The world is a little brighter
Life has taken something of a personal, wonderful twist over the last month after my wife Stacey and I welcomed our little girl, Edie, into the world on February 28.
The time since has been in equal parts exhilarating and daunting – something all you veteran parents out there can relate to, I’m sure.
People have babies in their thousands every day. It’s nothing new, nothing groundbreaking, but when it happens to you it feels like the entire world has paused for just a moment.
All of a sudden, Edie is our universe – even if she doesn’t know it yet.
She came four weeks early and weighing just 2.1kgs – certainly not what we expected when you consider both her parents stand at six feet tall. She has some catching up to do.
What a champion she is though – arriving before the NRL season to avoid any future birthdays being held in the Western Grandstand of Panthers Stadium.
So yes, life has changed and I’ve quickly learned babies do not share my love of routine and schedules. That’ll take some getting used to.
But with every smile, every new reaction and even every cry, we fall in love with her more. A moment of frustration, tiredness or exhaustion can be wiped away in an instant when she falls asleep on your chest, or suddenly shows off a newly acquired skill (usually something as impressive as burping or having a bath without screaming).
Her arrival has put plenty into perspective too.
The staff at Nepean Private Hospital were nothing short of extraordinary, as were those who helped us from across the road at Nepean Public.
It was a reminder of how incredibly lucky we are in this country to have the health system that we do, albeit one we often complain about.
The follow-up services, most government-funded, are a reminder that beyond the Canberra and Macquarie Street bubbles and the antics of Question Time, we do some extraordinary things as a society that you wouldn’t even know existed without going through this process.
It puts into perspective too those not as lucky as my wife and I.
While I have always felt devastated for those who lost babies through either miscarriage or stillbirth, that is much further pronounced now and is looked at through a totally different sphere.
And I guess that proves that all of this is an education, and one that I presume will keep delivering in the years and decades to come.
For now, dirty nappies are life and baby stores are the new Bunnings.
And I can’t finish this column without mentioning how brilliant my wife has been through all of this.
In a month where we’ve celebrated International Women’s Day and witnessed women stand up across the country in huge numbers at marches, I’ve watched the most important woman in my life go on something of a roller coaster ride – both before and after Edie’s arrival.
She’s taken every step in her stride, whether it be unexpected stints in hospital, the inevitable sleep deprivation or the fact that a tiny human now relies on her to continue breathing and surviving.
Modern parenting may see dads involved way more than in the past, but there is little that can take away the physical and emotional toll on a new mother.
I’ll forever be in awe.