We're Home!

Hurray!

We came home on Sunday evening and great was the rejoicing. It is good that we have hospitals (and such good ones), and they have come so far in the last 100 years. But it is hard to be in hospital for any length of time. There is a bewildering sense of vulnerability and unfamiliarity which colours every hour.

Thank you to everyone who prayed for us. God has been immensely kind to us and we are grateful for the way he has preserved Jonathan from his conception through to now, his 12th day in the world. It has been a great encouragement to us that so many people have cared about us and Jonathan and prayed for us all. Thank you.

And it is good to be home. We have spent the last 24 hours settling in and trying to find the bones of routine which might work for us. Jonathan is a lot more settled than some babies I have known, and certainly very settled for a child who shares our DNA. He has put on quite a lot of weight in the last week (thankfully) and we are slowly working out his feeding. I am, I must say, heartily sick of theories of breastfeeding. They all seem different and at least partly contradictory, and those who hold them do so with some degree of fanaticism which is tiring, to say the least. However, we muddle on and will eventually get things sorted I am sure.

The other great thing about being home is being able to sleep more. We are currently sleep deprived, obviously, but in the way we'd expected: we've both been students and know what losing sleep feels like. And it feels so much better than subsisting on 2 hours/day in 20 minutes blocks! It's also good to have another person around to decipher Jonathan's more incomprehensible moments. Having a new baby is really an exercise in interpreting loud mime.

One of the curious things people keep saying to me is "Enjoy your baby" or something similar. I do find this odd as Jonathan is one of the great things about the last 12 days. It would be hard not to 'enjoy' him. He is a tremendously brave, charming little baby, even when he is unsettled. In fact his reaction to the world - a place where he gets hungry and feels pain and so forth - has reinforced the sense that this world is really a hard place to be in many ways. Throwing your head back and wailing fits with the kinds of suffering (minor and otherwise) that we endure here. To introduce a little person to this, and to comfort him and tell him about a God who loves him even in a world like this, as he gets used to this difficult, puzzling world is one of the most useful things I've ever done.

As for Jonathan's eyelashes, well yes. But then his Dad has really gorgeous eyelashes so it isn't too surprising! When I have time to recharge the camera (which is very high up on my to-do list), and export the photos I will do so and all the world will behold these eyelashes, and other general cuteness. In the meantime, you'll just have to take my word for it that Jonathan is really rather adorable! I couldn't possibly be biased or anything... JMB