BA's Corner: Hospital Nursery Story

Here's a funny story from the night Leah was born.  We've been telling it to friends and family ever since.  So we figured we should immortalize it by putting it on the blog. 

After Leah was born and we moved to the recovery room, I got to tag along with the nurses to watch Leah get her first bath in the nursery. This was my first time in a hospital nursery. While it wasn't like TV or the movies, it was still pretty cool.

One of the things we liked about this hospital was that the baby stayed with the parents during the entire visit. As new parents, we didn't want to think about leaving our new baby in the nursery, and of course we were afraid of a baby mix-up! So we thought this was a good approach. But when I walked into the nursery, there were babies lined up along all sides of the hallways. I couldn't believe it. I asked myself, "Where did all of these babies come from?" There were babies of every size, shape, and color. I thought, "Wow, all of these parents have the option to keep their babies in their room, so why are they all here? Bad parents, I suppose.

On the second full day, we were talking with the nurses and trying to figure out how we could best take advantage of some of the advice they'd all given us, as well as the full battery of hospital resources, before we were on our own for good. We had a revelation...if we sent Leah to the nursery for the night, we could get some sleep, and they'd just bring her to us when she was hungry. Pretty sweet deal. Every few hours, they'd knock on the door, roll Leah in, and tell us how she was doing. After she ate, they rolled her right back to the nursery and we tried to get some more sleep.

So now we understood. All those babies in the nursery during our first night....those were 2nd night babies (or just second babies)! Not bad parents...smart parents.