Now I liked my sleep. I would stay up long into the early hours of the morning at the weekends and go to bed and have a long, uninterrupted sleep until the early afternoon. Emma and I had lazy Sundays where we would sit in front of the TV all day with the only worry of what we would be having for tea.
Cut to the morning after our first night of two in the special care baby unit. It was about 8am on a Saturday, I had just had a night of about 3 hours sleep. We had been up every two and a half to three hour feeding Amy and Lilly and when they were settled we would lie there listening to every breath and jiffle they were making. If they weren’t jiffling around I wondered why and sit up in the bed to make sure they were okay. It was this night that they had finally got the crying thing down as well because for the 4 weeks that we had been there, we hadn’t heard them cry that much but now we had it, in stereo.
My mind and my body had no idea what had happened the night before. It felt like an invisible force had sucked half of my energy from me like some sort of night creature but it wasn’t invisible, they were laying not three feet away from me in the form of two sweet, innocent little babies. This was the start of fatherhood for me and motherhood for Emma and what we had been imagining it would be like was now a reality. My sleeping habits would have to change that’s for sure.
The second night was much like the first but I couldn’t think about it that much, I had to get home and get things ready for the home coming of Amy and Lilly. While Emma stayed at the hospital I took my car home ready for Emma’s mum and dad to pick me up so that Emma and I could drive home together. When I got around the corner of my house I saw that the in laws had been busy.
I just had enough time to have a bowl of breakfast and make sure the house was ready for the arrival before I was picked up.
Back at the hospital we were all ready to go. We wrapped the girls up warm for their first view of outside. We put them in the car seats and strapped them into the car. We said our goodbyes and set off home. This was it; this was what we had been waiting for, for the last 4 weeks. I drove home as if I had a cargo of very loose eggs in the back of the car. Finally we were home and ready to start our new life as a family. I think it was feeding time!
Amy
I just want to say that I wouldn’t have brought Amy and Lilly home that day if it wasn’t for the constant care and love the nurses at the special care baby unit gave day and night. They work sometimes under great strain, looking after very sick babies and being very caring towards the parents. For that I am truly grateful.
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