Mazal tov on your new baby! As you lie in bed, dreamily examining her tiny features, you feel so grateful for this moment. You have been planning for the birth of your baby for at least nine months, maybe years – maybe your whole life! You took prenatal vitamins, got ultrasounds, took a prenatal yoga class, and listened to your OB provider’s advice on how to stay healthy and ensure the best outcome for your pregnancy and baby. You took childbirth classes and infant care classes and nursing classes. You researched your provider. You hired a doula. You have a whole shopping list of a stroller, car seat, bassinet, swaddlers, and more, all waiting in your online shopping cart.

And now it’s over. Your baby is here. What’s next?

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Chazal say that childbirth is one of three keys that Hashem retains and does not give control of to an intermediary. Childbirth is an amazing, primal process over which we have little control. Science still doesn’t completely understand many of the hormonal mechanisms of labor. The fact that a woman gets pregnant, carries her baby to full term, gives birth safely to a healthy baby, and experiences an uncomplicated postpartum period can only be considered a miracle.