Member-only story
Software Development and Fatherhood
How I raised twins and built things during a global pandemic
In the wee morning hours of September 1 last year, my wife and I welcomed our babies, a set of boy and girl twins, into this world. At 38 weeks of pregnancy, they arrived right on time, and if you do the math you’ll note these were not lockdown babies — they were conceived right before COVID-19 started to change everything.
At the time of writing, they were just over six months old. Since then, our lives have been transformed — everything has been turned upside down! Having kids is the best thing that has happened to us, but it would be remiss of me not to point out that this miraculous change of pace came with a large set of challenges, both anticipated and unexpected.
Read on to hear about my experience of what it's like for a software developer to become a parent of twins during a global pandemic.
Background
Since this is a completely personal account, here’s a bit about myself. I’m a software engineer. More accurately, I self-identify as a problem solver. I like playing games, mostly (but not exclusively) of the digital kind. Games, to me, are fun problem-solving exercises and prepared my mindset for a career in software development early on. My wife and I moved to Canada in 2015. Other things you need or may want to know about me include the following:
- I love my family and friends — my loved ones are always my first priority.
- I genuinely enjoy my work — programming, to me, can be relaxing at the right time, and there are few things more satisfying than tracking down and fixing an elusive bug.
- I am pretty career-driven and am always looking to get better at what I’m doing, both in hard and soft skills.
- I do and always have preferred quiet environments, just like my wife.
- We are a pet-friendly household: our collection of pets include a corgi, a rabbit, a bearded dragon, and 18 tarantulas.
Alright, with that background out of the way, let's start the story already.
