I've never felt so out of my depth before in my life coming home with Baby Pham in tow. There's so much support and scrutiny when you're pregnant, and while you're delivering the baby and then... you're on your own, kid. Except you're no longer the kid and you have a tiny fragile newborn kid that you have to somehow keep alive and thriving for the rest of your life.

I spent two nights in the hospital after giving birth because I needed to prove I could pee on my own the next day, and Baby Pham had to pass 24 hours of blood glucose tests because I had gestational diabetes.

The first night in hospital Baby Pham was sleepy from his exhausting journey to the outside world. The second night was torture for me with Baby's cluster feeding - I could not put him down or he'd start screaming. I'd been told about cluster feeding but I didn't understand it'd be a 5-7 day marathon I'd have to run immediately after giving birth. They don't specify that no sleep will be had with a newborn that's trying to bring in breast milk.

It was surreal coming home with a newborn that a couple of nights ago was in my belly. As Boyfriend Pham and I left the hospital we pushed Baby to the ward entrance in his trolley as per hospital rules for moving around with babies - carrying Baby in arms while walking about was a no-no. The nurse took the trolley and told us, "You're discharged. You make up the rules now." And so we walked out of the hospital with me carrying Baby Pham and Boyfriend Pham carrying our luggage. He drove us home while I sat in the back next to our teeny, tiny newborn in his gigantic-seeming car seat. We arrived home, took Baby inside and looked at each other. "Now what?"

'What' was and has been determined by Baby Pham ever since.

At first, he was hungry and wanted to feed constantly to bring in my breastmilk. The first night at home, I sat up all night with bub on the couch trying to let Boyfriend sleep but he could hear Baby wailing all night. The second night at home I sat with bub in the nursing chair and when Boyfriend checked in on us at 3:30am, I was sobbing and feeling like I was failing our baby because my milk wasn't coming in. We decided to give him formula that I'd bought as a 'just-in-case' from Day 5 onwards. And so, the nurse's parting words came true, we began to make up our own rules as parents to our newborn Baby Pham.