Our first night went very, very well.  Beforehand I hadn’t really thought about what the first night together would be like.  There were a few comments made telling us to enjoy our night together, but in all the brouhaha I didn’t stop to give it a second thought.  And I’m glad – the realization of how special the night was was almost as amazing as the evening itself.  I’ll do my best to elaborate. 

(I realize this is nothing new to those who’ve gone through all of this, but what the heck, I’ll continue anyway.  It’ll be fun to read in 20 years, right?)

Once everyone had said their goodbyes for the day and the three of us were left in the room, the adrenaline of the day really started to wear off.  Things finally started to slow down. We could take it all in; 3 months of anxiety were finally washed away in the knowledge that everything was working out great. 

Speaking for myself (although after watching Ana, I think this rings true for her as well), any nervousness about us being on our own for the first time, to figure even the most basic stuff out, was quickly dispelled when I picked up a crying David and started talking to him.  It was the neatest thing (and one of the many that I’ll remember forever) – he stopped crying, opened his eyes a bit and just looked at me as I talked to him.  The sound was familiar and soothing; and it was my voice. 

The rest of the time was spent holding and gazing at him in wonder, but without any of the typical working-world time pressures.  It didn’t matter one bit that it was 3:15am – we’ve got nowhere to be but here in the morning.  No job to rush to, no deadlines.  Nope, it was 3:15am and I wanted to sit by the window with my new son.  So I did, and it was awesome.

I know that’s an extremely unique situation that quickly vanishes once reality resumes, but that’s precisely the point – for that first night, and these coming few days and nights, we have the ability to effectively pause reality for a while and just sit back and enjoy this thing.

Steph, thanks for your innocent looking comment to make me realize this.  Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have given last night much thought and not really paid attention to the cool stuff coming in the next few days.

 And on that note, I don’t really know what time it is but I’m going to go sit with David for a while.

In addition to the video camera I took into the operating room for the delivery, I placed a voice recorder in my pocket and recorded the whole thing.  While the audio isn’t great because it was beneath a layer of scrubs and something I’ll just refer to as a cape, it did get some good stuff.

For your listening pleasure, here are two small clips.

David’s first cry

Surgeon’s funny statement about David