The "hitting" incident

It’s rare that I have to come down really hard on the girls.  It is.  I know I come across as the cranky, mean parent.  I kind of am cranky.  I’m not a completely freaking ray of sunshine most of the time.  I do get frustrated easily… anyway… Over the course of the past 6 years we haven’t had many “big” trouble incidents.  Last night was one of them.

Larry’s in Chicago for the day with work and he expected to come back late which is fine.  Funny though how most things like this tend to happen when Larry’s not around.  Maybe it’s some form of parenting kismet.  The afternoon had cruised along pretty easily, the girls were tired from camp so they were just chilling on the couch after dinner.  Olivia and I had our usual run-in over food.  I know common parenting logic says that you shouldn’t make a big deal out of it because you will create eating disorders later in life.  My logic says that my child not eating is indicative of something deeper.  So I push, and I push, and I push.  Olivia feels that’s she not getting enough attention and that one way to retaliate is to by ignoring something I put a lot of effort into.  She’s a smart cookie.

So we’re all on the couch on iDevices.  I realize it’s almost 8pm - give them the quick heads-up that they need a bath.  So I go start the bath.  Olivia comes up and joins me - which is cool.  Then Louise follows.  Now the girls don’t generally bathe at the same time.  It seems to be coming a bit more common so I’m not really sure what’s going on there.  Again I am not really rock the boat though - saves me time sitting on the bathroom floor keeping them company.  They also both decided to wash their hair.  Now the funny thing here is that Olivia particularly doesn’t like washing her hair… I normally have to force that issue.  Recently nope - she’s washing her hair every couple of days.  So Louise and Olivia are in the bath.  Now it’s a normal sized bathtub and I should have foreseen something was going to happen.  Parental ESP and all that.

So something did happen.  The bathtub is getting to be a bit too small for two kids to lay side by side.  So the next thing is the argy-bargy, the she touched me, no she touched me, she got water in my face and whammo - Olivia hit Louise.  So Olivia gets hoisted out of the bath given a towel and marching orders to brush her teeth, hair and get straight into bed.  Now for the first time in her life she complained that she hadn’t washed herself… seriously! 

So Olivia has her pajamas on and has brushed her hair and teeth, is in bed and she cops the lecture.  Now we have a couple of golden rules in this house - one is no hitting.  So it’s not a small lecture, it’s not the I’m upset that you hit you sister.  It’s the I’m disappointed in you.  Now I get to a 5 (nearly 6 year old) the gravity of things isn’t quite apparent.  We got there eventually.  The clanger though was when I did the channelling my own parents - the “I thought I was raising you better than this.”

Now ordinarily this probably wouldn’t be so much of a problem.  However the girls share a bathroom that separates their bedrooms so Louise overheard me saying “I thought I was raising you better than this” and she took that to mean that I was raising Olivia better than her.  Cue favoritism drama - so I have one child upset because she’s gotten the lecture and didn’t get a kiss and a hug good night (I’ll come back to this) and the other one is upset because she thinks I favor her sister.

So I have to put that little fire out.  One of the things I really love about the English language is the diversity and breadth of expressions.  There are just so many cute and interesting sayings.  One of the things I dislike about the English language is that you have to try to explain to children who don’t quite have the same understanding of the language you do what these expressions and sayings mean.  So I spent the time explaining to Louise that I was disappointed in Olivia and I thought I was doing my best to raise kids that don’t hit.  So that was sorted out.  

Meanwhile Olivia is having a meltdown in her room because she didn’t get the hug or the kiss.  That was hard for me.  When I was having the talk to Olivia about what punishment she felt was suitable - none really felt that they would lend themselves to the gravity of the offense.  Taking her iPad away for a day is pointless because she still has the TV… so I thought if I just tucked her in and said good night and walked out that would do it.  Now I am not a complete monster - there is one thing that I have always tried do to with Louise and Olivia and that is leave with them a smile or a laugh when they go to bed.  So I went back in and had a quick chat to Olivia and told her that I forgave her and explained that I get angry too, I react to things without thinking them through - it’s human nature, I don’t hit people though.  I tend to say TV words - the really bad ones!  That gave her a bit of a laugh.   I gave her a kiss and a hug, told her I loved her and said good night.

There’s lots of things about parenting that I find hard.  I’ve spoken to people before about the fact that I try to be the perfect parent (which I know isn’t possible).  With situations like this I worry if I have done the right thing.  It was all a bit stressful for me… now in the past I’d unwind with a few drinks (probably a few too many) - these days I unwind by folding laundry and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.  The ultimate outcomes are that my kids know that I love them, the boundaries were enforced and my sanity prevailed.

The Nanny Period...

a note to my readers - sorry I have left this blog and our surrogacy story alone for so long.  I really have been a bit slack - I do need to sit down and write this more regularly... so hopefully my slackness will abate for a bit!

Title sounds awful doesn't? ;)

Now I personally had reached a meltdown.  I literally tore myself apart over this.  I had a breakdown - I rang Larry at work and asked him to come home because I couldn't cope.  So we started discussing options, childcare or a nanny.  Now I wasn't ready to go back to work and your Dad has been really gracious about me not working - I will give him full credit for that.  So we ended discussing what would end up working best.  I just needed the ability to get out and do the errands without you two.  So we figured that two days would be best (and it was probably also what we could afford).

