Bringing Him Home

Bringing him home felt quieter than I expected. At the hospital, there had always been someone around: nurses, monitors, instructions, and routines. But once we entered the house, it suddenly became just us and a newborn we barely knew yet. He was tiny. Everything around him felt fragile. And even though we had spent months preparing for a baby, nothing really prepares you for the moment you realise that the baby is now actually in your house, depending entirely on you.

Because we had been discharged quite late on 13 November, our kraamzorg nurse for the day, Diana, mostly focused on helping us get started. She checked Krishiv, taught Rishi how to wash and sterilise bottles using our microwave steam steriliser, showed us how to prepare formula properly, and taught us how to check a newborn’s temperature rectally. At the time, it all felt very instructional and calm. But later that night, we realised how quickly calm could disappear.

The First Night

While changing his diaper that evening, we checked his temperature ourselves and saw that it was hovering around 36°C, borderline low for a newborn. We panicked immediately. We called the emergency number from our midwife practice, and they advised us to remove his clothes and keep him skin-to-skin to help regulate his temperature. So that entire night, Rishi sat with Krishiv on his bare chest while we checked his temperature at almost every diaper change. I still remember the anxiety of watching the numbers and waiting for them not to go lower. Thankfully, after around 1 am, the temperature seemed stable.

The next morning, when our regular kraamzorg nurse, Bianca, arrived, we explained the whole story to her. She calmly checked his temperature herself and then gently pointed out what had actually happened — we had been too scared to insert the thermometer properly because he seemed so tiny and delicate. So the readings were likely incorrect. After that, even when we suspected his temperature felt low, we mostly relied on skin-to-skin contact instead of repeatedly measuring it. We were still too nervous to use the thermometer properly.

Realising How Much We Didn’t Know Yet

From the second day onwards, Bianca slowly became one of the most important people in those first weeks of our lives as parents. Every day she taught us something new, often things we did not even know we needed to know yet.

She gave us a complete list of baby essentials we still needed to buy and even told us exactly where to get them from so we would not feel overwhelmed trying to choose between endless options ourselves. That same day, Rishi went out and bought everything she had suggested: clothes, muslin cloths, towels, and tiny baby layers in the right sizes.

At the same time, feeding had already become its own challenge. We were trying to establish breastfeeding while also supplementing with formula because milk supply takes time to build properly in the beginning. I was also pumping after almost every feed to try to encourage supply. What surprised me most during those days was that breastfeeding felt harder than the delivery itself. I had an epidural during labour. But with breastfeeding, there was no equivalent pause button or pain relief. It was simply something I had to keep learning through.

Bianca helped me through almost every step of that beginning. She taught me different feeding positions, but most often encouraged the cross-cradle hold because Krishiv was still so small. Every day, she checked the latch, corrected small mistakes, and patiently helped reposition him again and again. Because feeding was becoming painful, she suggested silicone nipple shields to make things slightly easier. And later, once things improved a little, she gently encouraged me to start trying without them too. Looking back, she was there for almost every major step of my early breastfeeding journey.

Every Night Was Something New

One thing nobody really prepares you for is how different every night with a newborn can feel. On 15 November, Bianca taught Rishi different ways to burp a newborn after feeding. That same night, at around 10 pm, Krishiv suddenly started crying intensely and pulling his knees up toward his chest. We tried feeding him. Skin-to-skin. Holding him differently. Nothing worked.

So once again, we called the midwives for help. They explained that newborn babies often experience cramps and that these were typical signs of discomfort from trapped gas. They advised us to keep him upright and continue trying the burping methods we had learned earlier that same day.

And just like that, another night became its own small adventure. Those early days felt like that constantly. Every evening, we went to sleep not knowing what version of the night was waiting for us.

The Small Things That Became Big Memories

Some memories from those first days now feel strangely permanent, even though they seemed small at the time.

On 16 November, after his umbilical cord had fallen off the day before, Krishiv got his first bath. Bianca taught us how to prepare everything properly, how to hold him securely, and how to slowly lower him into the water without panicking ourselves.

On another day, she showed us a position where babies lie across your arm, almost like a lion sleeping on a tree branch, something newborns apparently find comforting. It quickly became one of our favourite ways to hold him.

On 17 November, he had his heel prick test and hearing test done. He failed the first hearing test, which meant another appointment had to be scheduled later. At the same time, the midwife also came by to check both my recovery and Krishiv’s health.

Bianca mentioned that she felt he looked slightly yellow, but at the time, the concern was dismissed as possibly being related to our skin tone. That conversation would matter more a day later.

The Yellow Jaundice Admission

On 18 November, we already had a scheduled appointment at Spaarne Gasthuis to recheck the heartbeat irregularity from before birth.

Before leaving, Bianca again mentioned that Krishiv still looked quite yellow to her and suggested that since we were already seeing the paediatrician, we should ask them to check that too. That morning, she also taught us how to properly strap him into the car seat for the first time.

At the hospital, the ECG showed that the heartbeat irregularity was no longer an issue. But Bianca had been right. By the time we returned home and finished lunch, we got a call saying his bilirubin levels were too high and that we needed to come back immediately.

At first, we thought it would simply be another check-up. Instead, we found out we were being admitted again. I stayed at the hospital with Krishiv while he lay under the blue phototherapy lights, tiny protective glasses covering his eyes. Every two hours, I would feed him, the nurses would change his diaper, and then he would go back under the lights again. Meanwhile, Rishi went home to collect clothes and instant food for us because suddenly we were back in hospital life again.

The strange thing about those first days was how quickly plans kept changing.

Our Anniversary

19 November was also our anniversary. Before the birth, I had imagined spending that day very differently. I genuinely thought the baby would arrive after our anniversary, not before it. So while sitting in the hospital the night before, we had quietly assumed we would spend our anniversary there too.

Thankfully, by the next morning, Krishiv’s bilirubin levels had started declining. They were still monitoring things carefully, but the improvement was enough for us to finally be discharged later that day. When we reached home, Bianca came by again in the evening to check on us.

Before leaving, we cut a small anniversary cake with her and ordered biryani from a restaurant I had originally planned for a completely different version of that day. Nothing about the anniversary looked the way I had imagined months earlier. But somehow, it still felt memorable in its own strange way.

By the End of It

By the final few days, Bianca had already extended her visits as much as she was allowed to. Even then, we still kept writing down questions for her every day, small things, practical things, things that suddenly felt extremely important when caring for a newborn.

On her last day, it almost felt like an informal test. We prepared everything ourselves while she watched, corrected small mistakes, and reassured us that we were doing fine. Before leaving, she also taught us how to properly take Krishiv out in the stroller. We went for a short five-minute walk around the neighbourhood, mostly just to get used to the feeling of stepping outside with him for the first time.

What helped emotionally was knowing that after Bianca left, we only had to manage three days completely on our own before my parents arrived from India. And somehow, after those days with Bianca, we felt just confident enough to believe we could manage those three days. Not because we suddenly knew everything. But because by then, we were a little less afraid than we had been at the beginning.

Closing Reflection

Those first ten days were not smooth, rested, or organised. Most of the time, we felt like we were reacting rather than knowing exactly what we were doing. But somewhere between temperature checks, feeding schedules, hospital visits, burping techniques, and short walks around the neighbourhood, life had quietly changed shape. And without fully noticing it, we had already begun learning how to be his parents.