If you asked me how I survived this period, I can tell you: "I do not know".
All I remember is that the period of elation of the first two weeks passed quickly (the period I had as paternity leave).
After that I managed to delegate some things at work for another three weeks. But after five weeks I felt I had to go back to the real world. This on top of not sleeping enough and being worried about the health of my twin baby girl who developed a nasty rash. She was vomiting if she drank her milk too quickly. She could not sleep much either.
Then the wife and I got worried because our twin girl also developed a flat spot in her head. And our twin boy was turning his head only to one side.
So I went back to 'normal' life but in fact I was all the time in an emergency mode. And I felt that I had no choice.
Wife and I spent most of the time at home. Friends who wanted to visit were told we could meet them later. We wanted our twins to get used to sleep and to a kind of routine we were advised to establish.
Family living abroad got tired of trying to talk to us. I initially felt I needed to tell them everything about the twins, show them in Skype chats, and send pictures. After a while I could not cope anymore.
And on top of all this, there were the medical appointments, visits to the GP whenever we felt something was not right, doing the food shopping, a bit of cleaning, trying to do some physical exercise, keeping up with what was going on in the world.
All of this proved to be too much to bear.
Wife and I started to argue more. Silly things made me get angry. I became very sensitive, to the point of crying if I watched a TV programme about a family or about children in difficulties.
Yes, things have got better, we sleep more, the twins do not need to be fed at night anymore. The old mantra that this was temporary could be true.
I would not like to be back feeling the same way, and know that this can happen again if I am not careful.
Now I am not trying to achieve too much on the day. I try to be very very conservative with my energy. And I have been able to say no to many things.
In retrospective this means I had to let go of a fast living life. It was fast not because it was happening very quickly but because it required me to think and act quickly, to keep thinking, talking to others.
Now I try to be mindful of things, as I was advised to do.
This is what I call recovery mode. It involves not doing much. It also involves not getting emotionally committed to others than your twins and wife. Some people might tell you they desperately need you. Not true. If they love you and know your situation, they will understand and will ease your emotional workload. They will respect your time, and they will not ask you do be there for them.
So make sure you get close to the right sort of people, because you are in a recovery mode.
My only advice now for dads is: try to live more in recovery mode and less in emergency mode.
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