Any Questions?

I really thought she was beginning to look like her old self and I told her so. Four days in the hospital with their random late night vitals checks and pain level quizzes is enough to beat anybody down, but throw in a newborn baby to take care of at the same time and it’s almost too much to handle! Hopefully we would be going home tomorrow; everything should be much easier to handle once we were surrounded by our “stuff”. Honestly I didn’t understand how she could look as good as she did because I’d been sleeping in a chair next to her (without recovering from surgery) all week and I was exhausted.

I decided to walk to the cafeteria downstairs and eat breakfast... and maybe think a little bit. My wife had to be getting tired of my hovering over her twenty four hours a day, and I really needed to come up with a plan to eventually go back to work. How could I ever resume my normal life now that I had a wife AND a baby to take care of? I told her I would be back in a few minutes, kissed her cheek, and headed for the door. Before I could grasp the knob, the door flew open and a nurse wheeled the baby and loaded cart inside the room. “Good morning” the nurse said “I thought I’d show ya’ll a few things if you have a minute”. Now that was a good one, we weren’t going anywhere. As I looked at the too small baby in the cart I thought I might never eat breakfast again.

Well the nurse went through her spiel of taking care of the navel scab, head cradling tip, changing the diaper, training to breastfeed, burping after feeding, mixing the formula, and saving for college in about four seconds. She then held our six pound alien up like a trophy and calmly asked “Any questions?” Other than “could you start over, write all of that down for me and come to my house every morning?” I can’t think of any, thanks.

I have to say that the nurses at the hospital were great. I’ve always considered myself owning a better than average poker face, but with all of the confusion with the baby I couldn’t seem to remember how to make one. The nurse gave us both a knowing look and said “maybe I should change the diaper and treat the scab now, it’s probably about time”. She went through the entire process very slow and methodically so we could watch and did her best to make it look easy. When she finished, she once again asked if we had any questions before quietly slipping out the door.

Okay, this was really the first time we had been alone with our baby and it was beginning to seem a little too real. Surely they weren’t going to send us home un-trained and un-tested to take care of something so small and fragile; the doctor would obviously be by later with the manual of handling and care instructions…relax! I looked at my wife and for probably the first time ever I couldn’t think of anything to say; nothing.  She looked at me, then she looked at the baby that was just lying there in the bassinet and said “What time is your mother coming this morning?”

Well that was fifteen years ago this month and my little “alien” finished her first year of high school last week. I guess you all know that the doctor never produced a manual; turns out they don’t have one. We felt like an unusual case; we were both thirty five and had never held a real baby, but I don’t think we were really that unusual. I’m sure all parents of a newborn feel this way and I now find it almost silly watching new parents try so hard to be perfect. With normal care and attentive parents the baby will teach you all you need to know about the care they need. I tell myself this every day as I have now become the parent of a teenager; an almost grown alien.  And just in case you wondered, there is no manual for this either…I checked!