OK, both. OK. So this is Boris Solis interviewing Lauren Christopher on
May 26th, 6 at 6:20 for the Creative Push project. All right, so if you
could take us back to the conception. Oh well, um, my husband and I got
married in May of 2010, um, and just from the get-go I uh stopped birth
control because it was that thing like you, you know, you're on it for so
many years and you don't know how long it's gonna take. So I stopped it
when we got married and I figured we'll just have fun, not stress and just
go for it. And so I June July 2 months, 2 months and I um I ended up
getting pregnant like the first week of August. So it was way quicker than
I really had anticipated, um, which was fine because, you know, then in
hindsight, the way school worked and my job that I currently had it all
just fell all fell into place at the right time. So, um, so I got pregnant
naturally, you know, and then during that time I did have friends that
were having a hard time, so it was really a big concern of mine. Um, but
the pregnancy came a bit of a surprise, like I said, cause I thought I'd
take longer, but it was so fun. Pregnancy was so fun. I just, I loved
being pregnant and, you know, knock on wood, it was an uneventful
pregnancy. Just, I felt like every time I go to the doctor, it would just
be the same like the same questions and the same answers and nothing went
off the charts and I was very comfortable with that. So, Also, just a
little backstory, my mom had natural births with all 4 of us. There's 4 of
us and she actually birthed my brother, who's older than me at home. So
that's kind of always been my experience of birth stories as my mom.
Natural birthing, natural, and when I say natural, unmedicated, of course
, um, and so she was totally unmedicated and that's really, and then so
then my older sister, um. Has my, the oldest grandchild who's a niece, and
then the second oldest who's my nephew, and she again, she not unmedicated.
She had both of hers first unmedicated and I was there for the whole time
with my niece and it was To say the least, probably one of the hardest
things I've seen anyone go through, but it was so. Uh, triumphant, and I
was like, that is amazing. And so then her second came and he came within
a couple hours. I think she like had him in like 20 minutes. And so I was
like, OK, we could do this, and I was pregnant when he was born. So I was
like, I'm gonna try the unmedicated route. And so that was my birth plan.
My birth plan was to just labor at home as long as I could, go to the
hospital when I had to. Leave her there as long as I could and just go, go
for it. Um, but about 2.5 weeks prior to her due date, uh, my water broke
. I had gone to lunch with a friend and um we got, I got in the car to go
and I, you know, the the the same thing like did I pee my pants scenario
and I'm sitting there and every time I'm like breathing or talking it's
gushing and I call my husband and I was actually on my way for one of my
weekly appointments and he's like, well just still go to the doctor and
I'll meet you there. So I go to the doctor and I had to tie. A t-shirt
around my waist and I go in and I just look at the nurses and I I think my
water broke and she was like, yes, your water broke, you need to go to the
hospital. So I went directly across the street to the hospital and it was
just a mess, um, as they always say, but it's not Hollywood water breaking.
I mean, it's just the funniest thing the way they portray water breaking
in Hollywood, you know, the screeching to the hospital, the contractions
right away. It's so, I mean, it's just a lot of liquid, but nothing else.
So we just hung out in triage for a long time while they cleaned
everything up and got me checked in, um, and again in my head I was like,
OK, I'll labor. I walked, I made them put a, um, I don't know exactly what
they call it, but they just put like an entry port into my hand. So in
case I need to have medication, they have to make sure they get that IV in
me. So I just had them put that entry port so I could get up and walk and
move, um, and that was, I want to say like 2 p.m. Is when I was checked
into triage and. Um, I just, I moved, I walked and I was maybe it was
maybe 2 centimeters. I mean, I was, it was, it was a joke of a dilation. I
mean, it was not my body was like besides the water breaking, it was like
not going to give this baby up. So we walked and walked and I birthed and
not birth I'm sorry, I labored and labored. Um I had a ball, I stood, I
puked, I showered. I pooped. I did everything. And finally, at, I want to
say about 4 a.m., so about 14 hours into this. After puking many times, I
just looked up at my husband and I was like, that's it. I'm not, I can't,
I can't prove anything more. I'm done. I need to sleep because I was
always, I was still.
I was um I was, uh, I lost my train of thought, so I was.
14 hours into this, I was exhausted and I just needed a break. I was tired
and oh and I was only about 6 maybe 7 centimeters and I still had to push
. I was so I looked at my husband and I said that's it, do it. So they
scheduled the anesthesiologist and he came in and he gave it to me and oh
my gosh, from about 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. I pause.
Until she her question was answered.
The good older sister, she got the Miss Manners award at school today
because she's the rule follower. Thank you, Laney. You guys need a hush.
