The First Month
It’s hard to believe that Serenity will be four weeks old tomorrow.
I have to say, it’s been one hell of a learning curve. There is nothing I can think of that changes your life as much as having a child. Possibly, becoming crippled or losing a limb would be an equivalent life change, but in a good way.
What I mean by that is there are some things you have to relearn, some things you have to learn in new ways, and some things you learn that you never knew about about.
For me, I’ve learnt a lot, in that month. Like 1. When your baby cries, it is nowhere near as annoying as when someone else’s child does, but it IS a hundred times more frustrating. Every time she lets out a cry, you’re mind starts reeling and you are put on a clock. The first couple nights when she started crying, I could barely handle it. Not because it was annoying, but because I needed her to be happy for some kind of validation that Raven and I weren’t doing something wrong. But I was able to hold on, I just took a deep breath, smiled, and started joking about it, because that’s one thing I know I can do when all else fails, throw a joke.
Luckily, I quickly learned that a lot of the time, when a baby cries, it’s not a big deal, and even then you just start going down the checklist. diaper? gas? hunger? If it’s not immediately evident as one of those three, you just hold her and rock and usually she calms down.
I also realized that dirty diapers and being puked on don’t bother me as much as I thought it would. It’s weird, those first couple nights, we were actively hoping she would give us a dirty diaper. It’s one of those signs of a healthy baby. you have to keep track of before she can go home. And she seems to have some issues, so it’s become daily conversation. “Hi, nice day, isn’t it? Did Serenity have a dirty diaper today? what color?” and I think the hospital kind of lies to you. “She NEEDS to have these dirty diapers,” Then when you get home, you’re ready so when she does have a dirty diaper, you just do what needs to be done and move past it.
The last real big thing I learned in the first month is, Holy Crap kids grow fast. We had to go to LOTS of doctors appointments, after Serenity was born, and I went to a number of them as my schedule allowed, and of course, everywhere we went, we would encounter other parents with kids and holding my week old, and looking at somebody else’s one year old, they seem so different, worlds apart, but I know it’s really not that far away. That’s pretty frightening. Guess I still have things to learn.
Serenity was born 7 pounds even 18.5 inches. she is (as of last doctors appointment) 7lbs. 1oz. 21inches. And I’ll put a picture here as soon as I can.