Time flies isnt it ?
I still remember the day when my daughter was born in December 2020….It was a stressful period for me. After a long and arduous 6 plus years of training I was sitting for the final hurdle of the Fellowship examination FRCS….with my wife heavily pregnant with our first kid. It was the height of coivd and we did not have any help. At that point in my life I was a surgical trainee in a certain east asian country. We had just applied for visa for my mother to come over to help us with the baby – needless to say that both my wife were total newbies to the world of taking care of babies….I mean it was reasonable that we request to apply for visa for one of our parents to help. It did not take long for us to get a reply -” After careful consideration of facts” ( which facts I am still curious to know) our application was rejected!
Oh well what could go wrong ? I braced myself. 15th Of December 2020 was last oral examination day – I was hoping that wife would not go into labour while I was in the exam ! I had nothing else on my mind , Just get in with the exam, come home, pick up wife and get to the hospital 🙂
16th Decemeber dawned and I got the official email that I passed in the morning , and evening she gave birth to our daughter – What an incredible day it turned out to be :).
I had “three” whole days of paternity leave to enjoy my new born baby….yes you read it correct – not one, not two but Three days! Apprently the rules said that if you are a PR of a citizen you can get more but if you are an Emplyment pass holder like me, your entitlement is three days. Needless to say that things were stressful – Wife suffered lactation failure so we had to bottle feed the baby 😦
Things have been different this time around ….. I am no longer in that ” amazing ” part of the world. Fast forward 2 years – I have qualified, accepted a consultancy and moved to the “west” and settled . Wife was expecting our son.
I am still not a permanent resident or a citizen , but I was allowed full 2 weeks of paternity leave….On top of that all my senior colleagues encouraged me to take one more week of annual leave on top of paternity leave to ” enjoy the baby”. Even when I attempted to log in to any work meetings from home , people said ” no you have better things to do “. This is despite a very challenging workforce situation at work.
We applied for a Visa for my mother and application was accepted without any fuss , I do not think the visa officers “carefully considered the facts” that their counterparts in a different setting did 2 years ago. So My Mother is helping out with the baby too! Wife seems much more relaxed and is successfully breast feeding the baby!!
The approach to life , the difference in culture and attitude in these 2 settings still amazes me 🙂
Yeah for sure I would have earned “more money” if I stayed on….but would you ?
Catch you soon!
LBS
Surgery-the good bad and ugly 