The thought of bringing Kiley home from the hospital was a bit daunting. For us new parents, there was safety in knowing that nurses were just down the hall, a push-button call way for help if something happened in the night. There was also a nursery that we could let Kiley “visit and enjoy for a while” during the night while we slept an hour or three. The Riverside nurses were so great and knowledgeable that whenever we had a question, they had just the right thing to say. At home, there would be no safety net, no answers, no nursery, and no free diapers, for sure.

Part of me really wanted to get home so I could stop sleeping on a couch next to Laura and enjoy my own bed, but part of me knew that once they walked us out the front door of the hospital, that was it. We would be on our own from that point on — she would be ours, and ours alone. People have been taking care of newborns for thousands of years, and for the most part, it seems to be working just fine. It’s not like she is a human genome sequence formula or an Apollo 13 reentry maneuver, she’s a baby and that should be simple enough.
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We got a really fun picture frame from our friend Kristy that came in the mail today. It’s really cute with Kiley’s picture in it, and it will help daddy remember the vital numbers some time into the future! A big thank you to Kristy!

Our little blessing arrived 24 minutes after midnight, on June 6th, 2012. At first, we could only see a little hair on the crown of a little head, but a few pushes and contractions later, she came right out in Dr. Ronda Gaiser’s skilled hands. Less than a second later, we heard the crying from the first healthy breath of fresh air that meant her lungs were okay. Dr. Gaiser showed her to me so that I could tell Laura that she was a girl, for we had kept that fact a secret, even unto ourselves, so that we could be surprised the day she was born. I took a long, hard look, not wanting to mess this up and to make the right call. I looked into my beautiful wife’s eyes and said, “It’s a girl!”
Continue reading Kiley Addison Cline →