Welcome Daughter

2AM on Wednesday morning my wife woke me up with the sentence I've been anxiously awaiting: "I think it's time to go to the hospital". By 3AM we were at reception for the maternity ward (despite the best efforts of never ending university construction). At 4:26AM I saw my daughter's face for the first time.

We got to our postpartum room around 7AM. While my wife got settled, I grabbed a cup of coffee to fight off the lack of sleep. Surveying our new temporary home, I noted it was possibly the same or 1 room over from where my son first spent the night with us. Unfortunately in the years since, they had managed to further downgrade the bed for the support person (my back is still sore), but the hospital food had definitely at least improved!

We spent around 36 hours in the hospital before being discharged. Unlike my son, my daughter is a great sleeper. She falls asleep quickly and stays asleep for quite awhile. It's been a huge relief for my wife and I, as our son is quite a ball of energy.

At 14 hours old, my daughter and son met. He was jumping up and down, unable to contain his excitement to meet his baby sister! He had a lot of questions, and wanted to stare and touch her as much as possible. She just slept. Eventually his focus shifted to a bag of chips and a cookie he found.

Now it's Friday night, we're going into our second evening at home as a family. I managed to get the Christmas decorations up before the birth, so the home has a cozy vibe as fall transitions into winter outside.

I'm very thankful that our family is 1 bigger going into Thanksgiving this year. I'm also incredibly thankful to be spending time away from work (although only 5 weeks, America really sucks sometimes). My son was ecstatic when I told him daddy won't be working for awhile, and instead playing with him everyday (we've decided it's best for me to be on son duty and my wife + mother-in-law on daughter duty).

All in all, I'm tired, but so very happy. Welcome to the world daughter and welcome to our loving family.

I intentionally kept details vague, no names and definitely no photos of my kids on the internet.