So we interviewed a couple of people and I found someone I really quite liked - I just took a while to finally getting around to calling her to tell her that we wanted to hire her.  She was very gracious about it actually - she told me that she understood.  For me it was separating feeling like a failure and actually getting someone to help.  Thankfully Megan was still available to work two days a week for us.  And so there started us having a nanny.

There is probably a lot of people that associate nannies with the wealthy.  I know there are increasing numbers of people who are getting nannies because they can't get places in childcare or it is actually cheaper for them to hire a nanny then have full-time childcare (sorry a bit of a segue).  I did get the reaction a few times that we must be rich to be able to afford a nanny...

So anyway Megan entered our lives.  It took me about a week and a half to able to leave the house for more than an hour... I wasn't really that overprotective!

In a lot of ways Megan was a godsend.  She taught me so much about being a parent and gave me lots of tips and tricks and did also show me where I was doing a few things wrong.  Well not so much wrong but how I could be doing things better...

Probably the main example is that I never set a strict nap routine - I would just let drop where you were when you needed a nap.  Apparently not a good idea as your naps end up being short and I end up being frazzled as part of it.  One of the really important things that Megan taught me was more about myself - I can't be the perfect parent.  I can only be the parent I am.  Noone can be the perfect parent (they don't exist).  All I have to ever do is look at how happy and healthy you are and know that I am doing a good job - or at least the best job I can.

This is also one of my favorite stories involving Megan.  So bathtimes for us were hell.  Sheer absolute hell - noone enjoyed them.  Megan had her doubts that they were that bad... so she decided to give you guys a bath.  I was outside washing your Dad's Vespa as he was selling it.  It honestly sounded like someone was being murdered in the house.  She was shocked!  So anyway she came up with a strategy to help you guys deal with water - we went to the pool - no more horror baths.

Megan has become a very good friend.  She was with us for about 8 months and we had a few comedies.  The horrible Santa photo at Highpoint which I will point out was entirely her idea! HER IDEA!!!! It was shocking but really quite funny.  The photographer was a pain and the Santa was as cranky as all get out and go... and of course two little one year olds didn't want to sit still.

After we stop using Megan as a Nanny she would still babysit and just come around and visit.  She's an amazing friend.

After this started the Montessori and Childcare adventures.  I will get to those in due course.

So I was taught an important lesson by my kids

I'm a parent to twins.  It's hard.  It's complicated.  It's a struggle to work out the relationships and everything else.

Olivia has been a bit funny for the past couple of weeks and I couldn't work out why.  Larry and I have had discussions in the past about favouritism and the fact that I favour Olivia more over Louise.  Which I tend to - I think it's my protective instinct - Olivia is smaller and has been since birth, and I guess also being the younger sibling myself (I'm not a twin though) I feel for her.  The elder sibling can soak up a lot of attention - which if you've met Louise you'd understand that too!  I think part of it as well is that Olivia is very introverted (like me) but she's always been capable of entertaining herself.

So try to make up the imbalance between time I thought I was spending with Liv and the time I wasn't spending with Louise - I was spending more one-on-one time with Louise.  Unfortunately I wasn't spending much time with Liv one-on-one.

Olivia has developed this habit of tilting her head to one side if she's upset.  Now for the past couple of weeks when I have dropped the girls off at school Olivia has been very withdrawn and doesn't want to move.  None of the educators could draw it out of her and Olivia has said a couple of times that she was "sick" and just wanted to stay home with me.  Which being the awesome parent I am I just ignored (I did the usual checked her temperature etc...).

So yesterday driving home I finally pushed the point and asked her why.  So she actually admitted because I wasn't spending any time with her.  I was shocked.  I had that moment where I went WOAH I have made a mistake as a parent.  I try to do the right thing by one and I stuff up with the other one...

So we talked about it last night and she did say just wants to spend time with me without Louise.  So Olivia and I are having a Michael Daddy and Olivia day on Saturday.  So far it seems to involve Lego, puzzles and watching iPads.

It was funny this morning...
So I got the Lego Simpsons House for the *cough* girls.  Louise doesn't really have that much interest in it so Liv and I have been building it on and off for a little while.  We started on it again last night and we were doing a little bit this morning before I took the girls to Kinder.  Louise dragged Larry into the bedroom because Olivia and I were having some "alone" time.
I am amazed that my kids get it.  We have two very smart little monkeys.
But yes I learnt a lesson.  There's something my GP suggested that she does with her kids (although they are a bit older) is that her and her husband try to spend 20 minutes each day with each child without their siblings around.  Maybe that's something Larry and I need to consider.

so we moved back to the city...

Ok getting back on track with all this....


