Day Eighty-seven - The forest whispers my name

After he was born, I was whisked away back to the waiting room, and in the meantime Dora's sister, Sara, had arrived. We were together in the waiting room for a while, and eventually we were taken by a nurse to go see Dora and the baby. She was lying in a stretcher, nursing and feeding the baby, and it was then that I first held Ian. I think it was then I really looked at him for the first time - even after he was born and was still covered in goo, I don't really recall looking at him intently. But then and there, as I held this baby of ours, and looked at him, I remember thinking 'so you are my son...', and hoping against all hopes that he would know nothing but happiness. We weren't allowed to linger for long, though. We were soon ferried off back to the living room, and then went back home. Naturally, I visited Dora every day while they were still at the hospital, and after a few days they were given the all-clear to go home. Me and Sara went back to the hospital, stroller in hand, and now it was time for us all to be together at home.

And I have no idea what I expected the paternal experience would be like, but for sure no amount of movies or TV shows that featured that kind of slice of life bit could have ever prepared me. You hear about the lack of sleep, you hear about the baby being always hungry, you hear about the crying, the cramping, the teething, but all those things are just abstract concepts until you have to experience them for yourself. And what we found out was precisely what the vast majority of parents found out : it was bloody hard work. Those first few months seemed to fly by, we eventually found a groove where we'd watch reruns of 'Hill Street Blues' late at night while we looked after the baby. Some nights were rougher, some others not so much. Dora had a few months of maternity leave - six, if I do recall it correctly - and I only had a few days off. Because I worked a bit far from where we lived, and because some days I had to work until 2 a.m., I had to stay at my grandmother's, only really being able to be home when I had my days off or when I worked the day shift, which was a bit rare. After Dora returned to work, we enrolled Ian in a nursery so he could be looked after while we were at work. So that was Ian being born in 1999, and sometime in early 2000 I quit my job. All the dodgy stuf I'd been doing was going to bite me in the ass sooner rather than later, and I preempted that by quitting. I might have been unemployed for a few months only, because just before summer I started working as a security officer - one of the very worst jobs I ever had. But not the worst, no.