How I Overcame Helplessness

Journey of a New Dad: Part 2

After leaving the hospital, reality really clicked into place.

We spent two days recuperating after our extended labor experience (read JND: Prologue for more details), totaling five full days in the hospital. We watched all the necessary informational and cautionary videos the hospital required before being discharged, had spent the past 9+ months learning and preparing, and had all the gear at home set up. We felt ready and knowledgeable.

Then they pushed the wheelchair holding my wife and daughter out the hospital doors and back into the wilderness.

Wait, They Let Us Just Leave?

I pulled the car around to the entrance while my wife and daughter waited with the nurse who had assisted us outside. Once I arrived and the nurse double checked that my wife could stand, she congratulated us one more time and took the chair back inside.

And there we were. Outside. Just the three of us.

We had this tiny person and it was truly up to us to keep her alive, let alone all the higher-level concerns that come with raising a child! We fumbled with getting the carseat to work properly as a line of cars stacked up behind us. We relocated out of the front…