DAD MODE: ON ✅

6 weeks of Xander.

Dec 03, 2025

6 weeks ago I became a Dad.

We welcomed Xander into the world on 21/10 at 11.09pm.

It was a new moon and one of the busiest nights of the year at the hospital. So busy, they nearly had to close the doors.

There’s too much to say.

How I’ve become a Dad, but I already was one to Teddy. How after losing a baby there are feelings of guilt that occasionally darken this experience.

The birth. The most magical, primitive, primal experience I’ve ever been part of. Front row seats at the most incredible natural moment on earth. The spellbinding love I feel and felt for Sarah in that moment.

Then holding Xander in my arms, hearing his fleshy cry. Knowing my whole life changed in that instant. Feeling like a totally different person.

I could write on all of this. On the purpose I’ve felt ever since. On how our house now feels totally different. How baby clothes cover the radiators. How all the baby kit costs £179. How there’s such a culture of fear and fear-mongering in parenting and the healthcare system.

There’s too much to say.

And yet, there’s so much undiscovered and unexplored too. I feel a deep love, commitment and responsibility. My connection and relationship with Xander is still forming. In my heart I feel the sprouting seeds of a love that is unbridled, I feel him soaking into my skin, but there’s still much more to go.

There’s a world opening up in me that it’s too early to speak to. I’m at the edge of a new map and I can’t quite say yet all the ways in which this new passage of life will change me.

I just know it already has.

The concoction of emotions is crazy. Everything from deep gratitude to severe exhaustion. The chaos is wild. Going from black sludge in a nappy to the most beautiful cuddles on your chest. Watching grandparents fall in love and go daft, knowing that when we shut the door to say goodbye to visitors he’ll scream the house down and we wonder when we’ll sleep again?

There’s too much to say.

What I can say with certainty is that I have changed. New achievement unlocked. Dad mode: On. Something went ping in my head the moment he came safely out. A switch flicked.

For the first 3 weeks I was on an absolute high, pure adrenaline. I was charging around the house carrying a moses basket, breast pump and nappy caddy all under one arm, draped in muslin cloths, taking two stairs at a time.

I felt alive with direction and purpose. I loved the newness of everything.

Now, 6 weeks in and reality is beginning to sink in. He’s not going anywhere. There is no end to this race. I can rush to get us to bed as early as possible, but it doesn’t matter, because we’ll be doing this every night now in some form for many years.

There’s too much to say.

But, it is sinking in.

We were really ready for this to happen, losing a baby was like the ultimate cruelty - giving us a taste of what we wanted, but taking it away from us. The flip side for our relationship with Xander is that our hearts were ready and the doors of gratitude were wide open. We feel so lucky to just have a healthy, happy baby. Everything else is fine. Like Grandma says, no parent ever died from tiredness.

The whole journey so far for me has been one big lean into acceptance. Embracing it all. I know that I could make our experience of parenthood very hard by resisting what this really is. If I long for the times I slept 8 hours, went to the gym, played Padel and meditated every day I’m going to make life really painful for myself. I’m not clinging on to my old life. I’m living in a new one. That doesn’t mean I want to forget and forego who I was and what I enjoyed doing. It’s just that this is so new, so intensely different that to survive and appreciate it I have to fully fully accept all that this is. Everything from poonami’s when you don’t want them, to him waking up 5 mins after we’ve put him down at 3 in the morning. Those “hard” bits are the ticket into the stadium, where you get to witness a new life unfold.

The bad bits are so easy to describe; “tired”, “hard”, “no time for yourself” - the good bits are so good you need to be a poet to put it all into words. Mesmerising.

My intention for parenting and fatherhood is simple; “no moaning”. We lost a baby and I refuse to moan about having one. It can be hard. I can be tired. Our relationship can be strained. Holidays may never be the same again. We can feel anger, sadness, frustration, burnout - whatever we want on the emotions wheel. But I won’t moan about this. I won’t moan about the greatest gift on earth.

If I feel myself wanting to moan. To resist the situation. To blame him. To zone out. I take a breath and look at him. I look at this beautiful, precious, fragile, helpless baby that can’t yet meet his own needs. Who is completely reliant on us. I look at him, take a breath and remember how grateful I am to even be here and that we actually wanted this. We chose this. So get on with it, pick him up and give him the cuddle he needs to feel safe.

I’m pretty certain my views, feelings and objectives about everything in my life are about to change. Like I said, I’m a different James.

The world already looks different. I never appreciated how that stretch of Meaford Road on the walk we always do, doesn’t have a pavement. I never thought about how rank our old kettle was. I never appreciated what the schools might be like in Stone. I never thought; “how many days a week will I want to work when Xander is 2?”

It’s a new me. A new world. A new life.

Welcome Xander.

Cheers,
James x

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