What now?

So, the first few days having Emme at home was certainly interesting. But, I will say this, it wasn’t as chaotic as I thought it would be. I had pictured getting her home and then just freaking out wondering what do I do now? It’s true what they say, that you will just know what to do. We just instantly seemed to fall into a change diaper, eat, sleep pattern. Even though I was exhausted from having to feed Emme every 2-3 hours around the clock (and sometimes feeding her took an hour), all I wanted to do was pet her and look at her.



Before Emme arrived, we had worked really hard on getting the nursery just so. It had to be perfect for our perfect little angel. I had decided long ago that I wanted the nursery to have a frog theme. When we found out we were having a girl, I decided to add Dragonflies to the theme and decided against pink. I wanted to keep the nursery as “gender neutral” as possible, since having another child wouldn’t be entirely out of the question. So, we painted the walls lime green, put up a cute little frog border, and coordinated in aqua blue and brown. It turns out, after all that time planning and decorating, once Emme came home the only thing the nursery was used for was changing diapers and storing all the baby gear and clothes that we were given. Emme wound up sleeping in a bassinette at foot of our bed every night for the first four months of her life. Once we made the decision to let her sleep in her crib in the nursery, the first couple of nights, I was up every few hours checking on her. Despite having the baby monitor on in our room, it wasn’t the same as having her in the room with us. Of course, every time I went in her room, she was still breathing and peacefully asleep. I was just being paranoid, as I’m sure all new mothers are, RIGHT? Emme LOVES sleeping in her crib, and why wouldn’t she? After all, she has the coolest room in the house!




I was only allowed 6 weeks of “short term disability” to enjoy mommy-hood with Emme before I had to return back to work. Eric was able to stay home with us for the first 10 days. We enjoyed the family bonding time together. Emme sure did sleep a lot. I mean, A LOT!!! Good thing though, that meant mommy could sleep too! The days came and went easily. We played dress-up and changed her clothes two and three times a day. From what we were told, she’d probably only be able to wear most of her newborn clothes just once before she’d grow out of them. We must have taken 1000 pictures during those first few weeks. Unfortunately, that must have been the fastest 6 weeks in history. My return to work date was just days away before I knew it. Luckily, we had interviewed several daycare facilities and had made a decision on one before Emme was born, but I was not without tremendous anxiety about having “a stranger” spend more time with my baby than I could. On her first day at daycare, it was all I could do to watch Eric pull out of the garage that Monday morning. I must have sat on the floor of the garage for at least 15 minutes just sobbing. What made it worse was that I wasn’t even going back to work until Wednesday. What was I going to do with the next two days without having Emme to play with, take naps with, take pictures of and e-mail them to Eric while he was at work? Surely, not housework!



Emme and I both adjusted to our new schedules quickly, but not for long. After returning back to work for only 6 weeks, I was fired. I KNOW! Why would anyone fire me? I am the model employee! I honestly believe that my employer didn’t expect me to return from maternity leave and had promised my position to the niece of one of my bosses. Well, that, and they didn’t like me pumping at work, despite making up the time by working late. Anyway you want to look at it, my services were no longer wanted. I had not even been gone from the premises an hour when they offered the niece my job. I was pretty ticked off, but like everything, I tried to find the good in it. The job was WAY too stressful working for a couple of crazy perfectionists, plus, I could now spend more time at home with Emme. We pulled her out of daycare until I could find another job, which, fortunately, only took 3 months. Trust me, 3 months was long enough, but “in this economy” I actually expected it to take a lot longer. I started back to work, just before Christmas. Looks like the vacation is over!