Christmas is of course coming up, which means New Years Eve will be around the corner. Some people mark their year as beginning or ending around these traditional times. Others review their past 365 days on their birthday. For me, my year started and ended with the birth and 1st birthday of Little Orlando. So I'm doing the whole reflection thing. It's been a full on year. Orlando was born and it was all a little bit hazy - until he woke Hamish and I up on his first night out of the womb with a cry for food. I've never seen Hamish jump out of bed so quickly, he was like Flash Gordon and had scooped up Orlando before I'd even managed to painfully roll myself to the edge of the bed. Haahahahaaa oh those first days postpartum.... wow. We dealt with jaundice during our stay and had to gaze at our bundle of love in his Miami Blue Lights crib. It killed me. When we came home we tried to get out every single day. I'm still not 100% sure how we did it. We went to Carols in the Park where we pushed the pram around in a daze, realised it wasn't for us and zombie walked our way home. My dad's birthday was a week after Orlando was born - we hosted his birthday party, cooked and hosted. On Christmas day when he was 4 weeks old we bundled him into the car and drove over the bridge to the other side of Melbourne only to get back into the car as soon as we got there because someone had a bad cold. Orlando's immune system, like all newborns was pretty much nil so we just decided to avoid the situation all together. New Years Eve: once again I somehow zombie, dazed us to Cottonsock's NYE party. I've got NO idea how we did it, Orlando just slept but for me it was like I was on autopilot - desperate to regain some sort of normal social life. I was dog tired on top of my already dog tiredness for days afterwards. The weeks old baby turned into a months old baby and Mother's Day rolled around where I was presented with a pen. I even got to treat myself to making my own breakfast: muesli, with UHT milk. Then my birthday hit and I was gifted a beautiful orange and gold Hermes click clack, no pen. One night in July I was at work and Hamish called me at around 3am saying he couldn't get out of bed or lift his head without getting an intense migraine and nausea. I knew something was dreadfully wrong. I raced home. So worried. My brain kept saying - it's neurological, it's neurological. But when I get home he was laying down and thought he felt better. A week or so later the same thing happened and that was the night of the first ambulance visit, then the visit to the GP, then a visit to emergency. Three visits to emergency later and countless tears, heartbreaking, worrying, scared shitless tears later they finally did a lumbar puncture and my thought that it was neurological was proven. Hamish spent two weeks in hospital, through Father's Day and his birthday. He missed Orlando saying "dad" for the first time (on Father's Day), he missed a beautiful Father's Day picnic with my family. That two weeks was one of the hardest times of my life. I was solo parenting, driving in to hospital two times a day, keeping up Hamish's spirits - trying in earnest to keep up mine. The first night he was in hospital he was so, so critical - he couldn't form a sentence properly, had massive word finding difficulties. I was dreading the worst, I knew what the worst could be. I called the ward (my own workplace, thank God!) in tears to see if he was ok, the nurse told me to go back to sleep and try to rest, try not to worry. I called my girlfriend and cried on the phone to her - I thought he would never recover, I thought he would die. He had a million scans of every single region of the body. He had special blood tests and multiple lumbar punctures. Then he started getting better, gradually, slowly. I had the love of my life back. Meanwhile, through all the hospital drama we were trying to pull off Orlando's Christening and our secret wedding. Hamish got out of hospital a week before the wedding, we battled with trying to decide if we should hold it or not but we'd waited for so long. It went ahead. The day was very simple, on reflection, if I'm being completely honest: I do feel like we missed out on so much. Hamish couldn't even really drink a glass of Champagne. Yet, all that aside - I was finally married to the love of my life (and Orlando was in with God). Things then bumbled along pretty normally (touch wood!!!!). Orlando took his first steps a few days shy of his ten month mark, I said to Hamish the other night I can't remember the last time he crawled. That makes me sad, we remember celebrating when crawling starts but when they stop crawling - that amazing baby milestone, it's not remembered. I look at Orlando now and can't believe how far he's come in a year. He has a wicked sense of humour, a beautiful, bubbly laugh. He's got a fierce, strong independence already - if we try and intervene sometimes there are tears. He has fallen into a perfect little routine quite naturally and goes to sleep and wakes up like clockwork. Today he figured out how to slide off the bed safely - either landing on his feet or with a soft thud onto his bottom. He makes me laugh, smile and sometimes cry. Sometimes he frustrates me, but I frustrate him too. Sometimes he's cranky and won't eat, but tomorrow is another day. He has started to actually sit still in my lap for stories or a cuddle and kisses, always kisses. I can't even imagine what the next year will bring it makes my heart swell with happiness just thinking about it.
Cheers!