Your father found a job - huzzah!!!! Took a lot of financial pressure of... A LOT! But it added a whole series of new pressures.  To get to work he'd be getting up at 6am to try to get out the door at 7 to catch a train at 7:30 from Woodend.  I'd then be keeping you guys up until around 7:30 so he could spend 10 minutes with you before I put you to bed.  This was actually hard on both of us.  Your father didn't get to see you.  And I felt more and more isolated and alone.  So I felt particularly stressed... as did he.  And I was a fair monster to be around during this period too (I will admit to that...).


So unbeknownst to me... your father had seen a house and went had a look at it.  And then suggested that on Boxing Day 2009 that we all go look at it as "something to do" so we came had a look and I will be honest I fell in love with the house.  There was a rather large stumbling block.  It was pricey... (still is!) so we would become quite familiar with the term mortgage stress - which we have.  We weren't sure if we could afford it, we weren't sure if we could get a mortgage but we put in an offer all the same - 10 month settlement, rent-back for the 10 months.  And surprisingly the vendor accepted!  We had a new house, in a location that we loved and a brand-spanking new townhouse.  Next part was selling the other two houses and moving back into the city.


So on March 19, 2010 we moved back to South Melbourne.  Well we did... it's your first house in the area.  It's funny going from a town of under 1000 people back to the inner-city I instantly felt more comfortable.  Anonymity has a lot going for it.  I think it's much easier to be someone faceless in a larger population.  In part and as friendly as the folks in Trentham are - I did feel a little bit like a freakshow.  Here it's not that much of a problem, we're much more readily accepted, people generally don't blink at two men with kids.


Also it suddenly became easier for friends to drop around and visit.  Granted we're just around the corner for most of them now, than being a 3 hour round trip.  So that did and has had made life much more comfortable.  Although the flip-side of that now is that we've made it much harder for our dear friends Chris & Ian to visit us - they now face a 3 hour return trip (as do we when we go visit them!). 


I miss the garden at times though and I know your father does too.  But we've discussed that as well.  This was a decision we made (not particularly lightly) for our family.  It's easier having one property at the moment rather than having two and the expense of two.  And at this stage in your lives we can't ferry you up and back every weekend and then spend the whole weekend in the garden.  That's not fair on you! 


I also find that raising kids in the city is generally a bit easier.  There's more things to do.  Swimming lessons (a bit of a failure), gymbaroo (the woman who ran it was an absolute nutjob), there's your music classes that you, me and your father absolutely adore.  Everything is so much more convenient.  I suspect as you get a bit bigger we'll miss having a backyard for you guys to run around in though.  But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it - on the plus side there's a few parks you can and do terrorise.


It's also funny the sale of the houses in Trentham and Port Melbourne were relatively stress-free for me.  Every other time your father and I have sold a house, I've been a right emotional wreck... not sure why.  But this time around it was actually very easy and it was all done with perfect ease for me - I even took control of most of it (which is quite unusual for me!).  And in a slight brag moment I had a couple of my photos used for the marketing of the property in Trentham, it was one of those moments where I felt like a real photographer (they are few and far between these days).


For the most part we settled back into city living very easily.  Everything was suddenly (again) so convenient.  We could walk to the supermarket - rather than having to drive 20 minutes... we didn't need to jump into the car to go everywhere!  It was brilliant and something I really quite honestly missed.


As a parent I still had my ups and downs and I was still struggling with dealing with two infants and my own issues.  We had a couple of scary moments which were mostly resolved by getting a nanny in to help me for two days a week (I'll touch on that in my next blog post).


I do miss the country.  I miss the peace and quiet.  I miss the beautiful surroundings.  I miss the fantastic roads I used to take the Mini out on (there's some absolutely brilliant roads between Trentham, Kyneton  & Daylesford).  But I do think we made the best decision.  We're happy here - it's a beautiful house, we've got good neighbours.  There's a bit of a sense of community - which is always wonderful.


A note on the photo - this is a photo I took last year at the front of the house.  The developer planted a variety of Jacaranda in two of the townhouses and as I was doing a 365 project at the time... this is what I came up with for that particular day.  It's probably the best macro photo I have ever taken.

a response to "Double trouble or twice blessed? "

I was reading Melbourne's Child which had a feature on Homophobia in Schools and I was looking for the article on their website and I couldn't find it.  Instead I stumbled across this article which was about raising twins.  Now I realise it's only this woman's opinion and I actually found myself mostly disagreeing with it... 


As a mum of three-year-old twins (almost), I'm often asked, "How do you cope with two?" My honest answer is neither straightforward nor simple, and I all but have a mild panic attack, gasping for breath, the minute I meet a prospective mother who believes that having two at once is the perfect instant family.


I get asked the same question a lot as well - how do you do it?  How do you cope?  My answer is different - I don't know any different.  All of my experiences are wrapped around having twins.  Yes it's hard, but I also suspect having one child is hard.


But I guess the bit that really surprised me in the article was this:
Those early days before that were filled with scrubbing bottles, changing a dozen nappies a day, waking one baby to feed when the other one cried out in the night and getting our babies in a routine as early as possible. It sounds harsh but it was about survival and functioning. I never read for hours a day to my inquisitive wide-eyed babies, nor did I rock them to sleep or spend hours gazing into their eyes humming lullabies. I just didn't have the time and yes, I feel guilty about this too.


