First Days Home

As Tim pos­ted, our baby daugh­ter was born on Thursday June 8, and today I finally had the energy to pick up my laptop and post this. It’s amaz­ing how intensely a squirm­ing squeal­ing bundle can rule your life; right now she’s burbling in the bassin­et, threat­en­ing to wake up [and did, so it took a while to actu­ally fin­ish this short piece].

First off, thanks to all who sent Tim and me con­grat­u­la­tions on the birth. We both appre­ci­ate it and have saved all the emails to share with her when she’s old enough to appre­ci­ate them.

The sense of relief that she is finally here, healthy, pink, and strong, is over­whelm­ing. We’re start­ing to settle in to the new regime and got a reas­on­able amount of sleep last night; by no means enough of course, but bet­ter than it’s been. We’re not think­ing about wheth­er the same will hap­pen tonight or any oth­er night in the near future – we’ll have to see what hap­pens when the time comes. Life has slowed down right now, we’re enjoy­ing each moment of peace (wheth­er she’s awake or asleep or feed­ing, which is a twi­light state some­where in between), and endur­ing each moment of cry­ing and frus­tra­tion. It’s a cliché to say that each child changes your life; the non-cliché part is that you nev­er know how until they’re there.

Reg­u­lar-style post­ings will recom­mence at some stage, with some­what more reg­u­lar­ity than in the last few months. That’s the plan any­way, although it’s sure to be derailed, either occa­sion­ally or often, by the new­est mem­ber of the household.