So from like 4 a.m. 34 a.m. till about 7 a.m. I just got the best sleep.
Oh my gosh, I just slept. And there's a picture of me sleeping on the bed
with my husband on the ball at my feet, and I just remember being in
complete bliss. I was so relaxed and I woke up and they're like, OK,
you're 10 centimeters. And I'm like, thank the Lord. Why would a women do
this any other way? So then I was like, my sister was in the room and I'm
like, you're crazy, but this is great. So 10 centimeters doctor came in,
um, pushed, I felt like forever, but I think it ended up being like Maybe
45 minutes I pushed, um, and, and she came out and really healthy. I, I, I
think I tore a little bit. They didn't have to cut, I tore a little bit,
um. And I just remember when she came out, I still could feel so much. I
was really surprised and afterwards the doctor. I'm just going to check
over here.
OK, can you guys go to the other group now?
over there. OK, good. Let's go to the other room.
Um, I just remember this sense of relief. Oh my gosh, when she came out
and it was like I told the doctor, I'm like, I seriously felt a lot of her
coming out and she said, that's normal. The, the people think anesthesia
just like numbs you completely. She goes, No, you can still feel that head
and the fire and everything. And I was I was very thankful because that
was the only thing in my head I was kind of feeling like I was going to
miss out on.
Right here
Lanie, can you please turn those off? That's too loud.
Can you take Elsie's away?
Just put those away for the rest of the night, we'll play with them
tomorrow.
Does your husband make furniture or did we had somebody make this for us
um from Texas, yeah, out of an old house, you know, people in Texas, they
have access to this beautiful barn wood. So a lot of people make
businesses out of it, which is fantastic. So we paid someone to make it.
Um, So if there's if that is that background too much? OK. OK.
Laney, can you please turn those off? OK, look, OK, come here, honey, come
here. Thank you. Can you please go upstairs to Daddy's room and tell him
that you guys are ready to go to the store? Have Elsie go with you. I
Go tell Daddy you're ready to go to the store.
She's she's like a truck. That's totally how I walk. My mom will be like,
I could hear you coming down the grocery. Like I knew which grocery store
aisle you were in before. She's a truck. She's anything she does, she's
freaks. It's so funny. Um, so I, course last where I was, but um. So
you're talking about the fact that you could feel it, right? And I was
very proud of that and happy for that. So she, uh she came out and um and
it was like I looked up, I remember looking at my doctor and just being
like, oh my God, you get to do this every day. This is fantastic. This is
a miracle. This is crazy. And I was just in, you know, of course you feel
nothing after that and she's sewing me up and cleaning me out and
everything's going on down there and I'm just In heaven and you know, the
baby is healthy, which is huge, and my husband's so happy and my mom was
there. I'm pretty sure both my sisters were there, my dad might have been
there, you know, it kind of all blurred because it was like at that moment
it was just chase and I.
So, um,
Yeah.
I said that it was time to go to the store, but he didn't even wake up. Oh
really? Oh he sleeping? OK, all right, well then, can you go in the room,
go in the living room and put on a show and don't play with those
walkie-talkies. But mom, yeah, I'm watching the news. OK, go, go turn the
news on.
OK, can you sit on the couch nice and quiet, and Elsie, you could go call
her. Just be nice and quiet, please.
No, I think she's pretending because every night, you know, some kids
don't want you to stay up after them. They think they're going to miss out
on things. She doesn't want me to go to bed. When she goes to bed, she
wants me to stay up and watch the news. So she so she knows I'm still
awake when she sleeps. So I always tell her, oh, go watch the news for 10
minutes and you go to sleep. So thanks for pretending to watch the news.
She's so funny. Can I actually backtrack with you? OK, so if you can talk
about the being pregnant part, you know it felt like when you found out
you were pregnant and it was this really early and it was a little
unexpected, and then did you find out the sex and was there anything about
being pregnant that was a surprise or any of that stuff? Yeah, you have a
, OK.
So besides being of course surprised it happened so early and it being a
non-eventful pregnancy. Um, we did find out the gender and we went in for
the, you know, the anatomy, the 20 week scan, and the radiologist says, OK
, do you want to find the sex out and, you know, I'm like, yeah, and my
husband, he's like, Wait, you don't have to figure out, like you don't
have to for the health of the baby and I was like, no, and he goes, no,
then don't find out. And I was like, no, no, I'm not prepared for that. I
need to know the sex of the baby. So, so we found out and he goes, well
then promise me on the next one we're not gonna find out. And I was like,
OK, deal. Fair enough because I hadn't really prepared myself to not find
out.
