Hosting Company Post Portum - The baby meet&greet / open house solution for your endless family and friend visit

It's enviable.  You get home from the hospital after delivering a newborn baby. Your a hormonal mess, your husbands exhausted, toddler is still adjusting to the fact that life no longer revolves just him and your house is a little better looking than a war zone.  Everything you read will tell you to "take your time". ....."Wait to have visitors" etc etc.  However the fact of the matter is that people are going to eventually wanna come visit you and your new addition.  You can only keep grandparents and immediate family away for so long, let alone your dear friends who wanna meet your bundle of joy too.  Truthfully it's kind of good for you (and baby too!) to have a little (good) company and get adjusted to life. Isolation is no good for any of you.


Once you've taken the time to adjust and feel a little "ready" to start taking some visits (for me it was the second week but I was anxious to get it out of the way ;), here are some tips that worked for me in managing

1. The open house / meet n greet concept

Pick 1 or 2 days (or afternoons).  Specific time slots that work for YOU (for us that was between 12-3 in the afternoon when my toddler was occupied by nap or after 8pm when he was asleep. Invite you family and friends that your ready to see to pick an "hour" that works for them to come for a "little visit" or "coffee".  Your gracious email tone and choice of words will give them the hint that your looking forward to seeing them but that an hour is probably all you can manage at the moment :)


What to serve?  Should you serve anything?   The choice is totally up to you.  No pressure. Have a look at what I did in 5 mins with a nursing baby in my arms and a toddler occupied by Toopey and Binoo for a sec :)


- SMALL mugs for coffee/tea (disposables would be even easier!)
- drinking glasses
- water
- my tea assortment chest (hot water in my kettle ready to go)
- a small tray of cookies
- napkins


All of this set out in the kitchen on the counter (hot drinks away from the baby) and for guests to HELP THEMSELVES.  I told them too :)


The guests can catch up on all their questions / how labour went and have their snack while you nurse/feed baby and then they have a turn to hold baby (if you are ok with that of course!) when you are done and baby is content.   Don't be afraid to tidy up from snack if you like or get something done/enjoy your hands while they are free as your guests are goggling over your new bundle of joy :).  They don't mind. :)

Some other tips:

- put a baby sleeping sign on your front door permanently.  Cover your door bell even. This will automatically lower people's voices and prevent unwanted door knocking.  


- Turn your phones down to low or off and don't feel bad to only check voicemails and return your calls when you can.   Once a day! while you nurse on speaker phone was a great time for me.  Don't feel like you need to run to every call.  Most people calling are really just wanting to leave you a congrats message anyhow :)


- send out mass email updates/Facebook status updates/thank you's (if you are into that :).   If you keep people informed with how your doing it keeps tons of people from contacting you and you having to respond to so many calls/emails/inquiries on the same deal

- don't be afraid to ask for help while you got them!    When people asked what I needed for baby #2, I didn't hesitate to change things up and request ready made/freezer meals in lieu of another stuffed animal to collect dust :) (see my blog post on "what a new mom really wants"

Other handy tips:

Worried about others holding your baby / germs / smokers?   Have a receiving or other late blanket ready to go.  Place that in everyone's arms before placing baby into that blanket and then into their arms :).   Also keep a bottle of hand sanitizer at your door with a cute little note "your germs are too big for my newborn immune system. Please use me ;)"

2 days.  10 visits.  Happy and informed family and friends.  Happy mom :).  Do what's best for your family and what YOU are comfortable with mom.    To me, "getting the visits over with" for lack of better phrasing was better than dreading how to manage for months on end.  

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Counting Our Blessings Instead of Fingers & Toes

It was a scary sight as a new mother.  I remember lying in the hospital bed after having just delivered our second son, Marco.  As the doctors are dealing with my afterbirth I look over to my husband on the other side of the room with my nurse who's dealing with the regular baby work.   

Joe looks over at me as he sees me observing what's going on.  He has a new dad look of Joy on his face and says, "babe he's beautiful...he has 10 fingers and toes".   Then I see him turn back to the nurse and baby and have a quite different look in his face.  One of more worry.  I hear him ask "is that normal?"  I'm getting a little nervous myself now as I can feel his internal struggle of trying to keep it together whilst also wondering how he's going to "break the news" to me. I ask if everything is ok and his response. "95%".   What does that mean?

