4 Weeks Gone

Today is Milly’s 4 week birthday.  It is also the start of my final week of paternity leave.  By the time I go back to work next Monday, I will have actually had 5 weeks off, 3-and-a-half of which have been at home with our family unit complete.  At this point, I should comment on how well I have been supported by my manager, who made it clear that I could take all the time I needed and ensured that I, in no way, felt under any pressure to return to work sooner.  This allowed me to take 2 extra weeks while Elaine and Milly were in the hospital.  It was always my intention to take 3 weeks when Milly was born, I looked forward to being able to spend the time getting to know our daughter, and learn about how to take care of her.  However, this changed with Milly’s early arrival and her subsequent stay in the NICU.

When any close family member is in hospital, there is a natural stress that is born out of worry.  This was certainly the case when Elaine was admitted, and the feeling intensified when Milly arrived.  There is also a stress that comes from the practicalities of supporting someone during their stay in hospital.  Being torn between wanting to spend every available moment with them at the hospital, offering comfort and just generally trying to ease the mundanity of the situation, and taking care of the everyday things.  These include some of more selfish considerations (at least what I felt were selfish) like making sure I found time to eat and get plenty of sleep, not to mention the washing and ironing!!!  For Elaine and I, this stress lasted for 3 weeks, from Elaine going into hospital, to Milly coming home.  It is important to make clear that I’m not talking about this to tell everyone how hard it has been, on the contrary, I think that this experience made it easier for Elaine and I to cope when Milly eventually came home.  In comparison to the constant worry while Milly was in the NICU, the last 3 weeks at home have felt like a holiday.  We have still had to get used to everything that new parents contend with, feeding patterns, disrupted sleep, the variety of grunts and whimpers that are produced, maintaining a constant room temperature, but we have been able to take it all in our stride, because it genuinely feels easier.

Which brings me to my paternity leave.  Since bringing Milly home, we have been in complete control of Milly’s care, sounds like an obvious statement but it is something that we don’t take for granted.  Our days are filled with feeding Milly, changing her, washing her, and making sure she gets enough rest.  For the first few days, it was hard to see how we could get anything else done in the day, but it slowly started to fall into place and, not only did we begin to get to grips with our own chores, but we have been able to find time to relax and top up our own energy reserves.  This is why I am glad that I have been able to take such a big chunk of time off.  It has meant that Elaine and I have been able to figure out this stuff together, allowing Elaine the time to properly recover from the Cesarean, and us both to start to understand Milly’s needs, and how to meet them.  From this, we have both began to gain the confidence to look after Milly on our own, and be able to organise ourselves to ensure that doing so is as straight forward as possible.  I am in no doubt that had I taken paternity leave from the day Milly was born, we would not have this confidence, and I would have missed out on so much!

In these 3 weeks, I have been able to watch Milly develop and grow.  She has gone from a baby who would need some encouragement to wake for a feed, to one who now wakes us up to tell us to get her bottle ready.  She has also to began to have longer ‘awake’ periods where she is no longer satisfied with being put straight back down after a feed, especially when there are lights to be stared at or TV to be watched!!  We have also been able to discern a definite difference between the ‘feed me’ cry, and the ‘I want attention now’ grunt.  Though it is pretty great when this becomes more persistent when she sees us.  It has become pretty clear that Milly now recognises us, and feels safe with us.  I know that there is a natural bond between babies and their parents (recognising Mummy’s smell and Daddy’s voice from birth) but this has become intensified in the last week, and the way she looks at us suggests that there is a clear sense that she knows who we are.  To think that I might have missed all of this is a thought that saddens me, but one that tells me to make the most of my last week at home with my girls!!