Your first baby is a memorable, albeit whirlwind experience. I went into labor on my own at home, my water broke while eating dinner yet I was in denial about what was going on. At the insistence of a friend, I went into the hospital and even once they checked me and put me in a labor room, I still didn’t believe what was happening.

Maybe that’s why my body also wouldn’t give in and let this tiny human enter the world. I was in labor for more than twelve hours with little results and so early in the morning they took me for a cesarean section.

By the time I got back to my room from recovery and got to really squeeze and hold that little baby, I was exhausted. As was Daniel. He did drift off to sleep here and there throughout the night in a chair in my room but we were both played out.

I’m not sure what other spouses do when their wife or partner has their baby but I know what mine did. He made sure we were somewhat settled and by eleven am he went home to supposedly sleep and would come back later, in a few hours I’m thinking.

All throughout the day I’m learning to breastfeed, the nurses are getting me up out of bed to walk, which is apparently important, post c-section. I’m in pain, I have a foley catheter draining my urine (a first for me, it’s yucky), and also an IV still running and connected to a cumbersome pole. It’s not that fun. The nurses want me breastfeeding every two hours and I’m trying on each side for thirty minutes so that leaves a whole hour between feedings and it’s not going that well.

Breastfeeding did feel natural to me, as soon as I was sutured up in the operating room, I asked for my baby because I felt an urge to feed her. But at the same time, it felt a bit awkward and it didn’t go as smoothly as I hoped it would. It didn’t help that one of the nursery nurses was a breastfeeding nazi. And where was my man? It was four o’clock in the afternoon and I hadn’t heard from or seen him since morning.

By evening I was in tears, probably fueled by hormones alone but also I was feeling sad and alone. Tired and frustrated. I was already so in love with this baby but the person I was supposed to be sharing the experience was nowhere to be found. I kept thinking what on earth could possibly be more important in his life than being with me and our newborn baby.

Late that evening, between ten and eleven pm , he showed up. Oh yeah, he’d gotten a bit of sleep, right as soon as he left his buddy’s place where they had tied into some celebratory alcoholic beverages and drank themselves into oblivion no doubt.

I was sad and somewhat heartbroken that instead of spending most of the day with us, me and our newborn baby, he’d instead chosen to get drunk and sleep the day away. But besides getting angry at him for a second, what else could I do?

Maybe right from my baby’s first day on earth, how it was just her and I against the world, maybe that started to set the tone for what was to come…