“Do you see what I’m seeing?”, the nurse asked in the dark screening room at week 12 check-up.
“Wow, look at that! The baby is moving in there!”, we answered (we didn’t “see” anything).
“Well… there are TWO of them”. You know those memories that you will forever remember as if it was yesterday? “WE’RE GONNA HAVE TWINS!” It felt like we’d won the lottery. However, that feeling faded a little bit along the way… End of pregnancy, not so great. Losing the ginormous belly after a 72 hours labor, that was a HUGE relief! First six months – average night sleep: three hours. You don’t know who you are. You smell bad. Nutella is your new best friend. Life is not hard, it’s horrible! And you can’t just take a break from it. You are a lousy partner, an apathetic parent and a numb human being. I remember one day (or actually my husband reminded me), during my parental leave. Me alone with the twins at home. The usual never-ending loop: whining, breastfeeding, diapers change, poop in the diaper, poop outside the diaper, shower, change everything. Then start all over again with the one who a-l-w-a-y-s falls asleep while breastfeeding, hence never really satisfied. I’m so tired I wanna puke. I can hardly keep my eyes open, and the feeling of inadequacy just keeps rising. I Feel The Blood Pumping Under My Skull and I’m dangerously close to a melt-down. In the middle of it all, the doorbell rings. We are trying out home delivery of groceries for the first time, and they decide to show up right THIS MOMENT! Four massive bags. Two of which containing frozen food that must be taken care of straight away. It was supposed to make our life easier – but right now I just hate the world! The whining (that never really stopped) has now reached unbearable levels. This is too much. I can’t take it anymore. I leave the boys and run upstairs, I start crying, I bang my head against the wall (literally!). I’m losing it. It takes A LOT before I reach out for help. I call my husband in tears: “you, home, NOW!”. At “you” he’s already in the car heading home. Everything is relative when you have small children. Everything gets a new value. Definitions change. The definition of luxury for instance: to indulge in the shower for 5 extra minutes or – God forbid – take a bath! To do the dishes alone in the kitchen. To take a nap. The silence! “Things will get better eventually. Just give it some time”. People tell you that. And you hate each and every one of those people. The problem is that the concept of time does not belong to this phase. You are simply unable to see the light at the end of the terror-tunnel. You have no dreams. You have no energy. No empathy. No hope. You just survive in damage control mode and pray for some sleep. Remember: this is no time for giving. This is time for asking and taking. As much as you possibly can. This is when you want to: Now, I don’t want to be one of those people, but you WILL manage to survive this initial period. And you’ll proudly get to the bright side feeling stronger than ever. And, believe it or not, those dark days will all of a sudden be a distant blurry memory. But that’s a subject for another chapter. In the meantime, keep fighting! PS. We thought you might need a little something to keep up the spirit so we turned to our kids for some help… Enjoy! So, how did we survive?