I listened to parts of Michelle Obama’s speech on Monday night. She told the story of the birth of their first child in 1998 (same year and location (Chicago) we adopted our first son at the tender age of 4 days). She told of how they drove home from the hospital with Michelle in the back and Barack driving ever so slowly in order to make sure not to disturb their new daughter.
I did the same thing. We picked up Sam in Oak Park, IL and drove him back to Wheaton (about a 30 minute drive). Kim sat in the back of our 2 door Honda Civic Hatchback and held his head so it wouldn’t flop and I drove trying to avoid every bump in the road. It didn’t stop there. I then didn’t sleep the next two nights as I stayed with him making sure he was alright. A little crazy but as a first time parent, he seemed so fragile to me.
Anybody else out there willing to admit their anxieties over their firstborn?
Musings on Faith and Psychology 
After losing our first baby, I was even more sensitive to how precious this baby was and to the pain I would endure if anything happened to her. I think I totally would have been in the back seat with my baby daughter had my mother-in-law not insisted on taking that spot… and also insisting that I attend the mother-daughter banquet at church two days later (she was not only my mother-in-law but the senior pastor’s wife at the church where my husband was the youth pastor). I’d had a c-section, was exhausted, and she was passing around my daughter to all 200 in attendance. She set her in her carseat on top of a table. I was in total panic all night. I wanted to take her home and never leave the house again!
Oh, wow, karenestelle, I can feel my own “anxiety meter” needle hitting top end just following your story…what a stressful situation in which to show grace and respect, at least it certainly would be for me! Shari and I brought our David home from the hospital in Fall 1994 after some difficulties and complications that made the birth rather tense for a first time out. We got home, and for the first few moments just stood together in the living room in silence, stunned to realize that they actually LET us take him home all by ourselves…no supervision, no “owner’s manual”, no nuthin’! That’s when the first sense of “he’s ours!” finally set in.