All Poo and no sleep makes dad a dull boy.
As I said in my first installment Twin Dad - part 1 - "There is something else in there.", You're never ready for parenthood.
"Nothing can prepare you for what you'll give up, the new challenges that you'll face and the sleep deprivation that you'll experience."
Lowf1ux
The first few days of parenthood were a whirlwind. We were lucky enough to think ahead to make sure we had private health insurance that covered maternity. Here in Australia the government will cover you for having your child in a public hospital. But if you want a private room or a choice in obstetrician then you're out of luck. There are pros and cons for both Public vs Private health care. Obviously the big one with public is that there isn't a cost over and above your taxes, and generally the hospitals are fitted out with better equipment. The downside to public, no choice in doctor, obstetrician, paediatrician. Having a private room to share what is a significantly special moment in your life with just your partner, and not 6 other new families was a huge decider for us. And finally the stories we'd heard about people being pushed out the door after a day, some even the same afternoon.
So we paid our monthly premiums for private health insurance. Which entitled us to a private room, I was able to stay over night with my wife and our new born twin boys. We only told a handful of people the day before we had a planned cesarean operation which our obstetrician advised the safest way to deliver Monochorionic Diamniotic twins.
Say what now?
Monochorionic Diamniotic twins
That means our twins had a separate sack each but shared one placenta. Its one of the more common types of twins, but still carries its risks. From the first scan my wife had to go once per fortnight for an ultrasound to check up on the boys and make sure one wasn't getting more of the placenta than the other. Shes the professional with years of experience, We went with her recommendation.
The first few days were chaos, like i said we only told a few people in advance. So we had family in our room within the first hour and extended family visiting on the first day. That was fine... The first night went as expected really, waking up a lot, heaps of coffee, no rest and the little sleep I got was on a shitty foldout mattress.
The next day was a friday, our friends started to pour in to visit, we were spoilt by those around us with presents and endless offers of support. We had so many people doubling up and some staying for hours, yes... HOURS. One group of visitors came just as we were going into the nursery area. The nursery time was so my wife could concentrate on learning how to breastfeed twins. I stayed back with the family whilst we waited. That took about an hour, then my wife came back expecting them to be gone. But no they were still there, and stayed for ages afterwards! The lesson learned was as the phone calls were coming in, and people promising to visit. I had to start a booking sheet, 20 minute intervals, giving us 10 minutes break in between and accounting for the odd person staying longer than expected.
Source
The booking sheet worked well on the most part and when we visit our friends now in hospital we make sure we don't stay long.
After 5 days in the hospital and the visitors subsided we got to take our newborns home! We were blessed that my brother and sister-in-law form interstate had already arranged a visit. They're two pretty relaxed people and were able to help us out a bit.
Once they'd left we were on our own, no one told us about the sleep deprivation and how bad it would get. My wife wasn't able to solely breastfeed so we had to top up with bottles. I think usually the midnight feeds could be shared whilst the husband is off from work and mum usually does the night feeds when he's back at work. Some massive assumptions there I know, but I'm going with the majority of situations there. Twins were different, I got up for every feed, every poop, ever scream, What mum did, I did. It was seriously exhausting,
There were points that i would get woken up out of my precious sleep, panicked because i couldn't find the baby that i was bottle feeding on the bed.
I was dreaming, or should i say having a nightmare. I was that exhausted i thought i had fallen asleep while feeding and lost my new baby. No body warned us about the poo, the nappies that we would have to change. A newborn baby uses about 8 nappies a day. That's 16 nappies a day for the first few months...its a lot, but lets just do some sums..
16 nappies a day (for both twins), lets say, conservatively that it takes 7 minutes to change both twins nappies. That's almost 120 minutes, 2 hours a day spent changing nappies.
)I was lucky enough to have 7 weeks off paid through my work, then i went back to working as a Sales Team leader. I was working 2pm until midnight most nights. I was looked after through work, and I've repaid them with loyalty. The first few months took their toll on our relationship and me personally. Something needed to give, and that ended up being work.
In my next post i'll talk you through how the expectation of having to provide for the family added further pressure and what happened.
Until then, XAG.
You can catch up on Twin Dad - Part 1 here.