date: Sat 03 May 2025 07:19:26 PM PDT sub: being a new parent early twins ---------------------------------------- We've made it to the 6th day on our own! April 2025 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 May 2025 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 Day seven! We've made it one week. Today we went to visit our daughter in the NICU. We've been sad she has been there without us for a week and so our entire family went to visit her. She had a bath, and a feeding tube, but the staff in the NICU say she is progressing. My wife saw our daughter, and then her eyes filled with tears. My wife has the biggest heart. As we got our son out of his car seat and prepared him for his meal the lactation staff came into the room with the nurse, so it felt like a party. Lactation staff who I shale call E, is the perfect person to make my wife feel at ease. The nurse and E helped get our daughter ready to breast feed. My wife has been dreading this for ten days but with the help of E my wife and daughter got to bond and our child got to feed. It was a beautiful thing and my wife was so happy. I loved seeing this. During all this grandparents also arrived so most of our family was there. Some might think it boring but I thought it was a great day! Although my wife and I are adjusting to all this hard work, we are working together. I'm still working so we each get a sleep shift. Hers is a really rough schedule from 12:30 AM to 5:30 PM. We'll continue to try this until I'm also leave. Here in the USA we don't get much leave from work. I follow my work schedule from 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM I take over child care, prepare bottles, and meals for us. I try to orchestrate my wife because she pushes her sleep past her designated schedule, and when she wakes up after only getting six hours of sleep she has a difficult time coming up with words. --------------------------------------------- TO THE MEN: --------------------------------------------- I write this for all the young men out there wives and girlfriends expecting. Most of the time I do all I can for us, and I'm not joking here. Open her door, help her in and out of the car, do as many chores as possible (harden yourself to the work of a domestic). If you have some idea this is woman's work then you'll have to look in the mirror and think about selfishness and how to become selfless. I know my wife carried 100% of the load growing two people in her body, dealing with all the changes in her body, her hormones, restrictions of food, lack of sleep for months, getting sick, having acid reflux, generally being uncomfortable, going to the work and the doctors office two to three times a week. Not to mention risking her life to have our child[ren]. Being pregnant is a risk to a woman's life. It may not seem like it in this day with all the advances in medicine, but even after delivery of a child, they are still at risk of death compared with other people. So as MEN we must honor them, and do all we can to help them, whatever their mood is. I know its not always apparent that us men have something to do, but realize its not playing video games! So DO NOT SIT THERE PLAYING GAMES WHILE THE MOTHER OF YOUR CHILD IS WORKING WITH YOUR CHILD/BABY. Save the games and drinks and other forms of dulling your mind, for when there is nothing needed to be done, and nothing to learn, and your child is asleep, and your wife is asleep. And whatever you do, DO NOT FORGO SLEEP TO PLAY GAMES! Games will always be there later, and if you end up sucking at games later, oh well, games aren't important compared to helping raise humans.