my daughter was born 12/7/12 at 2:03 pm. was a little scary as the wife went from 4 cm dialated to 9 in about 15 minutes. but overall it was a great experience. tonight is the first night back from the hospital and we are... friggen wiped. but she's beautiful so who cares. anyways, i'm taking TECHNICALLY 4 weeks of paternity leave but i'm staggering it a little. i'm taking one full week off and then i'm doing 3 weeks of part time. i'm a drug and alcohol counselor at a supportive living facility so things aren't quite so cut and dry for my leave. me not being there doubles the workload of everyone else so this way i can still meet with my clients and lighten the load a little. and as other fathers have said... newborns sleep a lot. i'm not gonna be missing much for the 4 hours that i'm away. and it also gives me some time away from the family to... you know.. speak with adults.
*edit
yeah, i feel bad because my wife is breast feeding so while there's definately things for me to do, my wife is the one getting NOOOO sleep. she's gotta get up every 45 minutes cuz the little vampire can't get enough it seems. so while i'm getting an average of about 6 hours of sleep (albeit, broken up throughout the night), the wife is getting close to 3 at best.