the rest of our hospital stay (and how Juniper came home without a name).

I had Juniper at 12:40 p.m., and they let me rest in the delivery room for a couple of hours before moving me to a recovery room.  (This is the first hospital I've delivered in that doesn't allow you to triage, labor, deliver and recover all in one room.  My two cents: it's dumb to move laboring and recovering women if it's possible to just let them hunker down in one spot.  People With Any Say in the Matter should listen to me on this.)

All bundled up for our trek to an entirely different floor for recovery.

We spent the afternoon trying to rest after our nearly-sleepless night.  I also spent the day eating.  After a long pregnancy of not really doing much of anything, labor was really taxing, and recovery started off pretty rough.  Luckily for me, there were exactly two things on the hospital menu that didn't look absolutely disgusting, so I ate nearly my weight in salmon BLT's and omelets.  Out of Styrofoam boxes, because our hospital was really going for a "spa" vibe.

I've wondered why they offer those clear plastic bassinets to set your baby in when clearly you'll just want to hold them all the time.  But it's because the hospital knows you're the kind of mother who would spill ranch dressing on your baby if given the chance, so they provide a holding capsule for meal times.  The more you know.

The night went well - I had made it very clear to anyone who would listen to me that I didn't want people checking on us overnight.  It's weirdly difficult to keep staff from coming into your room at ungodly hours, turning on all the lights, talking in loud voices, and generally acting the way no decent human should at 3:00 a.m.  But throughout our stay, the nurses and staff were really respectful of our request for privacy.  Which was good, because even without their overnight visits, we were pretty tired.

I ate some more.  The kids visited.  I gave Juniper a bath.

We wrestled with name options.  All through our stay, we kept referring to Juniper as "The New Baby."  We had a short list of names we liked, but we were having a hard time deciding on one, and even then, we weren't sure what middle name to choose.

Newborns always have the most dazed, silly, adorable burp-time faces.

Inception.

We wanted to go home as soon as we could, so I told the nurses we'd like to stay until mid-afternoon on Tuesday so we could squeeze in one last nap before heading home.  But the nap came and went, and we still didn't have a name.  We had done all of our discharge requirements, we had packed everything up, and we still couldn't leave because we hadn't filled out the social security paperwork.  The nurse kept coming in and asking if we were ready to go, and we had to keep telling her no.  Eventually, she came in to tell us that she obtained special permission from the Records Lady for us to go home without a name chosen, and the hospital would call us the next day for the official word.

"WHYYYY HAVEN'T YOU PICKED A NAME FOR ME YET?!"

One last jaundice check before our departure.

Sleeping through burp-time, but sure dressed sassy.

So finally, at 6:15, we loaded up The New Baby and headed home, sans name.

Even though she was a major chunk by newborn standards, there isn't a newborn in the entire world who doesn't look like a verifiable pipsqueak the first time they're loaded into an infant carrier.  I'm going to start calling her The Big Tiny.

It was so very strange to walk in the door and tell the kids she still didn't have a name!  So The New Baby she was for the next few hours, until we finally pulled the trigger on Juniper Elise.  Whew.  Rough process.

In my next post (tomorrow??) I'll tell you how we decided on her name, and what it means!