Lauren - Day Two

All summer Lisa has babysit one of YaYa's classmates as a favor for the girl's mother. She's dropped off   right before her mom goes to work. All I had to do was wake up, unlock the door, and say hello by 6:45 a.m. 

I woke up at 7:15.

I ran downstairs dressed in bright florescent green shorts, an inside out and backwards shirt of Lisa's that I'd tossed on in my flight downstairs, with morning drool still drying in my beard.

What a sight.

They were waiting on the porch. Interesting thing. After knocking to no end they tried the backdoor, which I had stupidly left unlocked but chained. They poked their heads in the door and yelled my name. I didn't hear a word.

The only reason I'd woken up at all was to pee.

Anyway, within a few hours my mother-in-law came to collect all the girls for a trip to the zoo and Parker was farmed off on my Mom. After collecting a few items around the house at Lisa's request, I headed off to the hospital.

One of the first things I noticed was Lauren's name on the board. A nurse had written it, and it was the first time I'd seen it in script. I liked it a lot.

Suprisingly Lisa had been asking to go home since she woke up. The hospital staff was  fine with it provided we wait until Lauren was a full 24 hours old. I guess being forced to wake up and feed a sleeping baby every two hours, and being woken up every hour to have your blood pressure taken (despite having no history of high blood pressure, even while pregnant) was more trying than a household of kids.

So we hunkered down to wait out the 24 hours.

Honestly, it was a pretty boring day. Lauren slept through 90% of it, we had no visitors, and all we did was watch TV and read. The biggest thrill was when I dropped a $10 plate of cafeteria food and had a full out hissy in front of the nurse.

Eh, I shouldn't say that. Getting Lauren's hospital picture taken was pretty exciting too. I know some people balk at the overpriced pics but I've never considered NOT getting them. For the photo she wore the one and only outfit Lis had bought for her pre-birth (remember, we didn't know the gender in utero).

She looked beautiful.

 

About 5 or 6 the pediatrician finally arrived and cleared Lauren to go home, but warned us that she was slightly jaundiced and would need to be seen on Friday. We dressed her in the very same outfit her sisters had returned home in - YaYa and Lauren seemed to drown in it, whereas LuLu stretched it out - and got ready to roll.

With YaYa it took two luggage carts to move us to the recovery room; this time we barely filled one on the way out the door.

After a brief and pleasant drive we wound up at my Mom's to pick up Parker and introduce my Mom to Lauren.

Then we went and picked up our two oldest from my in-laws. It was the first time we filled the van as a family of six.

Within minutes we were home and notched another first; the first time we'd ever taken a new baby home to our very own home.

Funny thing about Lauren's homecoming: it didn't feel like we were introducing someone new. It felt like she belonged.

Because she does.

here's YaYa after removing Lauren's hospital bands