Dazed | Spencer Reid FanFiction

Chapter 35: Coming Home

The hospital was a blur after her birth. The funniest part of all of it was all of our people were still in Halloween costumes, especially Spencer holding our daughter dressed as Charlie Brown for Halloween. I worked with the lactation consultant and we easily got Katie to latch, thankfully. They told me to have formula on hand just in case she needed extra nutrients or she suddenly quit taking breast milk and we needed to supplement her intake for whatever reason. They said it's better to have it on hand than to have to go out and buy it with a screaming baby.
Spencer was wonderful, I've slept more than he has I think since she was born. We spent one night in the hospital and I'd already been up walking around with my nurse. We went home the next afternoon, Morgan drove Spencer's car to the hospital to put one of the car seats in his car and he's going to drive us to our house. This team is so wonderful at taking care of each other. My hormones are up and down like crazy, but I haven't felt majorly depressed or anything like that. It's been more of an emotional wave. It took Spencer by surprise in the beginning at the hospital but we have kind of a pattern now where I can grab him in a specific kind of way and he knows just to hold me and comfort me.
I couldn't bear for my baby to sleep in another room than us while we slept, but I'm not putting her in the bed with us because that's how she could get smothered accidentally. We have a little bassinet beside our bed where we can easily look at her. I'd been waking up with a start pretty much every hour to make sure she's still breathing. Spencer noticed this mainly because I would wake him up as well, and he decided we would sleep in shifts until we could get this figured out. We also have another bassinet and her swing in the living room. She hasn't even seen her crib yet. We are only 3 days into her life outside of my body.
Spencer's facial hair is growing in and I'm still waddling with frozen padsicles and working on healing down there with my 12 stitches. We are in the same pajamas from the first night. I don't know how Spencer is surviving. My mom is on her way now, she wasn't able to get away from work as fast as she wanted but she is coming and staying for two weeks. Spencer and I can't wait to sleep. She's renting a car so she can get us groceries and stuff while she's here without stress. I offered to let her use my car, but Spencer and my mom were worried about her not being covered on the insurance. I was too tired to fight with them.
        I can't wait for my mom to come help us because I am totally overwhelmed right now. I'm overwhelmed with love for my baby, but I am also overwhelmed with the weight of the responsibility on our shoulders. I know people who aren't as smart or as capable as we are raise children every day, but I still feel like some kind of idiot every moment. I'm overwhelmed with my love for our baby. I've never loved anything this much. I thought I could relate with my love for Ryder, but my maternal love for my child is unfathomable. I think Spencer feels the same way.
        Currently I'm in her nursery in the glider, rocking her as I nurse her so she won't cry while Spencer is trying to catch up on some sleep. We are trying to do the eat wake sleep routine because my mom recommended it. So I'm trying to keep Katie awake while I feed her. I'm stopping every now and then to burp her or rub her back or something like that so that she stays awake while she's eating. Her entire time awake is only about 45-60 minutes of wake time between naps. That's what the books say, but it feels like she's always awake. After I've switched sides and feel I've burped her sufficiently, I change her diaper on the changing table and sit back down with her in the glider and rock her. She falls asleep easily, nuzzling her little face into my neck while I hold her tightly to me.
         It only takes a few minutes for her to settle and go to sleep. I continue rocking her for a few minutes anyway to make sure she isn't just barely asleep. After a bit, I slowly and gently walk over to her crib, setting her down in it lightly. We need to work on her getting acclimated to it so when she sleeps through the night she can sleep in here. Spencer and I talked about it, and Spencer did a lot of research, and we decided we are going to try to avoid co sleeping (sleeping in the same bed with our kids) as much as possible. Spencer says there isn't enough research supporting it with benefits from it for us to do it. There are more cons than pros in his eyes. He thinks it will be better for our babies to sleep on their own either in the crib or bassinet without starting the habit of co sleeping. I agree with him right now, but we will see in the future with our babies.
         He has been so hands on and I'm so grateful for his genius brain while we are raising a newborn. I think he's been asleep for a few hours at this point. He stayed up with the baby for 6 hours last night. He probably would've let me sleep longer, but he needed more of my breastmilk. What I had pumped had run out by that point. His eyes were so sad and apologetic. He felt horrible for waking me up. Katie had been screaming in her swing when I came out to feed her. It was a shrill cry that broke my mama heart in two for her. I picked her up out of the swing and walked over to the couch, sitting down and pulling out my boob so I could feed her. Spencer had sat down next to me but still gave us space. He had his arm propped up on the back of the couch and watched me with a tired but dreamy look in his eyes.
        I asked him quietly "what?" He gave me a small smile and said "you're so good at this." I laughed quietly and said "she's the one doing all the work of latching and eating." He smiled and nodded "thank you so much for going through all that you did so that we could have her. I love both of you so much. My girls." My eyes welled with tears as I smiled back at him. We were both so exhausted at this point we sat in silence for just a minute. I told him "thank you for helping me so much. You've been an amazing father already."
        He smiled and told me "I'm just so sorry I had to wake you up. You need to rest so you can heal properly." I gave him a reassuring smile as I said "I'd rather you wake me up to feed her than you subject your ears to her screaming and hungry cries until I wake up." He gave me a small smile and nods. I told him "over time we will build up my pumped supply a lot more. Don't be afraid to wake me up if you need me. For milk, for help, for an extra set of hands. I don't mind helping my husband take care of our daughter." He smiled and nodded "same here, baby."
         My moment of reminiscing is over when Katie stirs in her crib, but she easily goes back to sleep. I turn on the crib monitor and walk away to try to get the kitchen and living room a little more organized and clean for when my mom gets here. Her flight should've landed about 10 minutes ago so I anticipate she will be here within the hour. I go into the kitchen to work on cleaning bottles and the mess of our dishes in the sink. Spencer wouldn't want me to clean this right now, but I don't want to wake him up. He shouldn't have to do all the housework and his normal shifts with the baby right now.
        I try to move as quietly as possible and watch the baby monitor to try to ensure that I can still see her chest rising and falling as I do it all. The idea of SIDS scares me to death. Working on keeping the house somewhat organized is helping me feel in control some when I feel out of control now that I've lost a sense of control with my baby out of the safety of my body. I am a rollercoaster of emotions at all times, but mostly I am so happy to have a baby with the man I love. I finish up the kitchen and turn the tv on and leave it one volume notch away from mute as I turn on some rerun of a sitcom and turn my brain off for just a second.