So I, uh, so we found out it was a girl and you know, did the whole
traditional, you know, the, you know, the, the, the post on Facebook told
everybody all the gifts started coming in and um And in Tucson, yes, I
have a huge support system. I mean, I just have, uh, my mom and my sister
who had had two babies, and then my youngest sister is actually a NICU
nurse, and she, so she's, you know, she sees it all, well, the worst of it
, you should say, but so comfortable with babies and so I have um just a
huge support system there. And so through my whole pregnancy, you know,
everyone treats you like you're kind of handicapped and that's kind of fun
, people coming over and Checking on me all the time and I was still
working, no, no, I was not working. I was in school. So I was in school,
um, and my professors were all, you know, super. Careful and cautious.
They were being very cautious about, you know, making sure that I was
comfortable. So through my whole pregnancy, I just had a lot of
information and I'm definitely not one to, I don't Google things.
Excuse me, that's much too loud. You need to hush.
Can we pause for a second? I'm going to go to ask my husband if he can get
up now.
OK, we're going. OK. So I was talking about just my enormous support
system. I just had everybody. Oh, and I was also saying that I am. I don't
Google things because it just, it kept me up late at night and it and it
didn't matter how much research I was doing, I learned my lesson very
quickly that I could definitely find whatever answer I was not wanting to
find, but I would find it. So I really stopped Googling things at the very
beginning and just kind of letting things. Run its course, um. And then,
so through the through the whole pregnancy, I just, I like to just say
that I was more naive than anything and just kind of let my body do its
thing. And with being aware of what the baby was doing and, you know, and
I trusted my doctor so much. I mean she was just fantastic and I knew that
she couldn't possibly, there was a chance she could possibly not be there
for the birth. I was a little scared about that, uh, and she said that's
normal that, you know, a lot of her clients will or patients would ask
that she be there and she can't be there for all of them. Um, but luckily
she was on call when my baby came, so I was so, so relieved. So she was
there for that one and she actually was there, of course, for my second
delivery as well. So she just we formed a really good bond um together and
I just trusted her through the whole thing and my sisters and my mom and A
lot of women in my life, I just trusted them all and I trusted my body the
most. I just took good care of it and Um, and as long as, uh, the, the
doctor that actually delivered myself and all my siblings and my brother
at home for my mom, he was was very well known in Tucson and uh I was able
to come back in contact with him when I was pregnant and so he said
something to me that he had actually told my mom, and he was like, you
know, do you feel good when you do that? And I said, yeah. And he goes,
well then the baby probably feels good. So if you don't feel good, then
the baby probably doesn't feel good. So, you know, think about it like
that, and that was, you know, that was really smart because I think I was
worried about like a hot bath or a jacuzzi or something and He was like,
if you feel good, the baby feels good and so it was really, it was really
a fun pregnancy. It was really fun. I loved being pregnant and I loved.
Having the baby, the birth, being in the hospital and feeling that that
that um no pain afterwards, just feeling so empowered. And like your body
had just completed something that's so, so science fiction to me. It's
just nothing can nothing can. Replace that, um, you know, and then of
course after. It all comes down. I mean, you know, you come down, you
realize you have this infant now and you're not sleeping and they're
sucking on your boob all day and you're, you know, you're just never clean
and so some of the reality sets in a few weeks after and I definitely got
a little of the baby blues after and felt like I was alone. And I was
thinking this baby was way easier inside of me. If I could just put her
back inside me. I was really happy then. And I, and I, it's so much work
when she's out here, uh, and I remember thinking that and nights were hard
and just my whole breastfeeding was challenging, just trying to figure out
how to hold her, when she wanted to eat, what my boobs felt like. So it
was, it was definitely a, you know, whirlwind and in, in hindsight, I look
back at what I was experiencing after my first born and I'm like 99% of
women feel that way. The first born, all of my friends that had babies
after me after they're first born, though they, even some of the women
that I trusted the most to have it together. Just sleep deprivation will
kill you. I mean, it just makes your brain mush and hormones. So I just
see these women after they're first born and I'm like, I was not alone,
and I tell them you're not alone. This is all normal. So I, um, so I'm, I
, you know, again, in hindsight I think those, do we need to wait for that
to pass a phone? It is. Yeah, I'll wait for that to pass. That's really
good. I really love what you're saying. I think that's really great stuff.
