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 want to get married in NYC

Ok so during this week I discovered that I can not get married in NYC. This particularly offends me for a number of reasons. I know I'm not a US Citizen, or even a US resident (that's a different issue and fight all together and I'm hoping that DOMA does get repealed so that I can live in the US with my family).

Now Australian same-sex couples have de-facto rights. So Larry and I have the same rights as a heterosexual couple that's aren't married but living together (property, inheritance etc). Now this is where it gets funky. If I was to apply for a marriage licence in the state of New York - I can't get married - the Australian Government would deny me a Certificate of No Impediment to Marriage. Because the Australian Government views marriage as being between a man and a woman. Now the problem here becomes, if we were to move to NY and we were denied the ability to get married - I'd not be able to access the state rights that NY has extended to same-sex couples. It's a mess.

So rather than do nothing as I would normally do. I've emailed my Federal Member in the House of Representatives. I expect nothing to come of this (apart from a polite form letter which will say nothing) - but for once in my life I feel like I have to do something...

My email:

Dear Mr Danby,

I reside in South Melbourne with my partner Larry and our twin daughters Olivia & Louise. Larry and the girls are both dual American-Australian citizens and we as a family are looking at relocating to the United States in the near future.

Now as you may know the State of New York has allowed same sex couples to marry. We were looking at getting married and residing in New York, mostly as we would be granted state benefits by the State of New York and it would be easier for Larry and myself to locate work in New York City.

I have since found out that we can not in fact get married in the State of New York as the Australian Federal Government will not grant us a Certificate of No Impediment to Marry. Now the Prime Minister has come out saying that she's proud of her government's track record on same-sex rights but the real problem as I see it for any Australian citizen who wishes to marry in New York - we are then denied the state rights that New York has for same-sex couples. So effectively we'd be back to square one in terms of our rights, as I would not have any rights in New York as I would not be officially recognised as Larry's partner or the girls' parent.

I'm requesting your help on my own behalf to have this matter investigated and if possible to have a Certificate of No Impediment to Marry issued.

Thank you for your time - I honestly appreciate it.

Regards,

Michael Verhoef

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 :)