A Few Thoughts from the Days Following My Son’s Birth

Wednesday June 26, 2019 // Afternoon Nap Time

It’s day three home from the hospital. I’m in my son’s room sitting in the rocker. We moved the bassinet in here for the moment. He fell asleep in my wife’s arms when she was in the rocker. So I dragged the bassinet into here so we could gently transfer him into it and swaddle him up as delicately as possible while keeping his little eyes shut.

Over the past few days I’ve had so many thoughts running through my head. So many ideas of things I want to write about. But they’ve mostly all escaped me as I’ve been dashing back and forth between feedings, coddlings, snuggles, cries, and water refills.

Here are a few that have stuck with me. Definitely not a complete list.

• The birth of a child is the most life-altering and fulfilling moment I’ve ever had. My heart wanted to explode from happiness.
• Hearing your child cry is the most painful pain I’ve ever felt.
• My wife, my child, the birthing process, and breastfeeding are magical. There’s no other way to describe it. Magical.
• The hospital staff that cared for us during labor and recovery were some of the nicest, kindest, and most caring people I’ve ever met. I would not have made it through those first couple of days without them. Their experience, insight, and bedside manor exceeded any expectations I could have had.
• The onset of labor can happen fast. Without getting into too many details, we always thought she’d have “a feeling” and the length of time of contractions would be hours long before we’d have to go to the hospital. That wasn’t the case for us and at 1:00 AM, even before the doctor could get back to us, we knew it was time to head in even though contractions hadn’t even been going on for an hour at that point.
• The umbilical cord cutting and leftover stump still scares me.
• I’ve changed my first wet diaper and now many wet diapers. And I feel like a man after doing it. I had never changed any diaper before. I’m still uneasy about changing a messy diaper and my wife is taking the lead on them but I know that’ll change very soon.
• I’m so happy my wife can eat Italian meats and unpasteurized cheeses again. Prosciutto, capicola, and mozzarella plates are on standby at all times.
• The lack of sleep is rough… but we’re managing.
• I’ve never felt closer to my wife and more of a team as I do right now. We make a damn good combination.

The kiddo is starting to stir. I better wrap this up before I’m interrupted. There are plenty of more thoughts to share on another day.

– Josh