When Grace was born I sobbed, I held her for the first hour of her life while they stitched Dee up and she opened her eyes and I fell in love with her. Right from the start I was the one who could get her to sleep, I was the one who burped her. She slept on my chest as I played GTA IV.

When Aimee was born I didn’t cry, I didn’t fall in love with her. I felt…almost indifferent to her. I burp her (much tougher to do so than Grace was), and she will fall asleep on me but it gave me none of the pleasure I got from Grace.

There was an instant bond with Grace, there was none with Aimee. Dee breastfeeds and Aimee is a hungry child so the opportunity for me to hold her is more limited. Guests called, and held my child during feeding breaks, I played with Grace, making sure she didn’t feel left out.

I didn’t tell Dee about my feelings, I figured it’d work itself out, a second child is obviously going to be different to my first time.The second week of my holiday, I figured, the visitors would have stopped and I’d get a chance to hold her, have her sleep on me, burp her, feed her.Proper time, time to create the bond.

Then work rang. They needed me back a week early, my week with Aimee was gone, our week was gone.I went back to work and it was horrible. I got to work to find there was no real reason for me to be there, I could easily have had the week off. They needed me there so they could do less work, knowing I’d take up the slack.

I came home with a headache each day, a headache aggravated by two children and a tired, emotionally shattered wife. Bond? What bond? I didn’t talk to Dee about work, tried to keep it from her, but that made me sullen and non-talkative . So I talked, but I was snippy and sarcastic. She didn’t deserve that, I knew that which made me feel worse.

I offered to take Aimee out for a walk each night so Dee could get some sleep after feeding her.It would get me out of the house, and it was something I used to do with Grace.

On the second of our night walks, Aimee started crying and wouldn’t stop when I was over a mile from home. I took her out of the pram and held her to me, and I talked to her, and she stopped crying and I looked at her and I apologised to her and I kissed her. I walked with her, talked to her and she looked at me, and I fell in love.

She smiled at me today, a big grin when I did something silly, and it wasn’t wind like it is when Dee says she smiled, it was a proper smile. I love her very much.And that love is growing every day.

Then she shat on me. And later she puked on me. Little sod.