Our son Marco was born with a hand Deformity known as Syndactyly.  We will know better after some appointments and x-ray tests we have coming up. Basically he has a pinky finger, but the other fingers are fused together to form what looks like one.  At the moment we don't know what could have caused this other than just the sheer miracle of life process and all the cell generation that happens as a part of it....somewhere along that process his fingers just never separated perhaps.....

Looking back .... all those ultrasounds....and we never noticed.  Nor did anyone point it out. (I had several ultrasounds and we even did a 3D one!).  And all the times we as expecting parents say "he has all his fingers and toes....I'm happy" or "as long as he has all his fingers and toes".  I can't help myself but relook at this and now and say "so what?"   So what if we had known or now that we know.  Does it change anything?   Absolutely not!  "So what" if he only has visually 7 fingers?   Does it make him less loved?    Absolutely not!

I want to share the email I sent out to our family and friends when we shared the news about Marcos arrival and what we call "his special hand".  I've had an overwhelming positive response  to it. Perhaps cause I wrote it in 5 minutes strait from my heart as fresh new mom of 2, hormonal, tired and bitterly honest. 

Perhaps this will shed some light on our love for our child who turned out to not have all his fingers and toes.  Perhaps you'll think again about using this phase when referring to a newborn or expecting baby :)

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Marco DAY 3 UPDATE and Info re: His SPECIAL HAND :)

Hello Family and Friends!

First of all we wanted to say a really REALLY big THANK YOU for everyone's love and support and encouragement throughout the entire pregnancy, the labour and what turned out to be a very FAST delivery.  We wanted everyone to know that Marco, Mommy, Daddy and Jonathan are all doing really REALLY well and we are enjoying day 3 now that we are home from the hospital as a family of 4.  Marco is truly an angel and really just such a good baby.  He's beautiful, happy and healthy...Latching really well.... popping like crazy and gives really awesome cuddles :)    What more could we pray for?

With that said, there is something that we wanted to share with you all.  We did have a little "surprise" and I suppose you can say it's going to be a little "challenge" that we will have to deal with.  It looks like Marco was born with a Hand Deformity possibly known as Syndactyly.  We will know better after some appointments and x-ray tests we have coming up. Basically he has a pinky finger, but the other fingers are fused together to form what looks like one.  At the moment we don't know what could have caused this other than just the sheer miracle of life process and all the cell generation that happens as a part of it....somewhere along that process his fingers just never separated perhaps......

Undoubtedly we will have a little journey ahead of us in terms of getting more information on it, probably speaking to a multitude of different specialists etc.; however we wanted everyone to know that Marco is a completely (...and for lack of a better word....) "normal" baby.  We love him to death.  He is in no way in pain.  He has full functionality of his hand and the "two fingers" that he was blessed to be given.  The hardest part at the moment for all of us is just going to be getting over the "esthetics" of the hand itself and possibly different functionality.  Rest assured, we are being told that this is actually quite common and that there are a ton a options for us to explore on this.  Knowing our family, we will be ALL OVER the research and options :)  And we've been so blessed with so many great family and friends that we are sure you will all be there to love and support us through it too.

We trust that you will keep Marco and us in your prayers.  We are so excited for you all to meet him.  Please PLEASE PLEASE do not worry about US or HIM.  We are all TOTALLY fine over here.  We really appreciate your love and support through this.  We weren't sure the best way to handle sharing this information; however after much thought we figured it would be best to just put the information out there so that everyone can ask any questions they might have (...and possibly share any information, contacts, resources you have found too!).   Please feel free to ask us anything, touch him, hold him, love him, hold his hand...explore.....  He's a BEAUTIFUL baby boy (he looks exactly like his big brother Jonathan ;)

Looking forward to seeing you all with our new bundle of joy!

xoxox  The Berenguers

Marco Joseph Berenguer
Weighing 7lbs, 8onz
Born April 12, 2013 at 6:42am

For this child we have prayed and the LORD has granted the desires of our heart. 1 Samuel 1:27

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