Day One:
Day...Six months minus three days:
I got an e-mail in June from a friend of mine who has 3 year old twins. She said that she didn't expect to hear back from me for many months, but wished me luck. The twins were a few weeks old at the time, and I thought, Oh, no! I will surely write back to her before months have passed! You guessed it: I still have not written back to her (Hi, Lindsey!)
There are so many things that I want to write about having twins. Mostly so that I can remember this phase when I am old and gray. It has been amazing and awful and crazy and challenging with moments of utter brilliance smattered in between long periods of hazy exhaustion. (Spell check tells me that "smattered" isn't a word, but I don't care. Take that, spell check!!)
So, in no particular order (and certainly not comprehensive), How I Have Changed in the Last Six Months:
Physically
Friends. Neighbors. Countrymen. You just don't recover from this:
Mentally
One does not make it through medical school and residency without having at least a modicum of OCD and mental fortitude. With approximately 13,000 new words to learn plus tons of new concepts and about a billion other things (see how my numbers snowball from realistic to ludicrous? I love the drama.) you have to come up with a way of organizing all the stuff rattling around in your head. More like "all the stuff packed to bursting" in your head. There is no headroom for rattling in medical school. So you quickly learn some mad organizational skills to keep up with the mental gymnastics required.
Fast forward to about 4 years into your post-training life, and that modicum of OCD has drifted away, replaced by a fluid organizational scheme, that is a lot more flexible and mercurial (aka scattered).
Fast forward about 38 weeks more, and suddenly those organizational skills are needed again. Otherwise, you might find yourself saying "who pooped today? I know I've changed three poopy diapers. But whose were they?" all too often. Having twins has required a return to some of my mental gymnastics and ball keeping-in-the-air-ing that having one baby did not necessitate. Made all the harder by the constant screaming and lack of sleep.
Emotionally
Believe it or not, the most emotionally challenging aspect of the past six months is something that barely caused a blip on the emotional radar with Marian. Not to put too fine a point on it: I failed at nursing my twins.
Before they were born, I'd idly say, "Oh, well I had no problems breastfeeding Marian! I had plenty of milk! Feeding twins should be fine! And think of the calories I'll burn!!"
We did okay in the hospital.
We did okay for the first few days at home.
We did okay through their first check up.
Then they just nursed and cried and nursed and cried and didn't really sleep, so I didn't really sleep. I spent several nights trying to fall asleep in the chair with a baby on either side of me, on and off latching and sucking. It sucked (pun intended!), but I was determined. I could do it! I was doing it, gosh darn it! At their two week check up, they were both down a pound from birth weight. I was devastated.
I successfully fought off tears when I gave them their first bottle of formula.
I successfully fought off tears when they actually got some decent sleep for the first time ever.
I successfully fought off tears when I realized that they'd simply been hungry, not the fussy babies I thought we'd been blessed with.
But over the next few weeks of nursing and pumping and crying and mixing bottles and trying to use an SNS and crying and weighing pre- and post feeds and reading about breastfeeding and crying and taking all the supplements under the sun and crying, I finally accepted that we weren't going to have the happy little triad of tandem nursing that I had dreamed of. It was hard to give up, but was ultimately the best decision for the whole family. I still pump for them - I fall into a category of moms known as "exclusive pumpers." I like the "exclusive" title - I think it is the first time I've been included in anything exclusive! (and yes, I do have a birdhouse in my soul)
Vehicularly (another non-word, according to spell check)
I now feel comfortable driving an SUV. Never thought that would happen. I can't park to the right very well, but I can't do that in my Camry either.
Personally
Having any child can be rough on a relationship. Crazily more so when the babies come in multiples. Parenting three kids under the age of three is not easy. Marc and I rarely have time to utter more than a few words of a conversation before someone needs something. Some of our conversations are just grunts and gestures.
"Ugh?"
"Uh-huh."
"Oh."
Knowing head nod.
I see how he is with the kids, though, even when he is having an all-three-kids-have-been-screaming-at-me-all-day-and-all-I-want-is-to-bury-my-head-in-the-pillow-and-scream-myself sort of day. He is such a good dad, and seeing him with all our kids together gives me the good sort of tears, and makes me so happy to have him. And I really look forward to getting to know him again, and to having real life conversations when the kids are older!
Careerly - (seriously, spell check, I can't just turn any word into an adverb?)
I learned a LOT about breastfeeding during the first few months. I read every article I could find, I watched a ton of how-to videos, and I trialed every sort of galactogogue I could get my hands on. This has absolutely translated to my career.
One small thing that I have changed, that means SO so much to me as a mother, but meant nothing to me as a doctor - I no longer ask: "does your baby formula or breast feed?" Because the answer isn't always one or the other. I now ask "does your baby take formula, breast milk or both?" A simple change, but it acknowledges that there are different ways to feed babies.
There is so much emphasis put on breastfeeding, and I agree that it is the best food for babies to get - it is free, it is personalized to each baby and it doesn't require any dishes. But it is NOT always the best choice for the mom-baby pair. And it is NOT always easy. I get that now, in a way I never would have if I hadn't had these twins.
Grammatically
I have always overused exclamation points (see: the bulk of this post as well as every other post I've written ever.) It seems that after having two babies at one time (!), I have even more cause to exclaim things. Like: They are both crying! Sammy has four teeth! Tommy spit up on me! Again!
I have noticed recently, that one exclamation point is not enough. Since I exclaim so much at baseline, I now use two exclamation points for when I REALLY want to exclaim. Like:All three kids are asleep!! Sometimes, I even move to three exclamation points. It's bad, people. I may need an intervention. OR, I will start using El Rey.
Circadian-ly (I subverted spell check by adding a hyphen. I win!)
Never did I think that six consecutive hours of sleep in a row would feel like a vacation. Even during my ICU rotations I'd get the merciful days and weekends off. Babies don't give you days off. Stupid babies.
Perspectively
I still think having your first baby is a harder transition to make. Going from no children to one is an entire shift in everything in your life. A paradigm shift, one might say, if one wasn't afraid of sounding too pretentious.
Wanna go out to dinner? Vacation? Ice skating? What are you doing with the baby?
Want to watch a movie with lots of violence and blood and swears? Is it baby appropriate?
Have a hangover? Guess who doesn't!
Having twins is hard, but we had already been through a lot of this with Marian. The difference is that it is amplified now. It is not better. It is not worse. It is very different. It really has changed the way I look at things, though I find it hard to put in to words. We thought things were hard with Marian. But we didn't know how hard it could be. So, I guess, it has given me an understanding that things really always could be harder. And also that we can do more than we think we can.
I get asked/told a lot - "I don't know how you do it!" There isn't an answer to that non-question. You just do what you do, and hope that you get some decent human beings out of it!
And now: Pictures.
