Home

This is it. The moment you’ve been waiting for, working toward, dreaming of has arrived … you’re carrying your baby across the threshold into your home.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Yes, celebrations are certainly in order, and as soon as you get the baby settled in its precious little bed, positioned perfectly for hours of absolute adoration, a few minutes doing the happy dance may be just what you need to work off some of the anxiety that might have been sneaking up you.

It’s a baby! Yippee!

It’s a baby! Ack!

Don’t panic

Do not panic.

People have been caring for babies as long as there have been people. Since we all start out as babies, we come equipped with what it takes to do the job. If you have eyes and ears and hands and arms and a voice, you’re set … and you don’t even really need all of those.

Sure, newborns are scary little creatures not one bit shy about letting the world know they’re not quite as happy at the moment as they could be, but thanks to the fact that most of them won’t have any teeth for a few months, they usually don’t bite. Handle with care, for sure, but handle, and handle a lot.

There are zillions of books on baby care, and if I know anything about adopted parents I know that one or ten have already made it to your bookshelf after being read cover-to-cover and plastered with sticky notes for future reference, so I won’t go into that here.

I will say with confidence, however, that you’ll do fine. Give yourself a chance to get the hang of caring for a tiny human and in no time at all you’ll be bathing and diapering and burping like a pro!

If you need a quick reference, pop over to Adoption.com’s Baby Care Guide for some tips and hints, and see “Bringing Your Baby Home” about making the trip from hospital to home.

The new you

For families bringing home their first child

In some cultures, the arrival of a baby is understood to be so momentous an alteration in the lives of family members that everyone gets a whole new name. If the baby is dubbed, say, Bruce, the woman formerly known as Jane is now officially called, Mom-of-Bruce, and the man formerly knows as Prince is now, Dad-of-Bruce. Even grandparents get new handles, as Mom-of-Prince becomes Grandma-of-Bruce … and so on. (Of course all this sounds much better in the language of the Dyak tribal people of Borneo and such, who, by the way, rarely name their kids Bruce.)

In our society, our names don’t change, but our identities sure do. Within an instant we morph from radiologist’s-assistant-with-an-orange-belt-in -Tai-Kwon-Do-who-loves-to-ski-with-my-husband-and-do-macrame-in -my-spare-time into MOTHER, while federal-postal-inspector-diehard -Cowboys-fan-luge-team-captain-model-railroad-enthusiast becomes FATHER.

When we arrived home with our son, Sam, my husband summed up the immediate difference in our situation perfectly.

“For years, we’ve been a happy couple,” he said. “But from now on, we’re a happy family.”

Credits: Sandra Hanks Benoiton