our journey had a bit of a rough start. physically the girls were great. i made it all the way to 38 weeks, 4 days and they were born strong and full of life. my all natural labor and delivery plans were a success so physically i was great too. emotions were another thing. oy. i was all over the place.
by the time my amazing momma came to help at two weeks (anthony had to go back to work at that point), i was crying day and night and 100% convinced i was dealing with postpartum depression. she stayed for two and a half weeks and so many of those 17 nights were spent with us both walking the floor with crying babies. bouncing. patting. singing. walking. nursing again...and again. sleep was rare. she was incredible. i was a puddle. we pushed through. about half way through her stay, i started to feel ever-so-slightly stronger, but then the reality of her leaving hit me hard and i was right back where i was before she got here. all i could think of was, "how in the world am i going to do this solo (anthony works at night)?
there were so many nights (and days to be honest) when i felt totally numb. like i couldn't make anyone happy. not the girls, not nolan, not myself. we would all be crying at nap and bed times because there just wasn't enough of me to go around and then i felt guilty. how could i have done this to nolan? how could i have taken away his place as the sole recipient of my love and made him share me? having siblings is awesome, right? i guess just not at bedtime, when you are three, your siblings are two newborns and you're used to mommy laying with you until you fall asleep (damn my sick/sleepy/sore pregnancy thwarting my plans to get him to sleep on his own). i started, and this is totally awful but true, regretting our decision to grow our family. and then i would feel guilty about that. how could i regret the two amazing little miracles that i had just brought into the world?
i had to figure a way out of what seemed like a quickly growing black hole that i was terrified i was going to fall deeper into at any moment. when the girls were three weeks, i loaded them up and headed out to a mom's group. it was a moderately crazy idea and a fairly huge undertaking, but i survived. thank you, kimberly d. for holding one of my babies throughout most of our group and for propping my elbow up with one million pillows as i tried for the first time to tandem nurse them while sitting cross legged on the floor sans boppy or brestfriend pillow. oy...that was a tricky one. all the madness was totally worth it. i experienced so much love and strength in that room with those 20ish other mommas. there is seriously something incredible about the energy of a room full of loving mommas and babes. i felt renewed and experienced a (slight) boost in my confidence. it definitely wasn't the end of my dark tunnel, but i was beginning to see a tiny glimmer of light at the end.
the trouble is/was that typically i'm not a person who accepts the idea of a learning curve for myself. i want to be awesome at whatever i'm doing right from the start. ahem...let me tell you...twin newborns come with a steep learning curb for mom. ha! over the next few...who am i kidding...MANY weeks, i had highs and lows. in my lows i would weep and turn to my amazing, amazing, amazing group of momma friends surrounding me. each time they would build me back up. without the out pouring of support that our family received during this time, i'm quite certain i would have completely broke. food deliveries. visitors. play dates. goodies. donated doula hours. you name it, my "village" came through. blew my mind. still blows it, quite frankly. with all their love, i scraped by...little by little, one hour at a time.
i would say that the real turning point for me came at one week ago after a particular crappy night with very, very little sleep. i started a blog that night at 3:30am while i was up nursing. it took me the next day, the next night and the beginning of another day to finish it as i have little time to sit at a computer and type (right now i'm stupidly forgoing sleep to type and will probably regret it tomorrow...luckily i'm going back to moms group! ha!) so i typed it on my phone. i titled it "this too shall pass". when i started writing it, i didn't much like that phrase. by the end of the post and after a little more reflection, i somehow warmed up to it a bit, saw the value in it a bit and even found comfort in it a bit. something happened as i hashed everything all out on "paper". i came to terms with my current reality. shit (pardon me) is going to be hard right now. i'm not going to sleep. i'm going to be exhausted. babies are going to cry. nolan is going to have moments that he struggles. but as long as i remain loving and give it all i've got... as long as i keep breathing... as long as i keep (figuratively) putting one foot in front of the other... as long as i do all that, time will pass. we will make it through.
someday i will sleep again. someday i will miss them needing me at all at the same time. someday they will be grown and gone. and hopefully someday my babes will sit around the dinner table after eating some delicious holiday meal and they will laugh and play games. they will remember growing up together and how much fun it was. and if we can get there, i will have succeeded at this wonderful, rewarding and often times incredibly difficult job of motherhood.
here's hoping.
happy two month birthday (yesterday), my sweet little girls. i love you with all that i am. thank you for teaching me so much in such a short period of time. i can't wait to watch you grow. xoxo
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| meeting brother - one day old |
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| snuggles - 5 days old |
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| first mom's group - 3 weeks |
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| lilah's first bath with bro |
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| nolan and alice lovies |
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| lilah confiding in big bro |
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| girl talk |
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| my babes - lilah, nolan, alice - 2 months & 3 years 3.5 months |
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