source: parenting.com

"Want me to take him to the nursery so you can get some sleep?"

I glance from the postpartum nurse to the still-unreal bundle in my arms. Henry. My son. There's a nursery here? I'd chosen this hospital partly for its policy of having newborns "room in" with their mothers. Rooming-in was one of those items on the get-ready-for-baby checklists I'd lived by that sounded as critical as it was amorphous and alien. It had something to do with bonding.

Back when I was researching state-of-the-art birthing centers, though, I hadn't counted on spending 39 straight hours awake -- a day at work, an evening rabidly cleaning out the linen closet, then a long night and a morning in labor, followed by a packed day, counting amazing little fingers and toes, a lesson in getting a baby to latch on to a breast twice the circumference of his tiny head (mine, speaking of amazing), and making giddy phone calls. Adrenaline had powered me through that last part. Then it abruptly left the building an hour ago, along with my exhausted husband.


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source: parenting.com