I was sitting on the lounge room floor last Monday night, consolidating my to-do list and making mental notes to prioritise the stuff that had to be done before the baby arrived. I was 38 weeks and 2 days, so the countdown was on.

Then – my waters broke.

To cut a long story short we welcomed our little girl, baby A, into the world at 4.40am Tuesday morning. She is healthy, perfect, and we’re both in love with her.


It’s funny to think how completely different our lives are compared to 8 o’clock last Monday night and all the months and years that came before that point. One minute you’re writing lists in the loungeroom, bumping into things with your massive belly, lavishing attention on the cat, making trips across town to run errands without a second’s thought, and leisurely surfing the internet for baby products you’re going to theoretically need one day. The next minute you’re in the loungeroom bumping into things with your massive boobs, telling the cat to get a grip and pull herself together, wondering how long you’ve got til your baby wakes up again, and knowing that a much-needed trip to the bra shop is going to be impossible anytime soon. My diary shows that I was going to go to UWA tonight to listen to one of my favourite authors, Robert Drewe, do a reading and talk. Instead I napped for an hour and a half in preparation for another night of A’s partying.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Life’s much nicer at home with my family than it was in the maternity ward. The two and a half days we spent in there with our little girl were like a brief visit to a parallel universe. Right now there’s a little world operating behind those doors that I knew nothing about before.


The parallel universe was a little bit like Girl, Interrupted, except instead of being clinically mad, the women are sleep deprived and everyone is bound by the common experience of having given birth some time over the previous three days. When I made the decision to switch from the private system to the public, I figured the 4-bed wards would be like staying in a youth hostel all over again, except with babies. I wasn’t far off the mark – I just underestimated how trying that would be, being kept awake for entire nights, listening to everyone’s babies and their mums in various states of emotional upheaval.

For starters, the communal bathroom meant that you couldn’t always “go” when you needed to. Some women’s partners took the liberty of using our bathroom and leaving the toilet seat up, which grated on my nerves more than I can describe. The floor was always wet. I forgot – of course – to pack flip flops, and I’m certain I’ve contracted some nasty foot infection from the shower (even after years of backpacking and escaping so much as a trace of tinea).

At night I’d wander the corridors with my screaming baby, chatting with other mums in the loungeroom, swapping stories. In the mornings I’d go to the communal dining room to make my toast, chatting with other mums, swapping stories. Except instead of all the usual questions you get in hostel dining rooms and lounge rooms (Where are you from? How long have you been here? Where are you off to next?) it was When was he/she born? How are you finding it? How long was your labour? And When are you going home?

This last one produced emphatic replies: "Tomorrow. And I don’t give a sh*t what they say, I’m going tomorrow. I can’t stand it."

It’s not that it was a bad hospital – far from it. But new mums need their partners with them at night. Together we were all alone in the world with a little human to look after and no idea whether we were on the right track or not. On night two I buzzed the midwife at 4am and told her I’d been feeding for two and a half hours and I was so exhausted, would she show me how to feed lying down? She told me this was unacceptable and babies shouldn’t be feeding for longer than an hour (so yes, this is when I realised I had a binge-drinking party girl on my hands, who likes to sleep the day away and trick all her visitors into thinking she’s an angel). Every midwife that showed up had a different method, different piece of advice, different slant on things. I was warned about that, but again, underestimated how much this would affect me after three solid nights of sleep deprivation and an overdose of hormones.

So that was the last of my hostelling – from now on I’m a hotels and private hospital (or at least private room – if not home birth) kind of girl.

Well – for the time being I’m not going anywhere. But that’s ok – I’ve got some pretty amazing company and lots of new experiences ahead to keep me entertained.