Gametes In Love

In many ways I feel like Thursday was an eternity ago. I’ve lost track of days and dates. Hours are now meaningless because they track only how long it’s been between a feeding or a diaper change. I think in the first 24 hours S and I each had less than 4 hours of sleep.

We’re trying to get acclimated to how it all works. For example, I never knew that a spit up spell could send me into hysterical crying, but it did. This morning, while S was on the phone with his mom, G started spitting up. You would think “Baby spit-up, what’s the big deal? They do it all the time!” This is true, but when your child is having volumes of yellowish-white goo coming out of his mouth AND nose you freak out. I jumped out of bed, ran to his bassinet, and flipped him on his side so he can drain out. S frantically hangs up with his mom and picks him up. G is now crying as I’m pulling out drawers looking for his bulb syringe. I drained everything as best I could which did the trick for him to quiet down. I put him in my lap and we collapsed in the rocking chair while he dozed back to sleep. And then I started crying. What if we were back home when this happened? What if neither of us was in the room with him? What if he choked? It may have been hormones, it may have been “new parent” anxiety, but whatever IT was, IT was a scary feeling.

At the end, when both G and I were properly soothed I just looked up at S and said, “Do you realize I’m crying over spilled milk?”

I know I’ll look back on this story in many years and laugh at myself for how ridiculous I was, but for now, we’ll chalk this up as scary parenting episode #1.