The Newest Member

This morning, my brother, my sister, and I all woke up as parents of daughters. My newest niece, Lucy Jane, was born yesterday afternoon, and has received rave reviews from everyone who has met her thus far, including the nurses and doctors. The family is, admittedly, a little biased.

Even though I haven’t gone through the Oh My God I Have A New Baby What Am I Going To Do moment in over a year, I remember it with Waterford-like clarity, and I feel it today for my sister. The lovely drugs (if you had any – you badasses who do it with nary a multivitamin are just incredible and way beyond my comprehension) are starting to fade, and this thing you’ve been anticipating for 9 months is here, and it’s not going away. Nurses are bugging the ever-living stuffing out of you every 10 minutes it seems, people are coming in and out and oooing at the baby (often without really looking at you as if there’s a gigantic piece of spinach stuck front and center), and you’ve just been told you have to do WHAT to get discharged. It’s a bit unnerving, to say the least.

And the first 6 weeks, they are killer, period. I love my kids, and I loved them as babies, but that first 6 weeks, ugh. That’s a little bit of hell right there. This wriggly little thing needs a schedule, but you have no idea how to figure out a schedule or if that schedule will fit the little creature, and why is she crying I just fed her and changed her, and you haven’t eaten food that didn’t come in a paper bag since you were pregnant. All topped off by 2 words: sleep deprivation. Torture. Having gone through it with kid #1, I would have gladly forsaken it with kid #2. It’s fine to go through it once, trial by fire and all, but for anyone going on to kid #2, #3, or more, they should get a pass from the universe.

But the official motto of every parent is This Too Shall Pass. And you get through those first weeks, and you realize there were wonderful moments going on then, too, and there will be even more wonderful moments to come. So welcome to the club, sister of mine. And welcome to the club of Oh HI Here’s Labor What Do You Mean It’s Time For A C-Section Well OK If It’s Best For The Baby And What Do You Mean I Have To Do WHAT To Go Home club. The water’s fine.

(Someday I will have pictures, but the task of sucking them off my camera and organizing them is just a little too daunting for the moment and I have to get back to the hospital to check on the girls.)