The First Act...

So, there we were, my firstborn beautiful, baby girl and I spending our first night at home...

alone...

no nurse to relieve me...

or doctor to encourage me...

no one to support me! 

There's only hubby, blissfully sawing wood in the next room (how did he sleep so peacefully?) while I stared down at this fussy, crying creature in my arms. I didn't want to wake hubby. I didn't want to admit I couldn't handle it, not our first night home!  I was so anxious...I was so tired...I felt like a horrid mother...already!

I'd bathed her, fed her, burped her, changed her and...

NONE OF IT WORKED!!

My sweet, baby girl was not happy and I just didn't know what more I could do to make her happy.  She was stuck with a failure for a mother.  And... where were all those well-wishers who had been in my living room earlier that evening?  The ones who had held and passed my baby girl around like she was some party favour; while fawning and drooling coochy, coochy coo kisses all over her?  Where were they at that midnight hour?  All tucked soundly in their warm beds, not knowing or caring that we were near fit to be tied!

Out of desperation, lack of  a better idea and overwhelming fatigue, I collapsed  into the old fashioned rocking chair that my mom had given me.  There was a slight creak in the wood every time we rocked forward.  Swish, creak, swish, creak, swish, creak...  It was steady, consistent and genuinely...

soothing. 

I could feel myself beginning to relax (despite sweet, baby girl's wails) and my shallow, anxious breathing slowed, slowed...then...miraculously baby girl's cries began to subside.  Her little fists unclenched and I truly felt she was looking up at me in that moment of steady, rhythmic motion and well...thanking me.

Yes indeedy!

I could feel her little body relax, her shakes calm down.  Her little eyes grew heavier, heavier... Oh, bless God and my wonderful mother for the gift of that rocking chair!  Suddenly I knew that we were going to make it through our first night together and in my heart I knew...

if sweet, baby girl and I could do that then we could and would make it through the rest of her life.

I smiled down at my beloved daughter, wiped her tears away (then wiped my tears away!) and rocked, creak, rocked, creak...until we both fell into blissful, blissful sleep.