The helpless blog of a first time dad: Sophia’s homecoming pulled the rug from under us

A smiling Darryl (and Sophia) 20 minutes before all hell broke loose

WHEN I first lived on my own I was excessively house proud.

I remember having a good friend over to show him my new gaff and when I closed the door on him as he left my initial thought was “that’s the last time you’ll ever visit this house.”

His crime? He hadn’t put his mug of tea on the coaster provided but on the carpet by his armchair. And it had left a ring.

I had to learn to loosen up to live with someone and I know I’m going to have to do so a bit more once Sophia is old enough to throw food up the walls (my idea for her to eat all her meals in a hermetically sealed bubble until she’s old enough to redecorate herself having been vetoed by Hannah).

So I know things are going to break and walls might have to be painted over, but I wasn’t expecting to have to dispose of the heavy pile rug in our lounge 20 minutes after we brought Sophia home from the hospital – and it be due to the actions of my wife.

Having suffered enough blood loss during birth that someone actually came in with a mop to clean it up, Hannah had to stay in for four days while they kept an eye and pumped her with fluid. I’m sure they said this was to get her hobgoblin count back up, but I was very tired by this stage and not taking everything in.

I have to say, I did think this was the best place for Sophia for the first four days of her life as, having prepared ourselves as best we could for nine months, been to NCT classes and read The Pregnancy Bible, the first thing you realise as soon as the baby is born is that nothing can prepare you for being wholly responsible for a baby.

It’s a learning process from day one and if you can have some expert help just the pull of a cord away for the first four of those days then you should welcome it. (Even if my wife did get a little sick of seeing other women come on to the ward with their newborn babies and waltz back out again within 24 hours. I swear that one woman’s bum didn’t even touch her bed. She sauntered in – sauntered! – after giving birth, then kept walking around the bed with her baby in her arms, at some point I went to get a cup of tea, and when I came back Hannah said she’d been discharged. I’m guessing it wasn’t her first).

When we were finally allowed home we treated Sophia like we were transporting a genuine Faberge egg we’d found in the attic to have it valued.

We strapped up in her car seat about seven different ways until she looked “comfortable” (well, actually, she didn’t look any more comfortable on the seventh occasion as any of the previous six, so it would be more accurate to say we just gave up trying) and then I drove home like I was at the head of a funeral cortege, checking in my mirror every 5 seconds to make sure Sophia was OK (and for the four seconds I couldn’t keep an eye on her, she had Hannah beside her on the back seat anyway).

Never once going above 30mph would have been acceptable had I been driving through the High Street (or in mourning) but I was on a 50mph dual carriageway. You see a lot more danger in the world when you’ve got a baby and I couldn’t help thinking every other driver was “going mad” as they overtook me and felt like shouting “can’t you see I’ve got a `baby on board’ sticker.”

We somehow made it home in one piece, posed for a couple of photos at the door and went inside. Sophia started crying straight away so my wife said she’d give her a nappy change and feed her, which seems to be the answer to everything in the first few weeks of a baby’s life.

At this stage we were giving her expressed breast milk via a cup as Sophia was having trouble latching on, so I said I’d get the steriliser set up and fetch a clean nappy.

I returned to the lounge with the cup of milk and clean nappy to where my wife had Sophia ready on a changing mat on the sofa (before I get a missive from Health & Safety, my wife’s predicament meant she was unable to bend down to do it on the floor).

But I noticed she had come over quite pale and she asked me to take over Sophia for a moment as she felt quite queasy.

I wondered to myself if this was the first sword drawn in the two year-long battle to get out of changing her nappy but also worried that it might be travel sickness as I’d driven home too fast.

While I was cursing myself for my reckless driving, Hannah stood up and vomited all over our rug.

There’s obviously not much you can do when someone else is being sick, but remaining seated on the sofa didn’t seem like an option and in my rush to respond I knocked over the cup of expressed milk, which also went on the rug.

Hannah then shouted at me “don’t leave Sophia on the sofa” between wretches, so I laid her down –sans nappy – on the rug (a bit not contaminated with sick or milk) and then, after fetching a bowl for Hannah from the kitchen, I returned to attend to Sophia on the rug only to find she’d pooed all over it.

“Did I skim over the page in The Baby Bible about marking out your territory as soon as you’re home?” I thought to myself as I rolled up 6ft by 8ft of vomit, breast milk and poo (and quite possibly pee), slung it over my shoulder and headed straight for the nearest exit (the front door) to get the stench out of the house.

As I did so, our nosey neighbour from across the road, after seeing us come home from behind her net curtains and having probably given us 20 minutes “to get settled,” was making her way towards our house for a visit.

“Now’s not the best time,” I said with a degree of understatement.

I threw the heavy rug off of my shoulder and it unfurled in front of her, like I was some modern day Sir Walter Raleigh gallantly laying down some carpet so she didn’t have to walk on the wet path. Only one sullied with every bodily fluid you can think of.

“Everything all right, though?” she meddled.

“Yeah, fine.”

How’s that for loosening up?

No pain, no gain, but Sophia’s birth was no joke

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