Now I have twins - they're almost two years old.  I've spent hours reading to them, I've scrubbed bottles, I've changed more nappies than I ever care to remember.  I've rocked them to sleep, and I still occasionally do.  I don't feel guilty that I didn't have much time to spend doing the things that parents of singletons do... but that's because I made the decision that my children came first.  The house could (and still every now and then does) look like an absolute bombzone but I was going to get down on the ground and interact with my children, I was going to play with them, read to them, wrestle with them.


The one bit I will agree with and I think any parent with twins will tell you this - ROUTINE IS KEY! Get them into a routine as soon as possible and stick to it.  Babies respond surprisingly well to order and it does help keep you sane...


Some of my happiest moments have been when one of the girls has fallen asleep in my arms.  Or there's the other bit which is the absolute delight on my day - getting tandem cuddles on the couch watching TV - to my mind life doesn't get much better than that.  And I get double the cuddles :)


I think that's maybe the difference.  I wasn't afraid to let other things slide.  Hell I shower at night because it gives me more time to spend with the girls and I try to do everything that I didn't do during the day while they are down for their nap.  


Twins really are a blessing.  This I think becomes more apparent as they get older.  They are more socialised, more confident in social situations and they have each other!


I was very lucky that Larry was around for the first 6 months so we didn't have as many dramas in the first 6 months or so. But it was still hard... now it's no so much hard - it's just a different set of challenges.


It hasn't all be rosy.  I have broken down and lost the plot.  I have been in absolute tears due to the frustration and the anxiety.  But I am also blessed with two incredibly amazing children.  They are happy and healthy - I think that's all anyone can ever ask for.


As a random stranger at the supermarket said me to a while ago - double the trouble, three times the fun.  And you know what - he was right.  I wouldn't change having twins for anything.  I love my children, I love my family and I think it's just right as it is :)


Link to the article here -> http://www.webchild.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3852:double-trouble-or-twice-blessed&catid=19:stories&Itemid=185 

2 years ago my life changed...

This is in part the first change to my life... the major change obviously was the girls being born but there was something that happened before then.  I used to be employed once upon a time... 2 years ago I was made redundant - my employer gave me a nice big cheque to go away.  Not something I was going to argue with - really it wasn't.  It was one of the funniest moments of my career I think.  I went from a job I absolutely despised to a job I enjoyed with an amazing group of people.  I used to work on an application support helpdesk and went into a UAT job on a secondment that was made permanent which was then the role that was made redundant.  My entire team got called into a meeting at head office to be informed that our team was being let go... I rang Larry to let him know and he said to basically take it.  I was due to go on parental leave two weeks later anyway.  SOOOOOOOOOOOOO I eventually get into the meeting with the HR officer and my National Manager and I'm asking to see the package.  "No - think about it, talk to your partner and see what your decision is."  My response - "I've already spoken to him and he's happy with my decision."  They insisted that I take 24 hours to think about it and call them in the morning and let them know what my decision was.  This really was a no-brainer.  Give me a big fat pay-out to leave my employer... duh! Although I did have to quietly (internally) chuckle at how uncomfortable my National Manager was with the concept of a gay employee talking about how soon his children were due to be born.  My former employer did very fair by me I have to say - they did pay out the parental leave that I would have taken had I remained with them as it was booked...  I really did honestly want to go "SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!" during the whole meeting.  But I knew I really couldn't!

Mind you this was really the point behind this post.  It's just a part of what's been on my mind.  I'm starting to find myself in a situation where I am starting to think what's going to happen when I do go back to work.  Admittedly it won't be for a while yet as to be honest - my wages wouldn't cover full-time childcare costs (we get nothing back from the Australian Government - I'm not complaining btw!) so I get the joy of staying home and raising the girls until they start school.  But that does introduce the dilemma of what am I go to do?  What's going to happen to my marketability in the workplace?  What can I do to find a job?  I know these are questions that women who drop out of the workforce to raise children face.  And I am a little bit worried about how do I explain that to a potential employer?  Am I likely to face discrimination because I'm a male care-giver who's taken time out of his career to raise children or has the world moved on to a point where that doesn't matter anymore?  So many questions...


I'm worried about it yes and I'm sure at some point I will find an answer... but up until then I think I will just continue enjoying raising my children :)

depression and parenting

I was going to do a very long-winded blog post about suffering depression and being a parent. I deleted it. It's funny - I don't feel comfortable sharing that much but it did get me thinking - there's so much research on post-partum depression for women but there's not much done on men suffering from post-partum depression. Maybe it's the general societal stigma attached to men suffering depression... I don't know.

"On average the studies showed, 10.4 percent of new fathers became depressed during the gestational or postpartum period. In the subset of studies that looked at paternal well-being three to six months after the baby was born, 25.6 percent of fathers were depressed."

I guess also from my own perspective I'm in a bit of a unique situation. Maybe not unique. Maybe uncommon is more correct. I know there is a rise in stay-at-home Dads worldwide - economic realities being what they are...

