On April 12, 2018, Kristi gave birth to two healthy kids. We named them Bennett William and Brooks Ryan. I was the first person to hold both of them. We stayed in the hospital for five days because Kristi had a c-section. Hospitals are such insular environments. You can forget about the world around you while inside because your life changes so much when you are there. Lives are beginning and ending, both changing the people around them. One day while we were at the hospital and Kristi and the babies were both sleeping, I walked outside for the first time since they were born. I existed somewhere between inside and outside and I couldn’t quite ground myself. Part of me wanted to stay in the hospital forever and another part wanted to get in my car and run away. I went back inside and learned to take care of two tiny people.
Having two babies was my saving grace at the beginning. I was needed. If Kristi was trying to feed one of them, I was there to hold the other one. If we had only had one baby, I’m not sure how everything would have turned out. Maybe I would have felt excluded from the beginning and retreated, but I was needed. Kristi was exhausted and frustrated trying to feed two newborns, and Bennett wasn’t eating and was screaming a lot. I convinced her to let him try some formula. I put a nipple on one of those formula bottles and fed Bennett for the first time. He drank it all in minutes. It was the first thing I had done for my son: I fed him.
When we finally made it home after five full days and nights in the hospital, it was dark. We had to bring in the babies, introduce them to our dog, Gia, get settled, eat, unpack, and figure out how to take care of them without nurses and techs. Soon after I walked in, I started crying. I felt overwhelmed, scared, and I had missed Gia so much. I think Kristi worried I was going to leave because she told me to go for a drive to clear my head. I took Gia and drove around and got a Frosty from Wendy’s. When I got back, I felt slightly more prepared for our first night at home.
Before Bennett and Brooks were born, we told our moms that we didn’t want them to come over for the first few days so that we could get settled. I don’t think we slept at all that first night. As soon as we woke up, we called both of our moms and asked them to come over. My mother in law went to the grocery store for us and my mom watched the babies so that we could sleep for a few hours. We realized that it was going to be harder than we thought it would be.
We took Bennett and Brooks to the pediatrician the day after we came home. After examination, the doctor was worried that Bennett was not keeping his temperature, so she sent him to the hospital. Since he had already gone home, he was admitted to the pediatric ICU at the hospital instead of the NICU. He stayed there for another five nights where they wrapped him up and kept him in a warmer. Kristi stayed with him the first four nights and then I stayed the fifth night and brought him home. I was home alone with Brooks for those four nights. The first night, I came home and my mom had her in this preemie onesie that was a little too small. I tried to get it off of her and she started screaming. I got out the scissors and cut it off of her and threw it right in the trash. I barely slept those four nights. I had a newborn baby sleeping next to me in a pack and play and I was alone.
After that hospital stay, things were uneventful but the hardest of my life. Since I wasn’t the birth mother, I was given paternity leave which was only two weeks. But I worked for a month or so and then it was summer break because I was a teacher. I don’t have many specific memories from the first three or four months. Bennett and Brooks barely slept, so we were exhausted all the time. I got used to it, but I didn’t feel normal. That took over a year. We went to the beach for a few weeks and lots of friends and family came to visit. I didn’t feel a strong connection to them, but I did start to feel responsible for them.
Summer faded to fall and Kristi and I both had to go back to work. Bennett and Brooks were almost six months at this point. This was a sweet spot in the baby days. They were sleeping longer at night, smiling, but still snuggly and small. Moments of deep connection started happening more and more. Bennett would grab my finger and hold it tight. They both fell asleep on me when walking around or while I rocked them before bed. I still felt like an imposter parent playing a part, but the edges of those feeling started to soften.