When we received the go ahead, we thought we were prepared to take our baby home from the hospital, but you never realize how SCARY it is to do so. It is wonderful having the nurses check on your baby constantly making sure his vitals are normal and that he is breast feeding properly while your in the hospital. When that time comes, the time when they release you, the reality of it all is scary, hits you.
First, comes the drive home; the cars and other various traffic that could possibly collide with your car and your precious new baby. Not to mention the sleep deprivation. Anthony was very, very stressed when we first loaded Noah into the car. How could he not be? Our most prized possession was being exposed to the big wide world, and we had to keep him safe. All of the cars seemed to being driving faster and closer to us then any other time we had driven before. Both of us were on edge looking for the next car that could possibly hit us. We both sighed with relief when we pulled into the garage.
Once you get home, you might think you are safe, but, then you realize this tiny baby has to sleep in a gigantic crib. Noah looked so small the first night in his crib. But we prepared ourselves and put him in his swaddle and laid him down. Then we realized the nurses were not there to check his vitals anymore. We started to feel symptoms of panic, and the worries flooded in over us. What if stops breathing during the night? Will we know? How will we make sure he gets up enough times during the night? Should we set our alarms? The list continued on and on.
Eventually, you learn that exhaustion will allow you to fall asleep and you realize that the baby will wake you up when he is hungry, or when he needs his diaper changed. We did set our alarms for every three hours, but he got up about every two hours. Even though you fall asleep, your sleep is not restful. Every little sound he made, we jumped up to see if he was okay. That first night, it seemed like morning would never come. Although, morning did eventually appear and we felt like champions because we just made it through the first night, by ourselves, in our home, with our baby! There is no feeling like making it through that first night; it gives you confidence that you can take care of your baby without the nurses and their constant supervision. Although worries still did exist, we just cuddled with our precious baby, and the worries floated away.
Discovering Natural Motherhood 