But for me:

- I had lost my financial independence for the first time in my adult life. I was completely and absolutely reliant on someone else to survive. And that took some coping.

- I lost my sense of self-identity. I stopped being Michael and I had become Louise & Olivia's Dad (or Mummy as some people have said).

- I battled with my new role as a parent (I will admit I do have more of a maternal role in this family)

- I had gained a substantial amount of weight and I hated myself for it (I've had body issues most of my life!)

- I felt isolated, I felt very much alone. And that was probably the hardest part of it all. There wasn't really anyone I could turn to and I felt that I had to be strong for the girls. There were moments where I did physically break down and cry because it was all just too much.

- I felt I was never going to bond with the girls. From having spoken to a few other parents (even mothers) they've felt the same way.

There are still elements of the above that I battle with but I suspect it's going to be that way for a long time! But I have strategies to deal with them. And I guess that's probably the main thing especially for men. Know that you are and get help - it doesn't make you any less manly (I don't think so at any rate) especially when there are other lives at stake.

I will say this much though. When I bonded with the girls - I bonded. Those two beautiful little girls are mine and I will do anything for them. I guess it's what unconditional love is.

And so now the real fun begins...

I don't think anything can really ever prepare anyone for being a parent... People will tell you until their blue in the face that it's hard. And I don't think until you are in the midst of it - you don't actually realise how hard it is. The sleep deprivation, the constant cycling of feeding, changing etc... It's bloody hard! I think also being a man and trying to come to terms with all this psychologically is very hard.

There's probably tomes I could write on this and one day I may... as a friend suggested I should title it How to Raise Children with Style, Grace and a Sense of Humour. Looking back at it now - I think having a sense of humour when raising children is probably the most important thing.

Larry and I never really fought. The girls were born and home and all of a sudden we were fighting almost every day. Part of it was probably the lack of sleep, the stress of dealing with twin infants, the stress of dealing with Larry trying to find a job, feeling isolated in the country. The people who promised us they'd help never really came through (I'll touch on this later too).

At this point in time it's very easy to look back and say we were very lucky. Which we were. The girls weren't sick - they had no major health complications (which for premature babies is a very good thing!). They both gained weight at the correct rate (Olivia a bit slower but she was getting there gradually... funny thing is she still won't really eat!).

So we fought and fought and fought - generally over really stupid small inconsequential things, like tracking how much the girls were eating at each feed. Why dinner was always so late (we were eating at about 9pm), the lack of sex, the amount of time Larry was spending in the garden. I will also admit I was stressed about the impending visit of my mother (which I pulled the pin on as I couldn't cope with the idea, and I honestly think if my mother and I would have been under the same roof - it would have been a complete disaster [gay men and their mothers!]). Pretty much the usual things that parents fight over.

But at the time it did just feel very hard. And I guess on the plus side we got through it!

the trip home and sundry India...

India is a weird place. Not in a bad way. I found it very warm, friendly and spiritual but we were also very much in a middle-class enclave which does come with a fair degree of security and comfort. There was a couple of funny moments. There's a couple of gift shops in the lobby of the Ramada Powaii (like most hotels worldwide) and because we have to vacate the room once a day for the cleaners to come through and do their thing we'd hang out in the lobby or the games room (they had a Wii... lesson learnt I'm crap at games!). So one of the things I found a bit weird. Babies in India are generally not taken out in public until they are 40 days old (from my understanding) and here we are with twins that are 2-3 weeks old. So we're talking to the folks in the gift shops - and they asked how old the girls were and we told them - the looks on their faces were a bit shocked! But I think being foreigners you're forgiven slight irregularities to custom...

So... the shenanigans of the trip home!
I would like to say this was easy. I would like to say something for once in India was easy. It wasn't. Far from it. So it's the 22nd of October - we get notification that the girls emergency passports and citizenship certificates are ready (you're now little Aussies - very little Aussies!). So we start the process of getting the Indian exit visas. Now of course the office to get your exit visas is located somewhere in Mumbai that if we didn't have a good driver (a few other couples had used him previously) who knew where he was going - we would have had no hope! It was in the back of Mumbai somewhere with no street signs. So anyway we find it - get our ticket/appointment etc... start the process, pay for the visas and asked to return a couple of hours later for the exit visas.

I'll backtrack for a second as this is where the real fun is. So we received your passports and citizenship certificates via courier to the hotel that morning. Something was missing though. Namely your fathers passport... as far as we could tell his passport had been sent somewhere else in Mumbai. Cue the appropriate panic from me as all of a sudden I could imagine me flying home solo with the two of you while your father was stranded in Mumbai trying to find his passport that was somewhere between Mumbai and Delhi... as per usual I needed have worried as it was delivered to our hotel later that day.

So we had a couple of hours to kill while we waited for your exit visas to be processed. So we went off the Taj Hotel in Mumbai for lunch. It was a very nice lunch - including the appropriate me ducking into the men's room to do nappy changes. It was a bit sad to see there were still parts of the Taj Hotel that had been boarded up from the terrorist bombings (that made me a bit nervous about actually being in Mumbai).

