Homecoming

We’re on our way home from the hospital this morning, but first Chris is out for a run in the Arboretum and Ms. Ella Ray is enjoying a post-nursing nap. All is quiet and calm, for now, and I am relishing in these last few moments of peace. Soon we will go home and the real work will begin. We’ll enter the world of balancing a toddler and a newborn, taking care of dogs and laundry, cooking our own (sigh…) meals, balancing the checkbook, and worrying about all the things we haven’t thought of for the last few days. I have enjoyed this protective cocoon of our birthing suite. It has helped make for a gentle transition into real life, and I must admit I go home today with some apprehension about how this is all going to work. I know it will work out fine. Cognitively, I recognize that. Families get bigger, older siblings adjust, parents find out they have even more love to go around, life goes on. Still, I fret about how Jay will react once he realizes that Ella is here to stay. And I worry that frankly, it’ll just be too hard, and somehow, I will fail.

Luckily, newborns need only a few things to make their world go around: love, boobs, sleep, a pair of willing arms, and fresh diapers. I can do that. Toddlers need love, a pair of willing arms, story times, tickle sessions, and cookies. I can do that, too. Maybe I can do this.

We watched the opening ceremonies for the 2008 summer Olympics last night on the teevee. As I watched the athletes in the Parade of Nations, I couldn’t help thinking that labor should be an Olympic sport. Physically challenging? Check. Mentally challenging? Check. A team effort? Check. God knows my labor was easier and faster because of my support crew. Anyway, any woman who pushes out a baby from her hoohaa deserves a gold medal. Especially those women who have labors that last twenty or thirty or (god help them) forty-something hours long. Six and a half hours was long enough, thanks.

And now I think I’ll try to sneak one more nap in here before they pry my fingers from the door frame of this room and real life begins…