abc family

Twice Tired

When Blaise was new, it was rough. Some mom had told me that having two little ones was the hardest, while others opined that three was the hardest (everyone agreed it got easier as you had more kids and the big ones got bigger). 

I remember thinking, I bet two will be the hardest for us. I can only imagine it getting easier from now on.

Ha. Hahahahahaha. Ha ha ha.

To be fair to my 2009 self, I think that if we had one newborn right now it would be slightly easier than it was last time.

But we don't. We have two.

Having tiny twins is weird. It is an I-can't-believe-we-got-this-lucky blessing. It is a how-on-earth-will-we-survive-this challenge. Depending on the time of day, my mood, and how many little people are screaming, it is everything in between.

From the beginning, parenthood has been bootcamp for my character. It is strength training and endurance training and it has shown me over and over how much I can do.

Ten years ago I had trouble heaving myself out of bed to make a 9am class. These days I wake up at 3am, pump, feed a baby, burp a baby, settle a baby, start to doze off myself, jump up and run to the other room to soothe the 2-year-old, come back, start to doze off again, sit up to deal with a tiny fussbudget and then with his brother, finally catch 45 minutes of half-sleep with a baby on my chest, then drag myself out of bed to do the whole thing over again because - surprise! - it's 6am now.

And the next day I will somehow manage to nurse, change diapers, mediate sibling disputes, pour cups of milk and juice, kiss boo-boos, prepare lunches, pick up toys, give big-kid cuddles, figure out what's for dinner even if it's just nachos again, read stories and sing bedtime songs and finally fall into bed praying to catch an hour and a half of sleep before it's time to do yet another feeding.

My eighteen-year-old self would not recognize me.

Having a high-needs firstborn got me in shape, but twins is what will turn me into a marathoner. Hopefully. Or else I'll be a blithering shell of a person by the time Ambrose and Linus are a year old.

Tuesday night I was trudging through the ten zillion steps necessary before we can go to bed, and Bryan came into the bedroom and asked if he could help. And suddenly I was soaking his shoulder while I sobbed about how the work never ends. Truly, never. That's the case any time you have a new baby but with twins it's even more so, and I am beyond exhausted and overwhelmed.

In my good moments I can recognize that this is a season. It will pass. And look how far we've come already.

One week old (Linus on left, Ambrose on right):

Four weeks old (Ambrose on left, Linus on right):

Six weeks old (Ambrose on left, Linus on right):

But I can't always remember that time is actually passing, can't feel it when I'm getting so little sleep that two hours in a row feels like a luxury, can't imagine my little guys sitting up or walking or talking or being anything but tiny super-needy infants because that is the only way I've known them. Rationally, I'm aware that Linus and Ambrose will grow, that things will change, that it will get easier. But often in the neverending grind grind grind, it does not feel that way.

When people ask how we are doing, I tell them we are making it. I try to smile, because I do adore these sweet baby boys of mine. But I usually can't keep from sighing, too. 

I wonder when the sigh will go away.

Milk

As of yesterday both Ambrose and Linus have been home from the hospital longer than they were there. In the blur of caring for two newborns and their older siblings (FOUR children. We have FOUR children!) our relatively short NICU stay is fading fast, but there is still one concrete reminder of it in the hospital-grade breastpump perched on the nightstand in our bedroom.

We brought it home when I was one day postpartum, still IV-fluids-puffy and stitches-sore, and to my hormone-flooded self it symbolized everything that was wrong with the situation. We were supposed to have two carseats in the backseat, and instead we had this machine that was supposed to get the babies' food out since they weren't here to do it. I was pumping only tiny bits of colostrum at that point, and that squat yellow pump mocked me with its whirring.

But the next day the tears brought my milk in, and I made a truce with the pump. I couldn't be with Linus and Ambrose most of the time, but here was something I could do for them from home. So I met with the pump every three hours and started enjoying the nurses' raised eyebrows when they saw the number of bottles I was bringing in. I filled our section of the NICU fridge, then a bin in the freezer, then another. After a week and a half, they told me I should stop bringing milk with me when I came.

(Triumph! But it felt strange to go see my babies empty-handed, and I was so glad to bring them home a few days later and start giving them milk directly.)

I told myself during my pregnancy that the one thing I wasn't worried about was breastfeeding. Nursing, maybe, since the babies could likely be born pre-term and have trouble latching, but I was sure I could at least provide breastmilk for them. In the past my oversupply had been epic, even painful, and I felt confident that my body would meet the challenge of feeding twins.

But then our babies were born more preterm than I'd expected, and I found myself able to pump only a few milliliters of colostrum at a time, and a nurse who examined me on day two told me my milk wasn't even starting to come in (she was wrong), and I started feeling panicky. I knew rationally that not being able to provide 100% breastmilk for preemie twins would be no huge failure. But my babies were lying in isolettes at the hospital and I needed to do this for myself as much as for them. 

Thus my relief when my body did meet the challenge. Here was something it could do right! My pump and I, in our new friendship, overachieved on behalf of those babies. I pushed myself to increase supply, so that by the end of my little guys' hospital stay I was producing roughly twice what they were eating each day. It was completely unnecessary, but it was my coping mechanism.

When we brought Ambrose home, we also brought a cooler with half a gallon of frozen milk in it. We stuck the little bottles in the deep freezer with the rest, a total of about 100 little 2-0z bottles of milk.

Since they got home, Linus and Ambrose have been nursing (more about that later) and drinking freshly pumped milk, gaining weight like the little champions they are.

Meanwhile, 200 ounces of breastmilk are hanging out in our freezer. When I spot them, I chuckle at my three-weeks-ago self, pumping all that extra milk.

But at the same time, I know exactly what she was thinking. She needed to do something hard, something extra, for her babies in the hospital, and it was the best thing she could come up with.

My babies didn't need the milk, but I did.

I wasn't thrilled with my body for letting Linus and Ambrose come out early, but as it works hard to nourish them and delivers beautifully, I'm starting to make peace with it again.

I look at the milk in the freezer and think, Thanks, body. You've done well.