So we got your exit visas and were pretty much all set to go - barring any other disasters... delayed flights etc. But again not something we needed to have worried about. Our flight from Mumbai to Singapore left on time. No major hassles or glitches. The stewardesses on Kingfisher were all wonderful and very curious about the two of you! They were more than happy to help us - which is always a nice touch. As per usual you were both an absolute joy on the plane - but hey you were three weeks old... you didn't do much beyond sleep, eat and do what babies do!

So we change planes at Singapore. Went from Kingfisher to Singapore Airlines. We requested the bassinets but missed out on them and then we ended up with Aisle seats and you guys would have to flown home in our laps... I'm not sure if that would have worked for anyone. But the customer service manager was lovely. She had 5 babies on the flight and asked people to move so she could free up some seats so that your Dad and I could sit together and have a seat between us for the two of you. As we had your little carry cots - we used that on the seat between us for the two of you and it worked perfectly. Again you were both absolutely brilliant on the way to Melbourne.

A funny aside. We were going through security in Singapore to get on the plane. And the security guard saw that I was carrying one of you. "Oh a baby..." - she grabbed the cocoon and off she went. She sees your Dad come up with the other cocoon "and another baby..." and grabbed the cocoon and off she went again. I thought it was a rather cute moment. Then all the female security guards were clustered around the cocoons ohhing and ahhing (you had that effect on people).

So we get back to Melbourne International after the 9 hour flight from Singapore. Get through customs (took longer than we would have liked). Then we had the joy of trying to work out how to get you guys into your baby seats in the car. We'd never done it before. So um... yeah... we got there in the end.

And now one of my first parenting mistakes. We were living in Trentham so probably just over an hour from the airport. And I thought I had enough time to get you guys home before you were due your next feed. I was wrong... So we had to pull over at a service station and get some water to make up your formula. You were both howling by this point. All they had was cold water... ice cold water. It was a struggle for everyone. You guys were hungry and you were trying to feed but you ended up in pain because the water was that cold! It was a mistake and a lesson.

So we got home and you guys had your first night in your cots. Your father and I were exhausted... it had been a very long three weeks.

I had my parenting orders granted

The folks who follow me and Larry on facebook already know about this... but this is here now for the girls (and it's a much more detailed explanation).

I didn't even realise that yesterday was Black Friday. As they say lucky for some - unlucky for others. I guess for me it was a lucky day!

I had my parenting orders granted by the Family Court (a Federal Court in Australia). In March this year Larry and I engaged a law firm to seek parenting orders that would in effect recognise me in the eyes of the law as the girls other parent. In very basic terms - it's like I've adopted the girls as my own children, except that we can't adopt here and also I think it's highly unusual for the children of one partner to be adopted by the other partner, even in heterosexual relationships. I could be wrong on this but of course I've never looked into it this side of it.

So a parenting order basically means that I have the ability to sign forms, authorise medical treatment and do everything that I need to do for the girls as a parent. That most parents tend to take for granted. All because I don't appear on the birth certificate. I think we're the second couple that has children through surrogacy in India to go through this. Yay, we're groundbreaking again...

For me this was probably more important than Larry as it gives me piece of mind that my authority as a parent cant be questioned and I have legitimacy as the girls father. It was an interesting process. About two months of working with the lawyers to get the paperwork together. The court appearance yesterday which was fun. It was interesting to hear the judge talk about sperm... but anyway! It was a reasonably short hearing - about 15 minutes in total and the judge was pretty cool. I was slightly nervous that there was going to be something that prevented the orders being granted which I know was foolish as it's a pretty straight-forward matter but there was just the concern that something... something... could go wrong. So the first thing she said was that she was going to put everyone out of their misery and that the orders were granted. I officially become the girls Daddy and I honestly can't tell you how that makes me feel - I teared up, so I'm basically this emotional wreck sitting behind the lawyer trying to not make it sound like I'm crying (my lawyer even admitted that she got a bit emotional about it all).

Larry had insisted that we include a family photo with the affidavit to make it all a bit more personal. And the last thing the judge said to was to go home and enjoy those beautiful daughters of ours! It was an amazing moment.

Peace,

Michael xo

and the next 3 weeks...

So while Olivia was still in NICU - your Dad and I took turns in visiting Olivia, while one of us stayed at the Hotel to look after Louise.

We met some really nice people while we were dealing with the hospital. There were some heartbreaking stories though - mostly of people who couldn't get their visas sorted out in time so their babies had been in NICU or the hospital for weeks on end. That was a bit sad :(

To the readers of my blog if you are ever in Mumbai - the Ramada Powaii is a very good hotel, a lot of gay dads have ended up staying there, the staff is fantastic, the rooms are clean and modern.

We had some comedies getting too and from the Hospital to the Hotel though. I usually let Larry speak when when we are overseas in Asia as people generally understand an American accent better than they do an Australian accent.

