I promise I’m not trying to keep Mindy from y’all, but my service as press secretary is allowing her time to take care of various mommy and convalescence business. I tell you, once you learn to live with a breast pump regularly around, truly very little will strike you as strange anymore.

Overpopulation in many parts of the world is a fact, but after you’ve seen a NICU in operation, you wonder how our species could be considered so durable and weedy. Newborns look fragile enough without seeing them in that state. It’s like a nursing home I suppose, only the specter of mortality is strangely twisted up with the hope of potential. The staff nevertheless keep a fairly upbeat energy about the place. Very odd that, optimism is not generally my strong suit.

Anyhow, Mindy is discharged, but still gimpy. Ro is still doing light therapy in said NICU, but looking steady overall. Seton has allowed us to “nest” here in our recovery room for an extra day or two so we can continue to visit Ro on short notice, be around for feedings and such. She is the largest baby in the block by far, most of them up there being preemies and, not to draw any hard conclusions here (as the hospital is an especially metropolitan place) very frequently non-white, FWIW. For those various reasons, we feel a little out of place up there, but the folks up there in the NICU have been pretty nice to us, and quite helpful. It helps the staff all seem to like her, but I suspect her charm is just a powerful, sinister ruse.