My First Ever Post: 5 Highs and 5 Lows of my Fatherhood Journey So Far

So, my first ever blog post at World’s Gone Dad. Unlike some of the original dad blogs out there, I didn’t have the presence of mind to start writing about my experiences as a father straight away. 

Mia – precocious, proud and princess-obsessed – has just turned four. Jude – reserved yet relentless, always on the go – has just hit two. 

Quite a lot has happened since the summer of 2017, when one of my tenacious little tadpoles managed to find its way into Amy’s egg and sow the seed of life. The first small step on my wild and unfathomable journey of fatherhood. 

So my posts won’t always appear in chronological order. Sometimes, a post will contain my fatherly reflections on some episode of the last few years. Of course, there’ll be plenty of real-time updates too.

With so much to talk about, I thought I’d start off with a quick roundup of some of the highs and lows since my world went ‘dad’ four years ago. 

Lows? Whaddya mean lows? Well, being a father ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. There have been some bloody tough times in these few short years. And I certainly won’t shy away from the rough edges. It’s important to have those honest conversations innit. 

Thankfully, though, about 87% of fatherhood is absolutely awesome. Here are some of my highlights so far. 

Highs

1. Taking Mia home

A bit obvious of course, but how can you not start with the birth of your firstborn? No feeling compares to the wave of love and emotion that rushes through you when the midwife holds up your squalling little sprog. Taking her back home was especially wonderful as we’d spent a week in hospital following Mia’s birth (more on that later). 

Beautiful late-spring sunshine heralded Mia’s arrival. I spent most of my remaining paternity leave with Amy in our little garden, with Mia on a blanket in the shade of the trees. A few precious days of paradise. 

If you’re a father-to-be, make the most of those first few days, when there’s nothing in the world to worry about except your partner and new child (or children, if the missus gave birth to two or more). That kind of blissful isolation never comes around again.

2. Mia and her cousins

Our 3 nieces on Amy’s side are delightful girls. They were aged between 6 and 10 (I think) at the time Mia was born. Of course, they were completely smitten with her, and Mia developed such a strong bond with them in those first couple of years. 

Whenever they came round to ours, Mia would dance around and let out these squeals of excited babbling that had us all in hysterics. 

We’re lucky that she’ll always have them to look up to and spend time with, and if she turns out like them then she’ll do alright. 

3. Birth of Jude

We were a bit nervous about Jude’s birth, given the difficulties of Mia’s arrival. He went ten days overdue, so we were quite angsty by the time Amy went into hospital. However, he popped out without any bother. All his bits and pieces in working order, and we were home within a few hours. Huge sigh of relief. 

It was straight to the in-laws’ house, where Mia was staying, to introduce him to his big sis and grandparents. Of course, having a very demanding two-year-old Mia around meant Jude didn’t get our pure, undivided attention as she did.

We didn’t find out the gender of either of our kids, and I was proper chuffed that Jude turned out to be a boy. I always imagined having one of each, so I had a real sense of fulfilment. 

4. Their love of books

Our Mia’s got a very active mind, thanks in no small part to all the time Amy’s spent interacting, communicating and playing with her (I was often swamped with teacher work). And being a bit of a bookworm myself, I was very glad to see her getting so into books. 

Anything from those little ‘first words’ books and classics like Spot the Dog and Hungry Caterpillar, to the superb poetic tales of Julia Donaldson. God help us if we try and leave her room without reading her a bedtime story. Most of the time, it’s a pleasure, but we do have some very short books for those occasions when we’ve had a killer of a day and simply can’t be arsed.

Jude is also showing bookish tendencies. Such as hauling every brightly coloured book off the kids’ shelf, racing through them then scattering them across the room. And waving a book in your face and shouting “Read it!” repeatedly when you’re trying to do work.

Hopefully, they’ll maintain some sort of joy in reading. My time as a teacher showed me very clearly how important reading is for kids to do well in education. 

5. Jude and Mia’s bond

Jude’s arrival was a complicated time for Mia. Within moments of setting eyes on him, I sensed some internal conflict within her. There was joy, undoubtedly. But there was also some confusion and certainly some “who’s this little shit, stealing my thunder?” sort of thing. 

We had a few issues around attention, taking things off of him and such. But soon enough she warmed to him. And as he’s gotten more independent and active, their relationship has blossomed. 

Sure, they have their fallouts. Sometimes Mia tries to trick Jude into giving her things she wants, or getting him into trouble. Sometimes Jude hits Mia round the head with a plastic golf club for no reason. But by and large, they get on like a house on fire, and it’s great to see. 

Lows

Being a dad means regular experience with the full spectrum of emotions. It ain’t all plain sailing. Here are some of the more testing episodes of my fatherhood so far.