• Anyway, there's a part of Mumbai called Lamada (or it sounds a lot like Ramada) so we'd end up in a completely different part of Mumbai to where the hotel was. And then of course you are trying to explain where you should be to someone who speaks Hindi and not English. It took us a while to smarten up to the idea of getting the hotel to write the name and address of the hotel in Hindi on the back of one of their cards.
• Then there's what I describe as our Bollywood moment. We were coming back to the hotel in an air-conditioned car and there's a traffic jam about a block away from the hotel. The driver asks us if he minds if he gets out as he's seen a Bollywood actor on the corner (the reason for the traffic jam) - he comes back thanks so much and he's beaming like a little boy on Christmas morning. He got to shake the actors hand.
• Then there's just the general trying to ferry two babies in an autorickshaw or a cab without baby seats. You just go with the flow.

So we basically spent the 3 weeks in the hotel watching 5 english language channels, basically a lot of really bad movies... and dealing with the fact that all of a sudden we were responsible for these two very, very tiny people. Incredibly, beautiful but incredibly tiny... I think we were both staggered by how small you were. We would go down for breakfast in turns (I miss the breakfasts... I love Asia for the fact that most breakfasts tend to be savoury!) and we all go down for lunch (we had to vacate the room to allow the cleaners to come in). We got bored - a lot... we would also try to sleep when we could. You guys were getting fed every 2 hours.

So we'd be doing nappy changes, boiling water, cleaning bottles in a bucket, hanging out with you two on the bed, attempted bathing you (that was not a lot a fun! you two hated baths! this has been a recurring issue but we're having fun with it now!!! to the point where Olivia keeps trying to flood the bathroom and I have to strip down to my undies or get absolutely soaked).

It took roughly a week to get your birth certificate and then another week to finalise all the paperwork with the Australian Consulate to get your emergency passports so we could come home.

Before I get onto the trip home - I thought we went through an amazing experience. We were in Mumbai for Diwali (the festival of lights) and it was amazing. The hotel invited all the guests onto the rooftop of the conference centre for their Diwali celebrations and it was a hoot! I loved it - apart from when one of the fireworks didn't light properly and pretty much exploded. We thought it was then best to leave - IN A HURRY! ;)

I was trying to upload a photo to go with the Diwali portion of this but blogger is hating me at the moment... so here's the photo -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/nettsu/4020639217/ - it's my favourite from the night :)

and here we were...

We moved from the house in Port Melbourne to the house in Trentham. That was planned. The intent was that we thought it would be nicer for you guys to grow up in the country (I'll revisit in this in a later post) and it seemed like we were going to have more support in the country than what we were going to have in Melbourne. It was a beautiful house and it is such a beautiful part of Australia. Your father still misses it.

We were both unemployed. This was the strange/funny/weird thing. I had planned to take a year or two off work to raise you guys before you went into childcare. The week after your father and I moved to the country I was made redundant. Your dad has some short-term contracting gigs but nothing permanent (this was both a good thing and a bad thing).

So on a Friday evening your father and I were just sitting around at home watching TV and we get a phonecall congratulating us on the birth of our twin daughters. You guys had arrived, early! 5 weeks early!

Twins generally arrive early - we knew that and we were originally planning on getting to India two weeks before we thought you would be born. And so started the frantic phonecalls to see if we could get on the next available Qantas flight to get to Mumbai. No... the next available flight was the 3rd of October which would have gotten us to Mumbai on the 5th. That to me wasn't acceptable. We felt bad enough that we had missed your birth. So a couple of more phonecalls and we were on a 12am flight to Singapore to then catch a Kingfisher flight to Mumbai. We arrived in India on the 3rd of October and went straight to the hospital.

Now the general process for surrogate births is that you are meant to check into the hospital and stay there until the babies are discharged. So your father was on the bed and I was on a fold-out couch... so, so very uncomfortable. You were both in NICU because you were such small, fragile things. You were tiny!

Ok let me backtrack for a second...

We spent the flight over finalising names (as we knew had two girls now). So that was easily done and as soon as we saw you both we knew your names fit. We were happy with that.

So back to the hospital...

Louise is the elder out of the two of you by a whole minute! She was 1.96kgs at birth. Olivia you were so very small - you were only 1.36kgs. We were constantly worried we were going to break you both!

You were both in the NICU and we weren't getting a clear answer as to how long you were likely to be there for - could have been up to 2 weeks and we weren't quite prepared to stay there for 2 weeks. So we went and checked into the Ramada in Powai... and then made the trip twice a day to the hospital until Louise was released from NICU - 3 days later. Olivia was in NICU for another couple of days....

it's funny i was selecting the two photos for this post and i was in tears remembering just how small the girls were... almost 16 months later and it seems so very hard to believe they were in fact this small!

so the next couple of months...

it all passed in a bit of a blur...

We were excited that we were pregnant (well technically our surrogate was!). We knew it was twins. Which was funny in a way. We didn't know what to expect we were excited that it was twins as we thought it would be good that you would both have someone to play with as you grew up (more on that later!).

We were getting the updates from the clinic which were all good. You were both growing very well, our surrogate was gaining weight as she should have been etc...

