27/04/2022
“My first night at home with my newborn 🤯
This photo was taken exactly a year ago today in the very early hours. Ziggy was 11 days old and we were spending our first night at home together outside of the NICU. Both in nappies, both crying for no reason - ha!
I remember feeling so unbelievably grateful to have my baby home but also…totally petrified. We slept with the light on as I couldn’t bear to open my eyes and not be able to see him immediately.
I checked he was breathing all the time, which was pretty easy because he woke every 20-45 minutes anyway. I was so tired I was hallucinating.
I slept on a towel because the post-partum sweats were CRAZY (why did nobody tell me about those?!) and I had a severe case of mastitis brewing. I stuck silver cups and breast pads to my b***s with medical tape because I couldn’t wear a bra and I had a raging oversupply from exclusively pumping. I wore my ‘mum nappy’ for at least another week, still bleeding, still a bit incontinent and forever trying to keep stitches clean and dry.
It was a LOT. I was seeing other people ready to go out and about with their new baby, having made it through the first fortnight together. We were just getting started, just learning how to be parents away from the hospital. I think of that night as our night 1, even though it wasn’t.
Thankfully I was utterly besotted with my newborn so those gooey hormones saw me through. But my gosh, bringing a new baby home is HARD.
If you’re there right now, I see you, it WILL get easier."
Photo & words by
