Confession of a Parent of Multiples

I always say that parenthood is 51% awesome and 49% hell. Describing why the 2% difference is so worth it is really hard. There’s a scene in “The Backup Plan” with Jennifer Lopez that I love. Not her best work, but you know anything with twins, I’m all over it. So a dad in the park is trying to explain to the soon-to-be dad of J.Lo’s twins that parenthood is a bunch of awful things with a few amazing things sprinkled in. “It’s awful, awful, awful and then something amazing happens. Then awful, awful, awful.” I have never heard a truer statement in my life! So while we are trying to convince our friends, sisters and brothers that kids are what make our lives worth living, these are the things we do NOT tell them. The things that we think, that keep our feet on the ground.

• I always compare them even though I know I shouldn’t
• If one doesn’t finish the bottle, we let the other have it. Tossing breast milk is a sin.
• If there’s a quiet moment, there is nothing more exciting than sleep.
• I carry mine up and down the stairs in a laundry basket so I don’t have to make two trips.
• Sometimes I let them play in their crib for an extra 5 minutes so I can sleep a little longer.
• We play the ‘whoever cries loudest gets picked up first’ game. The same kid always wins.
• I would rather spoon my kids than my partner.
• The thing that hurt the worst during my twin pregnancy was trading in our paid-off car for a minivan because there wasn’t enough room.
• I haven’t shaved in four weeks. I’m actually pissed that it’s almost summer and shaving is all but mandatory.
• I wish I didn’t have to drive a minivan.
• Most days I am 90% sure I ruined my five-year-old’s life.
• Only the strong survive.
• I have fed both on the changing table in the middle of the night next to poop diapers.
• I have told my babysitter that unless the diaper can be wrung out, do not change it. Diapers are expensive.
• Things I’d rather do than sex: sleep, eat chocolate, pedicure, play on my iPhone, do laundry, go grocery shopping, blink…
• What’s sex?
• I’d take ten minutes to myself with coffee spiked with Kahlua, I still don’t remember sex…
• I’d rather eat a bug than have sex (lol).
• Each night at bedtime we pick a kid, and that kid is yours for the whole night. If my kid was good, I would point and laugh and say, “Should’ve picked a better kid!”
• I secretly cherished the little one’s time in the NICU because it gave me amazing one-on-one with his sister in my room, and uninterrupted time with him in the NICU.
• You really wish the pediatrician would say it’s an ear infection because if this is how this kid acts when she ISN’T sick, holy hell!
• You never, ever feel present enough. Or happy enough. Or attentive enough. Or fair enough. Or clean enough.
• You analyze everything they do and relate it back to “The mom whose kids _________.”
• You never feel like you’re doing it right. But if they’re alive, you know you’re doing it right.

I like to describe having twins like a marathon. It’s hard. It’s hell at times. But the reward and the sense of accomplishment are indescribable. Being a parent of multiples allows you several things: to laugh (mostly to yourself) at parents with only one child, to be completely cynical about parenthood while secretly savoring the tender moments that may be few and far between, and most importantly, to not only have the biggest badge of honor in your heart for what you accomplish every day, but to have it kiss you goodnight. Our kids ROCK! Parents of multiples are selfless, patient and all around awesome! But let’s keep the negative comments to ourselves. We make this look easy, right?!

By Danielle R.

Meet these awesome twins: Love and Je’Taime

Happy Holidays from Twiniversity and Safari Ltd.

Meet Love and Je’Taime

Nominated by: Montia January- mom

Age: 2.5

Home State: MI

What makes your twins rock?!

My twins rock because they are the sweetest little girls ever! They always greet one another with a hug and kiss first thing in the morning. They love wearing pretty dresses and watching Dora. Out of 8 sets of twins on both mine and my husband’s side of the family, they are the only identical set. They love going to church and singing praise and worship songs. They also love swimming and being outdoors. They won’t let me put them to bed at night without reading them at least two books. During story time at our local library they usually sit right in front of the librarian to hear the story.

What is a recent accomplishment?

Learning most of the animals’ names and what sounds the animals make.

A Story of the Perfect Hearts

 

This story is featured in the Spring Issue of Mulitplicity Magazine.

Written by Julie McCaffrey.

“I will never forget our excitement on the day we headed to my ultrasound when I was 19 weeks pregnant with fraternal twins. I will also never forget the sound in the tech’s voice when she said “she couldn’t find something” and left to get the doctor, the looks on the doctor’s faces, the silent comfort from my husband and the feeling I had just been run over by a bus. I left that day with my first of what would turn out to be many lessons on Congenital Heart Disease (CHD), as this was the day that Baby A was diagnosed with Double Outlet Right Ventrical (DORV) with transposition and a large ventricular septal defect (VSD).

I went home that day, gave our 1 year old son a much too big hug and began to research. By the time I was 26 weeks I was at peace with the news and was used to our weekly doctor’s visits. That was until our beloved doctor looked at me and said “Mrs. McCaffrey, I don’t know how to tell you this, but…” and I didn’t hear much else after that. Baby B was not fine, she too had a congenital heart defect and now I felt like that bus had just run me over and then backed up to do it again. In the U.S., one out of 100 babies is born with CHD and I was just told that for some unknown reasons, both my babies had this disease.

By the time I was 36 weeks pregnant, I was more than prepared in all the areas I could control. I knew every possible scenario for what my children were about to face and felt I had done everything possible to prepare our home. I stocked up at Costco, cleaned and organized our house, prepared the nursery and wrote a 12-page guide for taking care of our older son. At 36 weeks, my water broke and while my sister-in-law raced to our house, I was thinking about how scared I was there was a scenario I hadn’t thought of. Both twins were delivered vaginally less than 8 hours later and the thing I remember most is an immense feeling of loss when they whisked my children away without as much as a hand to their cheek.