I was a little bit worried deep down as we had lost the original set of twins. But we got past week 15. And then past week 20. We got the week 20 scans, which included the 4D scans which showed us you both for the first time. It was an amazing thing to see. Your little faces in utero. Your father then went on a frenzy to find out your genders. Indian law doesn't allow for the disclosure of genders when a woman is pregnant (namely as female embryos were being aborted). We found out that one of you was a girl and the other was indeterminable. I had the feeling you were both girls. I don't know why but I did...

Also your father was funny. He decided that he had to know what gender you both were so he made video of the DVD that we were sent from the Clinic to see if some of his friends and some of the people he went to school with could shed any light on "what" you were... It was funny to watch at any rate ;)

http://www.youtube.com/user/lroadcap#p/u/4/SJEZUr7vZBs

So all was proceeding along nicely. Your surrogate was gaining weight and was healthy. We were starting to plan for your arrival. We were talking about moving from Melbourne to move to a small town called Trentham (which we ended up doing). And your father and I would start commuting in for work (about a 90 minute round trip - not a lot of fun! Your Dad was ok with it but I hated it).

Anyway... we had one rather amusing hiccough. We were at 29 weeks and we got a phonecall from the clinic telling us that our surrogate had gone into labour. I get a phonecall from your father while I am on the tram home - cue 10 minutes of absolutely frenzy while I try to get a hold of the person who was going to be housesitting for us to see if he could start that day or the next. Your father was on the phone to Qantas to see if we could get a much earlier flight. Thankfully, your father had a 1 year visa and I had already renewed my tourist visa. I then get a phonecall about 10 minutes later telling me that they got surrogates confused. There was another surrogate with the same name who had gone into labour and the clinic thought it was ours.

This taught us a bit of a lesson. Not to take anything for granted and that you guys could realistically come any day...

The next blog post will be about when you were born!

India Part 1 - Part 2 - the first baby video

I should have included this with the last blog post but technical issues in trying to find a .dat to .mov convertor that wasn't windoze based (apoligies too for the watermark but hey I'm only converting one video so I'm not paying for it).

Two of these blastocysts are Louise and Olivia. Pretty amazing isn't it? I just had to share this as it was and still is something so completely and absolutely amazing.

the other link to it is here -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/larryandmichael/4822821828/

back to the surrogacy story

So where we…

That was a bit of diversion really!

We will be back to me trust me. It generally works like that…

So anyways… we’re in early 2008. You’re father has just gotten back from the trip to London and he’s pointed out this article in the International Herald Tribune. So we start investigating whether or not we can do it. Financially, it’s much more viable for us (as surrogacy in India is considerably cheaper than the US). So we we start to investigate the possibilities. Now at this point your Dad is working in Singapore for 3 months (I did say he travelled a lot).

So while we were talking about and investigating the possibilities for us to create a family your father had the ability to fly from Singapore to Mumbai. It’s a 9 hour flight – which doesn’t seem like much really.

So your father was investigating two options.

One was with Dr Patel in Anand. She normally doesn’t deal with single men but she made an exception for your father. This is where your father and I had a bit of a heated discussion. I was also moderately offended that he was approaching her as a single man – to me it felt like he was creating our family based on a lie and I wasn’t really that important in the grand scheme of things from his perspective.

The other was with Rotunda in Mumbai. This clinic also had it’s own challenges. When your father went to sign up with them – they sent him home with his file cover sheet, which was what meant to identify him… so they lost “us” for about 9 months.

So as Rotunda didn’t seem particularly keen to begin with. We decided to progress with Dr Patel – we were very lucky and our surrogate got pregnant after the first transfer. We found out a couple of weeks in that it was twins! We were excited – your father and I wanted twins – I’ll explain that in a later blog post. We then found out it was in fact triplets. The third foetus was hiding behind one of the other ones. We were informed that at 12 weeks our surrogate would be undergoing a foetal reduction. A rather barbaric practice in India where one of the foetal hearts is injected with a solution that forces the heart to stop. The surrogate’s body then eventually rejects the foetus – this also potentially increases the risk of a miscarriage of all foetuses. When our surrogate was pregnant at 15 weeks, I get a phonecall from your father who was in London at the time – our surrogate had miscarried and lost the remaining two foetuses.

I had never in my entire life felt so devastated or crushed or alone. And your father was half a world away. I really didn’t know what to do. I have never before in my entire life just crumpled. After I got off the phone to your father I did just that – I crumpled. I cried for about 2 hours and then on and off for the next 5 days… The following day I also made one of the biggest mistakes of my life – I rang my mother. I’ll explain that in my next blog post.

So when your father came home from London we discussed options. Where did we go to from this point. We finally got Rotunda to realise that we were supposed to be doing something with them and they started the process of for us.

Your father heard my concerns about going through Dr Patel as a single man. Mostly how we would explain that we were both there at the birth to eventually pick up baby or babies. That I really didn’t feel comfortable starting our family based on a lie. I still will occasionally have my gay activist hat on.

So we had another 3 attempts – 1 with Dr Patel and two with Rotunda… I’ll be honest. Your Dad and I were running out of money. We didn’t know if we could afford any more attempts. We decided to give it one more try (which actually became our most expensive attempt to date! But I’ll explain in the post following the one about my mother – it’s the trip to India!!!).