Bringing Baby Home

Gabriel and I were both discharged home on Sunday, January 15th. The hospital's discharge time is 11:00am {like a hotel!} but I knew we wouldn't get out by then. Thankfully, they don't pressure you; we took our time which made it much less stressful. It was a busy enough day!

The lady who handles the birth certificates came to verify our information- and of course there was an error with Perry's SSN {a similar error was made on our taxes one year, delaying our refund!}. The newborn photographer that the hospital partners with stopped by to schedule our "appointment". We said 10:00am but of course Gabe was busy nursing then. When the photographer came back in 20 minutes, he was still nursing! I don't know if it was her attitude or my crazy hormones but it seemed like it was "now or never" so I broke his latch and stopped him... and he was not happy about that. Poor boy was hungry! While we would have been happy with any pictures of our precious 2-day old, I'm thankful we got a few "good" not screaming ones!

I don't remember a lot of the details about the rest of the afternoon, but most were probably insignificant. Perry packed up all of our stuff and loaded the car. I took my time showering, nursing, picking at my lunch, taking pictures and getting one last dose of pain meds!

Daddy getting Gabriel dressed! The newborn outfit we planned to use as his "going home" outfit ended up being shorts; we couldn't tell until we put it on him- oops! This was our back-up outfit (0-3 month size) paired with a knit hat that old ladies from a local retirement home donate to the hospital. So sweet.

Time to go! We were instructed to call the nurse when Gabriel was secured in his carrier. It was a little surprising that no one helped with that. A nurse came to escort us out the door. It was so cold and so windy that day- we worried about him going out in that weather!

Gabe hated the car seat at first. He screamed for what seemed like 10 minutes, but in reality, he was asleep by the time we got out of the parking lot, onto the main road and at the first stop light!! Perry was really stressed out {i.e. "terrified"} to be driving with such precious cargo on board. He wouldn't even take his hands off the wheel at red lights to pick up his drink from the center console! We made it home, safe and sound.

Mom & Dad Whitaker, who were taking care of our girls, decorated the house for our arrival home! A sign and balloons were on the porch with a big blue bow & "It's A Boy" banner on the front door, and another banner on the mantlepiece!

Once inside, we gave Gabriel a tour, saving his bedroom for last. Bringing our baby home and seeing our new family of 3 in our house was such a special moment. After a little while, though, we had the feeling of "what now?"!!

First diaper change (at home) and first time laying in his crib!

We read somewhere that it was important for the "pack leader" of the family to introduce a new member to dogs, so Perry held Gabriel in the doorway of the kitchen and let our girls see him & hear him from behind the gate going into the mud room. While we were still in the hospital, Mom & Dad Whitaker brought home a baby blanket for them to sniff, which Perry also did on our first day home. They seemed curious but also really uneasy for the first week or so. They really liked trying to eat sniffing a dirty diaper in a plastic bag! Eventually they warmed up got used to the baby noises. They didn't officially meet up close for ~a month I think- more on that later!