Backblog

Now that the main event has been successfully completed and our grandson is enjoying his home environment, I can reflect back on some of the other things that were going on prior to the birth.

The first 3 photos below show the home from home hospital that we were all living in or visiting for the last week. We got very familiar with the odd-number-floors lift, getting to floor 9 and back several times a day, invariably with the maximum number of people on board and stopping at every odd number floor. The waiting room shown is the one for husbands with wives in the delivery room. Anxiously waiting or delivering food for those having a long labour, but NOT going in. All they had was the screen showing the birth progress of each mother. Poor Sasa never got onto the screen, but Oliver still had to wait in a similar location for the c-section. Eventually wife and baby emerge and go back to the ward in a different lift while husband rejoins the scrum in the odd-number-floors lift desperately trying to get his first glimpse of his new baby. By the time Oliver had completed this race, the baby was already disappearing down the corridor to be washed.

As for our own accommodation, we initially found it very noisy and dusty due to the surrounding building work and were wondering if we could stand it for a month. We quite soon accepted that all of Shanghai is like that in one way or another and we were quite charmed by our host Alex who is a young Jewish American with his own small business in Shanghai. He has taken a great interest in our baby saga and been very helpful suggesting shops, eating places and outings we might like. He is very easy to live with and talk to. Not in the least inhibited by the age gap between himself and us. The pictures show the main room and the street we are in. We are getting quite familiar with the area. We have been mostly walking the 2.5km to Oliver's apartment but it only costs 15rmb (£1.50) to get a taxi so quite tempting especially later in the evenings.