Gifts

Shortly after the cord id cut, your doctor will apply a special substance called triple dye or some other antiseptic agent to it. This may make the cord appear blue. The clamp that is left on at birth is removed on about the second day. For one to three weeks afterwards, your baby will have a black dry stump of cord where the bellybutton will be. The stump will gradually dry up and fall off, In the meantime you will probably be taught how to keep the cord clean, the best way to do that is to take a cotton swab, dip it in rubbing alcohol, and gently wipe it around the base each day.

Other Considerations

Other matters become very important in the first few days after birth. During the time when you and your baby can be acquainted with and accustomed to each other, you have many choices. For example, it is for you to decide how much time you want to spend with your baby. Studies have shown that being together from birth seem to improve the parent-infant relationship. “Bonding” [a strong attachment between parent and child] is enhanced by more contact. The only reason your time together might have to be limited is illness in either mother or baby. Hospital routines should not keep you apart. You also will decide how your going to feed your baby-breast or bottle.

Anthony was flying home from a business trip when, just to prove the seventies were not dead, the woman next to him asked, “What’s your sign?”

He told her. He told her mine as well.

She shook her head at the hopelessness of it all “A water sign and an earth sign? She’s emotional, you’re logical you’ll never understand each other.”

When he told me the story, we laughed. To think that anyone would predict the future of our new marriage knowing nothing about us but our birthdays! He squinted at me, I bit my lip.

“We balance each other,” I said.

“Right,” he said, bobbing his head too hard.

Sometimes Anthony and I remind me of a couple I once saw on “The Newlywed Game.”

“How far did you go before you were married?” Bob Eubanks asked.

“Third base,” the wife answered promptly. Her husband said, “San Diego.”

Anthony says I don’t listen, get too emotional, jump to conclusions. I say he wouldn’t waste so much time making decisions if he’d trust his intuition.

He says we’ll never work out our differences if I don’t explain my positions more rationally. I say we’ll never get anywhere if he doesn’t learn to take emotions-changeable, immeasurable, illogical, and very real-into account.

We are both equally convinced we are right. Perhaps we have something in common, after all.