#dadlad

Each week during my taxi shifts I can be out of the house 2 or 3 evenings for a few hours at a time with Caelan’s football. Unfortunately, I don’t get paid to drive him everywhere, but Caelan definitely puts me through my paces for it. With a new arrival in the house, we need to think about how it would all work logistically.

Now, we’re only 5 weeks in, but I thought it would be nice to give Kasia those 2 hours on a Friday evening to do whatever she wanted. So I offered to take Ava with me. Half an hour there, hour session, half an hour back. Only 2 hours, it will be alright won’t it?

It was planned in advance to ensure Ava was fed, watered and ready to help me out in the build up. I had my super cool and stylish baby back pack, bottle of milk should she need a top up and my manly carrier as the day before she slept pretty well in there. I felt I was ready.

Just before we leave, the cry comes. It’s a really strong cry. Sounds like she wants to bring houses down with it. It started as we were leaving the house. The car seat made it worse. But I was on a tight schedule so I wasn’t looking to delay any further.

20 minutes of the car journey – crying. Each push of a cry was a jab to the head. Pounding away at mine and Caelan’s. Occasionally, we just turned to each other in silence, taking in each others’ pain.

After 20 minutes, she had fallen asleep. Soothed herself through the peaceful tones of crying. Me and Caelan finally had a conversation.

We got to football on time. Just. Caelan set off. I had different plans. Not before she woke up and began crying. Again.

I assembled my body armour, which by the way is pretty difficult to have on and place the baby into. However, I gathered myself and popped her in. Tears continuing, just a lot closer to my face and ears now. She settled in there really well before so I hoped as soon as I started walking this would be the case. It wasn’t.

Purposely not standing near any other parents to save face and not make them think I don’t know what I’m doing…because I had no idea what I was doing. About 15 minutes in and there was no sign of the tears stopping. Trying not to panic and not distract the lads and the coach in their season I headed inside where there were some changing rooms. I went in, with no one else around luckily. I put the bag down and got out my pre-prepared bottle to feed Ava with.

I settled down, and fed her. It worked, she was feeding and there was a brief moment of silence. In this moment I let out a big breath and looked up. I was on a wooden bench, in a changing room, holding my baby and a bottle. Not the type of scenario for a place I’m normally in where banter and expletives are flying around.

Anyway, we feed for about 10 minutes and I hope this brings peace with it. I also panicked a little bit encase someone was in the office and locked up, leaving me and Ava by ourselves. This didn’t happen.

Stepped outside. Tears.

They lasted for the rest of the session and 25 minutes more on the journey home.

Me and Caelan returned with headaches and could do nothing but let out a laugh.

Kasia did manage to shower in peace, but understandably wanted to check in with all the details from her first time without Ava by her side.

I’m just going to dive straight into this without the spiel of the whole birth story. The birth story lasted 5 days and deserves its own script to be honest. And that’s what I might end up doing!

3 weeks into our new baby bubble. Minus the first one, so 2 weeks at home. Due to doctors’ orders, Kasia can’t drive for 6 weeks due to emergency C section and insurance. Insurance…who knew? This meant our visits outside of the house had been very minimal. Well not this one. Not that we were going big or anything, but every new parent knows the feeling they have for their first bigger outing.

We were able to do this, on a Tuesday, because I’ve committed to taking a day off a week in August to make up for that first lost week. So here we were. Heading to Primark…where else?

Primark and the shopping park were about 20 minutes away. All of which was fine. It was the preparing to get out of the car where the question of “shall I feed her?” came up. We chose the wrong one. Well, in fact, I chose to feed her, but it’s not my body and I was overruled. We thought if it came up, we would in one of the shops. Family friendly type of shops like Next and M&S.

Seconds into the pram, tears came. Now we’ve learnt that Ava, our baby girl is called Ava, has quite a sharp scream/cry. It continued at a low level in Primark, but we managed to get her the clothes we needed to for the day. Off to M&S for an attempted feed.

I’m a bloke, there’s certain/most things I will never understand. One of these is how Kasia felt going into this situation. A new Mum with the anxiety and pressure of having to breastfeed in public, not knowing where, not knowing how it will go, how people will react and if Ava will cry throughout or not. My mindset was if she cries, she cries. We move. Literally. But what I do understand is that I need to be empathetic to her concerns.

Getting into M&S knowing we need toilets/changing facilities and ultimately the baby section, we found it was of course located on the top (first) floor in the back corner of a very large store. No rap intended. Or was it? Kasia did not want to be succumbed to sitting on a toilet having to breastfeed – again, something I suggested without understanding that feeling. She found a chair on the shop floor and went about something very natural for Ava. It was going okay. I was acting like the personal shopper roaming around the baby section offering outfits I liked, and thought she’d like. She gave me yes, yes and no for these.

The crying unfortunately did not stop. I tried to walk and settle her. To limited success. The eyes on us were beginning to grow. Older Mum’s began speaking to us “ah she looks hungry” as Ava chews on her first. Thank you for that, hadn’t noticed.

The cashier, of course, fucked up the simplest of tasks so then had to return every single item for us to go through the whole process of paying for 8 or so items again. All whilst Ava cried away.

Out of there. Kasia stressed and hating every minute of this outing, was smiling and bantering through what she could. Me, I’m counting how much money I’ve just spent. Fear not, our pram was veering towards Starbucks for lunch. Another battering to my wallet incoming.

Mum’s have this stereotyping of going to coffee shops. For some reason, today, I totally got it. We needed a break, watering and feeding. We tried, ate our food, had our drink, but not without the background music of crying. During which, Kasia was also puked on at which point we couldn’t stop laughing at how well this outing had gone.

We left, got in the car, and drove home to the blissful sounds of Ava crying.