Yeah. I kind of went from like really high birthing to my postpartum, but
I know it's good. Also, can you, um, was there anything about the like did
you gain a lot of weight when you were pregnant? Did you have a lot of uh
Any of the negative stuff that you remember or was there positive stuff
that you were like, you know, my hair is so luscious and you know what I
mean? Was there anything about that physical experience that was
interesting? For me it was like a disconnect between me as I knew myself
and then like me as a vessel human, right? Yes, that in itself is just the
craziest thing to me. No, I felt, I felt like a very different person, but
not in a negative way, just in this like super power way like this human
was growing inside me and I did not gain a lot of weight. Um, I, I didn't
, I mean, it's not that I felt like glowing and luscious. I definitely
felt. I definitely felt plump but not fat, and I don't, I, you know, I
think it was an it was an excessive amount of weight, um. But I just
remember feeling like a totally different woman. I mean, I was like, I'm
never gonna be that same person I was before I got pregnant. My body will
never be that way again. Not physically, not emotionally, everything. So I
just really, um, again, to the whole pregnancy thing, I just feel like it
was it it was, I mean, I had to be so cliche, but it felt like it was just
so magical. Because it was a smooth and and again seeing a lot of my
friends have babies and some of them have really hard pregnancies, um, I
feel like that I had a really easy, uneventful, and I felt good pregnancy
and the first one, you know, I always did get pregnant a second time and
it's crazy how different. In my, my sisters and I always talk about this,
it's crazy how different every woman's pregnancy to birth story is even
from child to child. Like
trying to predict when a woman goes into labor when that baby is gonna
come is pointless because it's like unless it's a scheduled C-section. You
, I, I mean, I labored for almost 18 hours. My sister labored for like 3.5
hours. And so I need to make it to the hospital in time to see him born,
so. and that's so, and then her first though was like almost 18 hours. So
every woman's pregnancy from child to child is so different and that
amazes me that I think your body is just doing exactly what needs to be
done for that specific human. It's just, it's just really nuts. So, yeah,
so I didn't, I just kind of felt my body was not gonna be the same and it
was a vessel. It was built to do this, to grow this baby, um, and then it
was built to nourish the baby. I mean, Being a sole breastfed baby. It is
a lot of work. I mean, to be the only person that can nurture this baby
and soothe the baby is a lot, especially when you're postpartum and you're
and you're um
Uh, exhausted. It's a lot and pumping, of course, is great because you can
, you can put some milk for, for people to help, but again, a struggle is
, do I pump now and then my baby's gonna eat in 20 minutes and I'm not
gonna have enough. Do I pump now and you know, and then use it next, or do
I freeze it or what do I do with it? And so it's, it's um the hardest
mental game, breastfeeding. And um it it only became harder with my second
pregnancy, but with my first just because again it was my first time. Uh,
it was like a full-time job and and then that whole feeling like you're
the only one that can soothe that infant in the first few weeks of its
life, and everybody's like, oh, is she's sad, and then give it back to you
and you're like, really, I just want to just sit here. But that was, you
know, that was really demanding, but um, but I loved breastfeeding, loved
breastfeeding. I just, you know, after the challenges, it was just so much
fun, especially when she grows up and she starts looking at you and
grabbing your face and holding you and, uh, you know, and then you have
that bond in the middle of the night when you finally do catch up on sleep
, when you have that bond in the middle of the night when they get up and
they're crying and all you have to do is just go in there and hold them
and breastfeed them and they're done again.
Here's my husband. That's cheese. Hi, nice to meet you. We love your home
and all your
dead animals. They're gorgeous fests. They really are. Yeah, they were
tasty.
a lot of meat. Um, so you're going to go to the store? OK, thank you. I
found one of the things that was like jarring to me was like you're saying
this, like how you were like solely responsible, even though they had the
support network, you know, and there were times where I was like. I felt
like I had to ask permission to go to the bathroom. Like, could you hold
my child when I go to the bathroom? Can you hold my child while I take a
shower and like the whole time you can hear them crying, you know, and
that like that pressure of like being the one, I can totally relate to
that. Yes, you know, prior to me having kids, I was. My sister and I
always joke, we were the best mom before we had kids. People always said,
you're going to be a great mom. I nannied, I babysat. I, you know, I
nannied in Paris. I nannied in Hawaii. I mean, I nannied and babysat my
whole life, and people always like, you're going to make the best mom. And
you know, of course, I look at these moms that I'm nannying for and
they're asking me to come over and sit with their child so they can sleep
and I'm like thinking, wow, you guys are like what, what this is really a
hard job. Why do you have to sleep? I would kick myself now if I could
have that kind of person to come into my house at that time and hold my
baby when all I wanted to do was sleep because when you have that baby and
you're the person that gets the crying baby when he's sad or she's sad and
you're the baby that's ultimately responsible and you're the one that has
to get up at 2 a.m. at 4 a.m. in the evening you're like, OK, what
schedule do I do tonight so I have a good evening and you're trying to
play out your whole night. It's exhausting. It's exhausting and You know,
and I think all of my friends that experience that same, mostly with the
first child, because by the second you're exhausted, it's not a new thing.
