You Can't Take it Back

I recently had a conversation with a soon to be new grandma.  She was a little concerned that ,while her daughter was eagerly awaiting the birth of her child, she was a little too laid back about the upcoming event.  To encouragements to take part in a few of the many preparation for childbirth classes she responded that the nurses would know all about it and would tell her what to do.  Grandma-to-be was a little worried.  I assured her that nature was a good teacher and she would soon pick up the needed skills. 

After all, my son survived.

I don't think there were ever two parents any less prepared to bring home a baby than we were.  Excited, delighted, and tickled pink, but not too prepared.  I had grown up the middle of a family that didn't provide any babies to practice on.  I worked in my dad's store instead of baby-sitting like most of my friends, and had never been exposed to babies other than briefly when they were held safely by their mothers.  The presentation of my wrinkled, squirming little bundle of job filled me with terror!  I had no idea how to deal with this demanding and loud little person.  I literally asked the nurse (a friend from our neighborhood) to dress him before we left the hospital.

We arrived home to the carefully prepared nursery, lovingly painted and decorated, and stocked with 6 sleepers, 3 receiving blankets, 6 t-shirts, and one package of  the newly developed pampers. (no old cloth diapers for us!)  The baby promptly welcomed us home by producing a large bowel movement that reduced his lovely "going home" outfit to green mush.  Fortunately, (for him) our neighbor from across the street had arrived to welcome us home and proceeded to show us how to change a diaper. 

By six o'clock our sweet bundle of joy had been crying for what seemed like hours and hours.  Thanks to our inefficiency and the defects in the design of the early pampers (no elastic at the legs!) everything that went into the diaper wound up all down the legs of the little sleepers. Hubby and I were reduced to walking wounded trying to figure out how to soothe our newborn and what to do next.  We had used all his outfits and were taking turns walking the baby, who was now dressed in his last t-shirt, one of the few remaining diapers and a small afghan (the receiving blankets were history, too.  No one told us what aim little boys had when changing them.)  We were burping on an old t-shirt of Hubby's (we never thought about a few cloth diapers for burpers), and looking pretty pitiful when the back door opened and a friend (with 3 children of her own) walked in with a casserole for supper.  She took one look at us and demanded, "Give me that baby!!" 

With relief we turned him over to more capable hands.  In just minutes the screaming baby gave a few hiccups and thankfully shuddered to silence.  I looked up from my seat at the kitchen table, dazed with exhaustion and terror, and mumbled, "It's just like buying something one sale!  YOU CAN'T TAKE IT BACK!!" 

With sympathy and a lurking giggle, the neighbor took over and in a short while had organized the neighborhood to our rescue.  Soon friends were arriving with left-over baby clothes (one even taking them off her daughter's dolls where they had been recycled into doll clothes.), blankets, and diapers.  Best of all they brought advice and comfort to the distraught parents.  In a short time we had clean clothes in the dryer, dinner on the table and the baby down for a nap.

Our son did survive our ineptness.  We did learn how to be parents.  Probably no class is as effective as the reality of dealing with an infant.

Our son, contrary to the belief that nursing babies never have colic, cried for 6 months. 

It probably was sheer terror at being at the mercy of parents whom he felt were likely to kill him in their ignorance!