On the stroke of midnight I decided to let Mum know it was time to go to the hospital. Today was her due date after all. She responded immediately, of course, and soon we were all in a taxi for the short drive to St Joseph’s. It ended up taking all night to travel the short distance from my cosy one-room flat to the vastness outside, but as I’d always wanted to see the world, I didn’t mind how long the journey took, although I’m not sure Mum was of the same opinion.

After arriving I left the room quickly, as I had some vital business to attend to with the doctors, then I came back to see Mum and Dad: I felt it was important to get to know them as soon as possible (after all, I’m planning to live with them for a while). The first thing I saw was Dad crying. Maybe he wasn’t pleased to see me, but I also noticed he had a smile on his face; it might take me a while to get used to this confusing behaviour.

Soon it was time for my first meal: it wasn’t easy to get as much as I wanted, and I wasn’t impressed that I had to suck for a long time just to get a little bit. There wasn’t a lot of choice on the menu, certainly compared to the variety of my diet over the previous months, but at least it was tasty. Still, I must practise my technique.

Then I was weighed (just over seven pounds) and measured (1 foot 8) before we were taken to our room for the night. When we got there, another mum and baby were there, it being a shared room, but they didn’t stay long before leaving, so we got a bit of privacy. Dad took my photo: I looked rather dishevelled. Mum and Dad thought it was sweet, but what if they actually show it to my friends in the future?

Dad, sadly, wasn’t allowed to stay the night. Mind you, by the end of the day I was glad to see the back of him, as he almost had a nervous breakdown several times, for example when Mum asked him to change my nappy after my first pee. He mumbled something about being absolutely, completely, totally and utterly exhausted, which I thought was an overuse of adverbs on one hand and rather selfish on the other, considering I had had the biggest journey that day. When he decided the cold, hard hospital floor looked like a suitable place to sleep and proceeded to lie down, I had to admit that he couldn’t be of any more use to us.

My first night on the outside, I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep. Everything was so new, and I couldn’t calm down. This meant I kept Mum awake almost the whole night, but at least we slept for two hours. Hopefully tomorrow night will be peaceful.