Last Friday, the NICU at the Saddleback Memorial hospital left a message on my wife’s cell phone that our daughter, Zefie, was ready to be discharged. The revelation was a bit surprising considering that she was only being bottle-fed for six out of eight meals to conserve energy since the NICU did not feel she was ready to advance to being bottle-fed for every meal. Since I was at work, I pushed the QA (Quality Assurance) department to sign-off on the latest build of an internal bug-tracking tool I develop. Once I obtained approval close to noon, the binaries were compiled along with the database schema and Stored Procedure update script, wrote an e-mail to a companion department to deploy the build, and then headed out for the remainder of the day and following week to continue paternity leave.

My wife and I arrived at the NICU early in the afternoon to sign the discharge papers and finally bring our daughter home for the first time. We spent a solid few hours at the NICU where we watched a child safety seat video, demonstrated CPR on a baby dummy to the nursing staff, and practiced parenting duties such as changing diapers and bottle-feeding. At around five o’ clock, my wife and daughter were escorted to the car in a wheelchair, thus ending our ordeal of driving to the hospital up to a few times a day for an hour or two at a time to visit our daughter.

The first night was definitely an exhausting and stressful experience as we repeatedly checked on the baby every ten to fifteen minutes wondering if the baby was still breathing since she was quiet – a bit too quiet. Nearly a week later and I miss sleep already as our daughter frequently awakes throughout the night for diaper changes, feedings, and comfort out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, I am on paternity leave this week to assist my wife with taking care of our daughter. After the first dozen awakenings throughout the night, baby care becomes second nature as one becomes accustomed to waking up in semi-daze performing parental duties and falling back asleep with little recollection.

Childbirth and caring for a baby is not the euphoric experience some potential mothers might envision. However, there is much joy and satisfaction to watching your own child reach each developmental milestone. Despite the sleepless nights where the baby may desire – no, demand – hours of attention at ungodly hours, it brings a smile to one’s face when you watch your baby entertained by your own goofy behavior such as holding her in the air and flying her around the house making airplane noises with your mouth; or the indescribable emotion of when your baby snuggles against your chest and falls asleep.

While being a first time parent is not a cakewalk by any stretch of the imagination, it is one I would not trade anything in the world for.