“It doesn´t matter how pretty a name you get, you still get to be called Korvas (Korv means sausage in Swedish)". On the paper her name is Edith, Moa, Harry.
It feels like an eternity now, although only ten months have passed. But I remember how incredibly nervous and excited I was the first time I was going to be alone with Korvas and be responsible for making sure that she got her food properly. The first two weeks after her birth both of us were at home, then Lisa started to work part time. A couple of times we followed her to work, with a little kit containing a cooling bag, electric milk warmer and half defrosted breast milk in bottles. It felt safer to know that if the feeding didn´t work out, the breasts would be at hand.
The insecurity I felt was enhanced greatly by the skeptical reactions we got from other people. No one really believed that we would make it work, and frequent comments like “What? Are you not going to breastfeed!?" were uttered. Breastfeeding is such a touchy subject. There is a pressure of how it should be done, how often and above all how joyful it must be, a gift to the woman. Poor, poor those mothers who, for some reason, can´t breastfeed. Not to mention those mothers who can´t appreciate the divine joy of feeding from their blood dripping nipples to the sound of a hungry, madly screaming baby.
I had no problems in feeding Korvas from the bottle and rapidly gained enough confidence to be entirely alone with her. And the satisfaction of proving everyone wrong was enormous. Open mouths and surprised faces on the skeptical bastards who said a father can´t take care of his newborn. My daughter and I went were ever we liked, all over town. We just made sure that we weren’t too far away from a socket, when dinner time was getting close. The ridiculously expensive milk warmer we bought has been worth every penny and it has been worth every minute of pouring breast milk into ice cube bags and freezing and defrosting and labeling and boiling and washing up little bottles a million times.
I also think it has given Korvas a happier mom and dad.