by Tara Shafer posted in Parenting

When I came home from the hospital following the birth of my first child, I was overwhelmed with love and gratitude for the life I had (somehow, it seemed) been given cosmic permission to inhabit.
I was also terrified at the idea that people seemed to assume that I knew what I was doing. The stakes when you are so invested in new life seem impossibly high. I remember the very first time my son was placed in my arms following his birth and I thought, ?oh this is love.?
And while the love was pure, so too was the fear. These two primal emotions set out to dual with one another.
It seemed downright bizarre to me that I was allowed to leave the hospital with a newborn. The wave of panic I experienced when we had to buckle him into a car seat seems funny to me now. But I can assure you that it did not seem funny to me then ? not in the least. I felt really exposed in the car on the wide open and pothole-dinged road home.
When my husband settled us in the bedroom and made sounds like he was leaving to do some errands, I remember standing there frozen at the shock that he seemed to be suggesting that I was going to take care of the baby. Alone.
My husband left me staring at the organic co-sleeper containing our swaddled baby boy. I watched our baby breathe and was sort of afraid to move or to do much more than that. Because what if he woke up" What then"
I had cared for children before, sure, but never newborns.
And I had never lov...