1. Mia’s Sepsis

I mentioned how we spent a week in hospital after Mia was born. Well, it turned out that Mia had sepsis. We actually didn’t know until later – at the time we only knew she had an infection. 

I also didn’t know until much later how life-threatening it is. And it was certainly best that way. Had we known, we would have gone into a serious panic, which would’ve only made the situation worse. 

After a long and difficult delivery, we finally had the bliss of holding our firstborn in our arms. We thought we’d be home within a few hours, but it wasn’t to be.

There were signs of infection – Amy’s waters had broken early, Mia was unusually sleepy, she had bile in her vomit. They needed to keep her in for another night. 

Then it became another night. Then she had to go into neo-natal. Tubes coming out of her nose. Canullas causing collapsed veins in her hands. Lumbar puncture and heelpricks. Her tiny feet covered in little red scabs.

We came down from our ward to see her one time and she was being pinned down, screaming and screaming as a huge needle went in. Amy really struggled. 

The hardest thing was not knowing how long she’d have to stay there. The days seemed to go on forever. We finally got to take her back to the regular ward, and after another night, home.

Of course, what we went through is nothing compared to what many parents have to endure. Our time in neo-natal demonstrated that. But it was a difficult ordeal nonetheless. 

2. Lockdown

Jude was born at the height of the first lockdown, barely a month after restrictions were first put in place, the time when physical human contact was most feared. 

It was of course a tough time for everyone. Mine and Amy’s mental health suffered, we worried about Mia’s development as she missed out on the playgroups and such. But it probably had the biggest impact on Jude. 

Mia was in and amongst people from day one. She was accustomed to travelling, seeing new faces and loud, lively environments from an early age. But Jude missed out on all that. 

Other than Amy’s parents, who were in our support bubble, he didn’t meet anyone for a long time. He was very uncomfortable around people, especially men, for quite a while once we were allowed back out into the world. It took him a good few visits before we could leave him with my dad. 

Nowadays, he seems fine. Touch wood, it hasn’t had too much of a lasting effect. He takes a bit of time to come out of his shell around new people, but that could just be his personality. Either way, let’s hope we never have to go through another lockdown.

3. Mia Potty training

This is one of those things that we probably didn’t handle too well as parents. One of those mistakes that we’ll hopefully avoid with Jude. Basically, we tried to push Mia into potty training before she was ready. 

Because she’s quite advanced in other areas, we thought potty training would be a doddle. One of her friends, a couple of months younger, was out of nappies, and would proudly pee behind any variety of tree or shrub when we went for walks. And we’d also been told that the nursery Mia would be attending wouldn’t take kids who were still in nappies.

So we tried all kinds of ways to get her to use the potty and the toilet. She’d often seem to take to it quite well, but would then hit some sort of barrier. Because, each time, we thought she was finally getting it, we’d get extra frustrated when she didn’t.

We realised late on that we should have just kept her in nappies until she was properly ready. It’s one of the few regrets I’ve got about my parenting choices, but hopefully, it won’t affect Mia in the long run. 

4. Jude Teething

While Mia seemed to grow new teeth overnight, Jude’s teething has been a slow and painful process. 

He is way behind the usual teething schedule, and every time some new choppers emerge, they cause him agony. Burning cheeks, doesn’t want to eat, waking up screaming, acid poo etc. 

There was a period of a few months where he went through a few teething phases in succession, and the sleepless nights especially took their toll on us.

5. Accidents and Near Misses

Being responsible for a tiny, helpless human is a steep learning curve.

Mistakes happen. We forget things. We take our eye off them. We get distracted. 99.9% of the time, no harm’s done. 

But certain times when I’ve had a momentary lapse really stick in my mind. I still think about them, and imagine all manner of horrific things that could have happened. 

Like when I dropped Mia out of her Moses basket on the very first night we brought her home. Luckily she landed on a pillow.

Like the time I went to answer the door and left a sharp knife in reaching distance of Mia as she tottled around the living room.

Or the time I forgot to fasten her car seat as I drove through the countryside.

Or when Jude slipped away from us because we thought someone else was watching him, and walked out into a road. 

After each of these occasions, and others, I’ve beaten myself up about it, calling myself a failure of a parent, imagining the lifelong damage that could have happened because of my mistake. 

But each time has helped me to become more vigilant and careful. And I soon realise that I’m not a failure of a parent, just a human. These things happen, you just have to learn from them. 

What next?

So, there are a few ups and downs I’ve been through on my fatherhood journey so far. It’s a rollercoaster for sure. 

Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more to write about in the mad world of dad. 

We’ll go into all kinds of ‘dad’ stuff. Sometimes we’ll get a bit deep and heavy, but there’ll be plenty of light-hearted moments too. I hope you’ll stick around for more of my paternal ponderings.

Even better, get in touch with your experiences, comments and advice on any of the things I waffle on about.

Thanks for reading.

Matt