I remember reading about the Latte Pappa’s or Latte Daddies a few years ago, a phenomenon in Nordic countries and imagined bringing my own kid to my favourite quay side café for an oat flat white, and a baby chino, to meet up with other dads. A dream at the time but as we’ve begun to work out the complex and expensive path to start our family via surrogacy I expected there to be an equivalent to the 26 weeks’ maternity and adoptive leave. Time enough to form a bond with a new born and interrupt an eight hour a night sleep pattern.

As it turns out here in Ireland we’d only be entitled to up to six weeks Paternity Leave. With both of us working it’s something we’ll need to work out but the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill 2022, that’s due to go before government this year, may change that. Back in December, I was on a webinar hosted by a group of surrogacy advocates and who were answering some open questions when a Senator involved in the campaign, mentioned that changes might be introduced by the Department of Social Welfare after the AHR legislation is eventually enacted. Hope!

There is already a few companies stepping up and recognising the many different ways to start a family, and offering similar time away to maternity and adoptive leave in their benefits packages. I’m hoping for the same at work and have come out advocating for it. Unusually for me I’ve never been as forthright about anything so much in my life up to this point. Maybe it’s the idyllic imagined future of me sipping an oat flat white from my thermal Keepcup whilst guiding a pushchair with kid on board that’s spurring me to go outside my comfort zone.

RM

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/nov/18/swedish-latte-pappa-shared-childcare

#surrogacy

Blogging about a surrogacy journey my husband and I began in 2021.