Chapter 16 - THE FIRST NIGHT WITHOUT HELP
Noah cried from 12:40 until 2:05 a.m.
Not continuously.
Enough.
He fed.
Burped.
Spit up on my shirt.
Cried again.
Claire looked exhausted.
I said:
"I’ll take him."
She handed him over.
Not because a schedule said.
Because she wanted to.
I walked circles around the living room.
At 1:31, I texted our pediatric nurse line:
Is this amount of crying normal?
The nurse replied with questions.
Temperature?
Feeding?
Wet diapers?
Breathing?
All normal.
Likely newborn fussiness.
Call if concerning symptoms.
I walked another thirty minutes.
Noah slept.
I placed him in the bassinet.
Claire whispered:
"You did it."
"I’m gifted."
He woke eleven seconds later.
Claire laughed into her pillow.
It was the first good sound inside our house since the nursery incident.
No matriarch.
No nurse.
May you like
No ledger.
Just two exhausted parents discovering that independence is often less elegant than control.
