detail because you really don’t want to know - but it was messy. Now I’ve just got a tiny sliver left to close, and the new outer skin needs to toughen up before I can go fully bare-breasted and bandage-free. I have one more outpatient appointment at the hospital on Monday so they can see how it’s doing, and I imagine I’ll be discharged - possibly on the same day as Santi, bringing our weirdly symmetrical surgery stories to a joint close.
So yes, we’re still here, in every sense of the term. I had really hoped to end this month with a newsletter announcing that we were all finally home, but alas. I would, however, like to finish with a thank you. To everyone who’s been patient with us on the homesteading content (and content in general), to everyone who reads our newsletter, watches our videos, offers us help, leaves us heartwarming comments (I read them again and again when we’re having a bad day, reminding myself of all the love that is out there for Santi). For all of you who support us on Substack or on Patreon, for those of you still waiting for a card from Moses to thank you for your support (I promise it’s on its way!) and to everyone who has unexpectedly sent us something in the way of knitted goodies, a virtual coffee, money to spend on a gift for Santi, or even a beard trimmer (you saw our need, and you stepped up!) None of it was expected and all of it is incredibly appreciated and means such a lot ♥️
Until next time,
Harriet 🌻
Your nearly there Harriet. Take time to recover from the trauma, not to mention physical (pain) discomfort.
Santiago will soon be home where he belongs, you will all do just fine. How exciting and different life will be on the farmstead.
Totally understand how you would feel like your parenting skills might be uncomfortably on display at the hospital, but don’t you worry. Everyone is seeing your love for your baby and that’s the most important thing. Everything else can be learned, and if you can learn plumbing and electrics and how to grow vegetables and care for livestock and fix up your house (not to mention software design and video editing), you can learn parenting skills, too.