The photo of Michael and me that is on this page sits in a frame in our lounge room. It's one of my favourite photos ever because (a) it's a nice picture of us and (b) because when it was taken we were both utterly exhausted from grief and trauma but when we saw that photo we both just thought we looked happy. It became a symbol for us of how we got through unbelievably bad times together and all the while held it together calmly and quietly and with enormous love. Of course we cried - my god, we sobbed and howled and clung to each other like we were drowning in a raging torrent. But I also remember how quietly we just sat together talking about what needed to get done and both of us putting in equal effort to do it. And that through it all there was so much love. This photo captures that.

I sat here the other day looking at that picture and thought that I couldn't look that happy now. I felt so weighed down by everything that has happened in the last 15 months. I should be celebrating the arrival of our beautiful baby girl - and I am (I really am) - but I was so weighed down by my health problems coming after so many other bad things. I kept on thinking "what next?" when normally I would think "it will all be OK". Or else I would just get on with it and not think about it until the storm had passed and I had time to process.

I couldn't believe that I looked at a picture taken 10 weeks after my daughter died; 8 weeks after Michael's business partner suddenly pulled the plug on him; 5 weeks after my parents-in-law were seriously injured in a car accident; 3 weeks after moving and a couple of hours after we heard that Rory and Sienna's other baby sister had been born (when all we wanted was their baby sister in our arms) and longed to feel that light-hearted again.

Today though I've been home for a few days. I've been eating nice, healthy food and getting some exercise. I've got my toe nails cut, finger nails filed, legs shaved and hair done. My leg's improving.

And right this second? I'm typing this one-handed as I have Caira curled in my other arm. I just looked at her as she sits here wriggling and waving her arms about. She's watching the ceiling fan go round and her eyes are shining and she has the biggest, most beautiful smile. I have to go change her nappy and there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

All is well.

I'm home, temporarily. I'm on a 'day pass' from hospital, where I've been for the last ten days and won't be discharged from for at least another two.

That boil on my leg turned out to not be a boil. Or it was a boil but it was caused by a Golden Staph infection. We went away over Christmas and were keeping an eye on it the whole time, knowing I really should see a doctor when we got home. It was incredibly painful and I wanted it lanced so it would be gone - taking the pain with it. Oh and also there was a very large red patch around it, indicating infection. I kept hoping that when it drained the infection would clear. Instead, as it started draining the red patch got bigger and hotter and my foot swelled up. So off to the doctor I went, the morning after we got home. I expected that I would walk away with a prescription for some antibiotics and was happily anticipating the next week and a half at home *with Michael*. His office was closed for that length of time and we had been looking forward for months to that week and a bit at home alone with our new baby.

The first thing the doctor said was "I think you're very close to needing to go to hospital". By that time the boil, which had that morning shrunk a little, had turned into an abcess the size of a golf ball, the entirety of my lower right leg was bright red and my foot was twice its normal size.

She called in a colleague for a second opinion and well, off to hospital I went. Still expecting at that stage to be in for a couple of days of IV antibiotics, just as I was two days after bringing Caira home when I developed an infection in the uterus.

What I didn't expect was that the abcess would test positive for MRSA, or Golden Staph. And that instead of a couple of days IV antibiotics (which I'd already had by that time) I would end up with 4 days of very strong IV antibiotics and not be allowed home as soon as I started on the oral ones.

We've waited so long to be home with our baby. And on Monday (when it's expected I'll be discharged) I will have been in hospital for a day short of half her life.

Dear Universe: I've had about as much as I can stand for a while. OK?