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I don't like hospitals. I don't like the smell, I don't like the color, I don't like knowing that someone may have died in the bed I will be staying in. During the hospital tour before I had Mamie I almost fainted just being in the birthing room. Nah, I don't like hospitals much.

It's not like I was in and out of hospitals a lot, but I did visit them often enough. For a broken collarbone, for a broken wrist. And in college I had to have my gall bladder taken out -- the old fashioned way -- with a knife. This was before the days of painless laser surgery. But get this, that wasn't even the scariest part. The most frightening part was my roommate. Seems she was admitted because she was "virilizing." I heard the whole thing through the flimsy curtain separating us. Since she gave birth she felt that "things down there" were changing and that she was becoming a man. Plus she had a full beard and moustache. And this was the night before the actual surgery. You know, when I was supposed to relax.

However, what I do like about hospitals is knowing that they are doctors and nurses there with medicine who will give me what I need, when I need it. They most likely won't be nice about it, but I know it's there, and that's good enough for me. Sometimes you need the medicine.

Take last Sunday night. I had been sick since Friday night with a stomach bug. A really bad one. With big pain. And crying and moaning. And bad things coming out of bad places. By the time Sunday night hit I was shivering so hard I couldn't hold a cup and so Doug took me to the emergency room. Now, this is upsetting on it's own but the way we live here in NYC is different than any other city. See, people come to New York to get away from their families. They feel like they are the freak or the weird one or "That Girl." Let's make a go of it in the city. And that is all well and good and you can be who you want to be without your parents watching you. But then you grow up and you get married and you have a baby and guess what? No one is there to help you when you need it. There is no mother down the road or auntie around the corner. So you have to buy help or hire people and yes, that helps a lot but it's not the same. And going to the ER isn't as easy as it sounds when you have a baby and it's almost 1 in the morning. Sure, we could have woken her and brought her but I didn't want to. Mamie sensed that something was off all weekend as I stayed away from her, trying to not get her sick, so I wanted to let her sleep peacefully. After calling a bunch of people over the course of an hour or so, our fearless babysitter came through and came over to watch Mamie. I almost cried when I saw him, generosity of strangers, so to speak.

Check-in was fun. I put my coat on the floor and lay on top of it. I felt totally awful and wanted to be noticed for it. Unfortunately , the woman in the corner in her wheelchair was oy-oy-oy'ing it really loud but low and behold it was I who was taken in next. I think my 102 temperature, rapid heartbeat, thready pulse and white pallor got me there - I know the horrified couple in Triage were looking at me like I was a drug addict. A bunch of IVs, an EKG, blood tests, pelvic and rectal exams (I know, for what? Just loved it when the resident said he had only done ONE pelvic exam in his life. As far as the rectal goes, I still think it's worse for the doctor than for the patient. You want my ass? Go get it.) and a mere 4.5 hours later I was told I could go home. My fever had broken and my fluids were replaced. Doug stayed with me til 3:30AM but had to get back to Mamie, so at 5:15AM when I was released, I walked home alone (The only advice I was given was "take Tylenol every 4 hours.") No one seemed to care that I wobbled out all by myself. Although it was still dark out, I wasn't scared. No one was gonna come near me the way I looked.

The next day I kept waiting for sleep to come; you know, that sleep where you don't get up from bed for like, 12 hours. But it never came. And I felt even worse, if that was possible. At check-out, the doctor in charge told me that my blood came back signaling that I was anemic and that I should "go get that seen to in a coupla days" (you know, as opposed to seeing about it like, I don't know, right here and now in the Emergency Room.) Now, I'm always anemic, but now I was worried. See, a few days prior to this mishegoss, I was instructed by my eye doc to stop my medication for my li'l eye disease because it was fucking with my blood too much. Fucking with blood = something called hemolytic anemia. The fact that the eye doc sat on these results for two weeks before yanking me off this medicine doesn't make me feel any better either, but I'll take care of that during my next exam with him (oh, you know I will.) Basically this anemia can do things like make you think you have a stomach virus. It can also totally screw up your blood count and make your new GP look at you during your check-up on Wednesday and exclaim "Girl, you are whiiiiiiite. I'm gonna put you in the hospital for a blood transfusion tomorrow." It can make you lose weight (96 pounds with clothes and shoes on - please send milkshakes now.) and have your liver enzymes go nuts (interestingly enough, guess what makes it worse? TYLENOL! Wouldn't it have been nice if all these doctors could have talked to one another? Or at least looked at my test results? Or something?) It can also make your new GP (who called you "Boogey" when you looked at her with tears in your eyes after the transfusion remark) prescribe iron for you, which was a very bad thing for me.

Let's just say my stomach is still recovering.

One of the worst things of all of this was how I couldn't spend time with Mamie. Luckily I was never contagious but I didn't know that, so I steered clear of her. I missed her so much though. All this really made me see how attached I am to her. But it also made me see that she will let other people take care of her. So yeah, stay at home mom it still is, but this made me see that I will need lots of help in the future -- anemia or not.

The good news is that I didn't need the transfusion, our wonderful babysitters united to take care of us, I didn't give Doug or Mamie any kind of flu and that I am slowly getting better. As for my eyes? That medicine was good for me until it was no good at all for me. Right now, I just want to concentrate on gaining some strength and weight back. And taking Mamie trick or treating on Monday. After that, we'll see.

I'm just happy to be able to hold my baby for now.

(Thank you to all who came through for us... especially Corey.)