Sleep, oh sleep, where art thou? My wife and I's first child, Christian David Taylor, was born last week on Tuesday January 5th. I've been told by the sum total of everyone I've ever met that having children is going to drastically change my life. To demonstrate the truthfulness of that statement, I'd like to tell you about the day my wife and I were released from the hospital and had to drive the three- hour drive from Albuquerque to Farmington.
First stop: Walgreens. Because my wife had a C-section, she needed to continue her pain medication...or else. Unfortunately, when the hospital called in the prescription they didn't tell them that we were coming right away. They also got the prescription wrong, so I ended up having to wait an hour, and still had to go to another Walgreens to complete the order. None of this would have been so bad had we not been so sleep deprived and had we been released from the hospital earlier. But by this time we're pushing late afternoon and we still had to go to my brother in law's house to load up the car (No, I didn't make my wife help me load the car. I'm not that clueless!)
Next stop: My brother in law's house. Neither my brother in law nor his wife were home. It had been hours since little Christian was fed, so my wife asked me to go inside and put their three dogs outside so that she could come in and breastfeed. As soon as I opened the patio door to release the dogs, the alarm goes off! Since I didn't know the code, I frantically tried, unsuccessfully, to contact my brother-in- law's cell phone. I stood outside for about five minutes with zero options on the table. Just as I was imagining the cops coming to take me away in handcuffs, my brother in law arrives. Close call!
After loading up the car we set off for Farmington. Thankfully, the journey was pretty uneventful, except for the three dust storms that we drove through. We arrived home at about 10:15 p.m. I struggled, and struggled, and struggled to get the car seat off the base...as my wife stood in the door crying. I've been told that there's a learning curve to parenting. I'm glad my curve has never been measured geometrically. That would be embarrassing. In case you're wondering, we got the car seat figured out now.
I've been wondering how many moments of spiritual enlightenment I'll have now that I'm officially a parent. Will I understand the Father heart of God better? Will I learn the value of patience and selflessness? Will the Bible come alive to me now that I can relate to all of the fathers in the stories? Right now I'm too tired to think of anything profound. Suffice it to say that after the sleepless nights, the poopy diapers, the pee in the face and--list your parental frustration here--I can honestly say that Christian David Taylor is worth every moment of it. I think that's how our Heavenly Father thinks about His children too.
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3 comments:
Oh, Aaron. I remember bringing Hannah home...the total, unspoken panic of "oh, Lord, what do we do? We had all of these nurses, and they made it look so easy! I've barely learned to give her a bath! (I never did get the chance to nail that down properly!)" Never in my life have I been happier, then when I looked over at that beautiful little girl asleep on my chest...never have I felt more complete as a person, wife, woman, or mother....like it was what I was always meant to do. The sleepless nights, the praying, the diapers, the craziness--it was worth every last bit of it. I can't honestly wait to do it again. Welcome to parenthood, to both of you...it is the sweetest, greatest, most honorable of professions.
Congratulations Aaron! I look forward to hearing more about your brand new beautiful little one.
I can remember when our first child was born, neither my husband nor I had ever been around a newborn. We were still in the hospital and she needed her diaper changed. We were changing it and the baby started crying, which to us, sounded like the loudest most death curdling sound we'd ever heard. We FREAKED out and started buzzing the nurse, thought we did something wrong.
No, she was just cold.
It's not as terrifying nor are you as inept as you occasionally will think you are.
Many blessings to your family!
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