The big day was Friday the 18th, and the sleeplessness started the night before. The cesarean was booked for the morning, so we had to be at the door of the hospital at 6:45am (more of a "stay up until" than a "get up for" hour for me, in general).  They didn't have a room for us when we arrived, so there was a few hours of waiting room, which lulled us into a false sense of security - once they were ready for us, Ceci was being trollied down the passage towards surgery before we really had time to get used to the idea.  

I was doing my best not to think about this:

...when they ushered me away from Ceci to go in another door, where I had to change into scrubs, fail to make small-talk with some other guy changing into scrubs (turns out he was the neonatólogo, but I was too dazed to take this in at the time), and then wait nervously in a kind of hallway intersection.

After god knows how long, I was allowed into the operating room, where Ceci was in a kind of tent, which was almost immediately lowered to reveal our new baby!  Weighings, measurings, dressings, etc. ensued, and in no time at all we were back in our room.

We had three nights in the hospital, then home Monday yay!  Been trying to figure this thing out, not really sure what we're doing yet...

Salient points from Faustita's first week:

• nights are longer, and days shorter, than they used to be
• nappies enfold a new world of colours and textures.  Foods I can no longer eat without flashbacks:
  • chocolate dairy food
  • pumpkin soup
  • honey mustard anything
• our changing table is enchanted, and has an immediately calming effect no matter whether the problem is hunger, dirty nappy, or incompetent parents
• invoking the name "Mabel" (who was one of the lactation specialists in hospital) has a similar, but shorter-lived, effect
• "perfecto" is the suck word
• the hair-dryer is the magic wand of relaxation

Felicia was a little nonplussed at first.  Somebody told us you're meant to let the cat smell the first pooey nappy to mark the baby's territory or somesuch.  We did that, but I don't see it having any noticable effect on Felicia's behaviour - she does whatever she wants, just like before.  She pretty much ignores Fausta, unless she's making interesting noises - although we suspect that she may have Crib Envy....

 

...so we set her up her own basket with white stand - taller than Fausta's so she's be top cat.

Then Ceci's parents brought us a baby crib for Felicia, which is more like the real thing.

She uses them both, to assert her higher status.