About a year ago, my husband and I brought home our baby from the hospital.
I’d like to tell you that bringing our baby home was this amazingly warm and fuzzy, Hallmark-moment experience.
I’d like to tell you that, being a planner, I was ready for the transition from a party-of-two to a party-of-three.
I’d like to tell you that my many hundreds of hours reading mommy blogs had prepared me for what was about to come next.
But I’d be lying.
So… instead, I will just share a few photos of the first couple of days with our baby in our otherwise highly-tidy and well-organized apartment because, well, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Yes, we were mostly just in shock that a baby had come out of my body and we now had to keep it alive on the outside!Can you spot all of these out-of-place-items in this photo: breastfeeding schedule, pumping and storage guidelines, feeding quantities, formula #1 to supplement feedings, essential oil diffuser that I wasn’t allowed to use in the hospital due to COVID, COVID mask, dish cloths to dry all the bottles that were already piling up, bottle cooler, tissues and throat lozenges for my birth that I never used, and a bar of chocolate.Can you spot all of these out-of-place-items in this photo: newborn diapers from the hospital, another bar of chocolate, noise-cancelling headphones to prevent the colicky crying from driving us crazy, spray bottle to keep the cat away from the baby, snot sucker in case baby had boogies, cloth diaper pads that doubled as burp cloths, my birthing ball that I didn’t take with me because my labor went out of control immediately, my breast pump bag, baby blanket, tummy time set, and one part of a breast pump on our coffee-table-turned-dining-table because I couldn’t sit comfortably at the dining table anymore. Oh–and two pillows from our bedroom.Can you spot all of these out-of-place-items in this photo: travel diaper changing station, baby wipes, muslin burp cloth, breastmilk storage bags, baby pajamas, receiving blanket (I still don’t know what those are for), disposable bottle of formula with nipple from the hospital, nipple cream, pacifier holding kangaroo, and black permanent marker to label breastmilk bags.Can you spot all of these out-of-place items in this photo: breast pump, pumping bra, nursing pillow, pain killers, pacifier, breast leakage pads (what are those called again?), bottle warmer, and glasses.
Yeah…
That was us.
We were a bit of a wreck.
But, fortunately, the story didn’t end there.
You see, I’m sharing these totally-not-embarrassing photos with you, new mama, to tell you that I’ve been there–and it gets better!
Today, our home is generally clean and tidy, again.
Today, we can have guests over without freaking out, again.
Today, we can enjoy our home as a haven of rest, again.
Because we learned how to work through the transition of baby-makes-three.
We gained some new skills (lots of them) that we didn’t have before.