The skinny

After 5+ weeks of our baby being in the neonatal intensive care unit, we are going to be bringing him home. He has removed his feeding tube on his own, his oxygen monitor has been off, and he passed his car seat test with flying colors. Last night, we watched a video on CPR and did one last unofficial test: we got to spend the night with him.

It's like a "test run" (only, you can't really change your mind at this point). The hospital has two family suites where a couple can stay with their baby and still have access to the medical staff, should any needs arise. It was funny to see him not hooked up to anything at all-- just a real, living, naked baby (who still looks more like a cross between my Grandpa Stu and my friend Yukie than he does either of us). We brought an inflatable mattress and pitched camp.

It was horrible. What an unfair introduction to all this. Soren was so gassy and crampy and just fussed through the whole night. None of us slept. He is usually such a gentle baby and not at all a whiner, that this really caught us off guard. Of course, he was kind of thrown into a strange situation: it was his first night in darkness, after being used to sleeping under fluorescent lights . All of us tend to have funny dreams or restless sleep when we stay in someplace new, so i'm sure he was a little panicky. Plus, in a world of pain. He just kept getting cramps and gas pain, and it would really get to him.

So we're not totally shining new parents today. We both sort of considered asking for a refund, but i think we'll keep him after all. Even after not sleeping, he still looked pretty cute this morning, and i bet he was as frustrated as we were. Word is that the first 6 weeks are the toughest, which for us will be the first 12 weeks. We've still got a ways to go, but i guess it'll be a little bit more on our turf at this point.

When i read Anne Lamot's Operating Instructions, I just thought that she was being dramatic. Apparently not...? But, i guess like anything challenging in life, it seems impossible until you vow to just do it. And then it's done. Like one of my friends said, At the end of the day, having more to do just means that more will get done. I am already known to many as an overachiever, so I suppose that this will be a whole new level of overachievement. It's like learning to ride a bike as you're racing down a steep hill. You just do it because it has to be done.

We get to take him home this Monday morning, June 30, which is 18 days before he was "supposed" to be born. We are under Ina May Gaskin's house arrest, and are not advised to take him anywhere, really, for awhile. It's thought of as a baby's 4th Trimester. However, we're going to break the rules just slightly in order for him to meet all his aunts and uncles at work, while he's simply having a wonderful baby shower.