Suddenly A Dad

A lot's happened in the last few days, but I guess that's the way it is with new babies. On Tuesday morning, the hospital told us that he was doing so well that they wanted to release him soon. Before that, they wanted us to spend about 48 hours in a private room in the hospital with him. This way we could take care of him, but have the nurses nearby in case we had questions. This was just as well since we were starting to have doubts about going back to the Ronald McDonald House with him.

On Monday night, we were at the hospital late with Aiden and when we got back, we practically had to step over a man who was passed out on the lawn. This sort of confirmed our initial impression of the neighborhood. While the people at the Ronald McDonald House were perfectly nice and the place was clean, we just wanted a little bit more comfort when we brought Aiden home. So we left the hospital Tuesday afternoon to get all of our things and checked out.

However, as I was loading the car I noticed that there were ants swarming all over the back of the passenger seat. In fact, they were swarming out of the passenger seat. Of course, that wouldn't do for transporting our son, so I helped Stephanie get set up in our room and called Avis. The guy on the phone was very pleasant and apologetic and told me to take the car back right away. It was none too soon as the ants started biting my back as I was driving to the rental location.

Unfortunately, the folks at the actual rental place were not nearly as accommodating. They didn't even apologize. Then they gave me a smaller car, even after I explained we were here to adopt, and then watched as I lugged all of our belongings across the parking lot to the new car. I'm good at packing so I got everything to fit, but I was sweaty and more than a little ticked off by the time I was done. I think it was the indifference more than anything that will make me think twice before renting with Avis again.

So, after wasting an hour and a half, I was back with my family and we settled in for our stay at the hospital. Then I discovered that my workout clothes (which I had hung up to dry in the shower, had been thrown away by the lady who set up our room. Given that I was only allowed 1 suitcase on the flight here, I had limited space for gym clothes so this loss wasn't particularly convenient. But Aiden has a way of calming me down when I hold him, so I was soon over it. I probably need new gym clothes anyway.

Staying in the hospital was kind of nice. We had our privacy and could bring food up when we wanted. Best of all, we got to spend as much time with Aiden as we wanted. One food place we particularly came to like was the Taco Garage. It was just across the street from the hospital and had great food and fast service. One of the waitresses took a liking to us and would let us make any changes we wanted to anything on the menu when we ordered.

While in the hospital, we got to meet with all kinds of specialists who taught us how to care for Aiden, how to do CPR on an infant, and even helped us install our car seat correctly. We were both really impressed. The nurses and specialists seemed to take a genuine interest in Aiden, and one of them even knitted him an afghan.

So yesterday when it was time to bring Aiden home (home to the hotel), we had a lot of people who wanted to say goodbye. It was nice to see how well they cared for him and exciting to finally have him all to ourselves. We spent last night and today getting used to life as parents and it suits us well. Maybe it's the excitement, but we haven't found the late night feedings too exhausting so far.

Today we took Aiden on his first outing, going to the adoption agency to see the folks there and then to Babies R Us for some more necessities. He loves his car seat and falls asleep as soon as we put him in it, so we think he'll be a good traveler. Today he also got his first bath with us and seemed to enjoy that too. In short, things couldn't be better. We're looking forward to a little family vacation here in San Antonio before heading back to the east coast.