By the 2nd baby or two babies, you're exhausted and So you're kind of
already ahead of the game, but um with all those first time moms, I look
at them and I'm like, I know what 9 and 10 p.m. look like. I mean, it's
not fun because you're looking at the rest of the night, staring it in the
face, and you know that your whole sports system has physically left. Your
husband more than likely, like in my case, had to go to work, so I'm not
and my husband is in a very dangerous line of work, and I'm not gonna get
him up and send him off to work tired where he It has to be working with
high voltage electricity. I'm just. So I'm in the living room with the
baby and he's sleeping and um and so it was it was it was definitely a
battle the first few months. But um, but fast forward, you know, 3 months
or so when they get the hang of breastfeeding and I got comfortable with
the baby sleeping in the other room. They were out of our room and I was
comfortable going in there and feeding her and coming out, you know, then
breastfeeding and nurturing just snowballed into the, the funnest,
craziest experience just. That connection and knowing how your body
produces the exact formula that's needed for the baby and their their
nutrition at that time. Um, it is just so cool. Uh, you know, and to see
my breast milk in the refrigerator and the freezer and all the different
layers of fats, and it was just all fun, fun for me, um, the, the
breastfeeding, and then, um, and then, you know, that baby starts eating
solids and that was kind of a relief because then now you're not the sole
provider for the nutrition. And I'm thinking, thank goodness, you know,
now I can be like, here, Jase, you take her and feed her dinner. Let me
take a shower and I always call it a full shower now. And the full shower
means I'm gonna shave and wash my hair. So I always will give him a, I
would give him a baby and be like, I'm, I still say it to this day. I'm
gonna give you this child because I'm gonna take a full shower. And that
that was a a a fun release to have, um, but I always, I did pump. I pumped
and I always had a few bottles. Um, my parents from The first overnight,
my oldest had, she was 3 weeks old, and my parents always asked that they
could have them at the earliest time we were comfortable because the baby
then could be very used to their house. And I always really felt it was
good for the baby to be comforted by someone other than me. Um, so my
babies always from the first month of their life spent the night at mostly
my parents' house. Um, when we were in Tucson, but my sisters took the
babies once in a while, and, um, and so they got a different feel for
different comfort zones and, um, so I always had a bottle for someone in
those first few months when it was really challenging. I could really take
a break. Yeah. Can you um kind of like fast forward to the gap between the
, you know, solid food phase and then the being pregnant again phase? Oh
my gosh. Well, here's a funny story. I don't know if you've ever heard of
the Catholic Catholic contraceptive, but they say breastfeeding was
apparently a Catholic contraceptive. No, it's not. It's on your pen. Um,
and I knew it wasn't, but it's a joke, you know, that when you're
breastfeeding, you can't get pregnant, you can, because I got pregnant
when my daughter was 11 months old. And so on her 12th on her year
birthday, um, I made just shredded beef tacos for her birthday, one of my
favorite meals. And I ate it and I just remember feeling the feeling of
the nauseous, like definitely and nobody else was sick. And I'm like, I
know exactly what this is and sure enough, I was 3 weeks away from
graduating with my master's and my daughter just turned 1. I was just
about to wean her. I was just about to have this kind of like freedom of a
summer. And I knew it. I mean, I was just like, I'm, I'm definitely
pregnant. So, um, she was, again, she was only 11 months old when I got
pregnant cause I started feeling nauseous at 12 months at her, at her year
birthday and I called my doctor and I said, I cannot even give you an
estimate of how pregnant I am because I have not had my period. Now, all I
know is that I started feeling like this at about 4 to 6 weeks with my
first pregnancy. So I can maybe guess that I'm about 4 to 6 weeks. And she
goes, well, let's give it a couple weeks and you can come in for your
first ultrasound. So I went through my finals and my graduation ceremony
and everything, and I knew I was pregnant and I was exhausted as I was
with my first pregnancy, you know, just your body is just multiplying
these cells at a drastic number. So I was tired, chasing after my one year
old. And so this whole another wave of exhaustion comes and after I'd
finally caught up from birth exhaustion, and I went to my first
appointment and as my husband jokes in the room, what if it's twins? And
I'm like, I would probably punch you. The the nurse practitioner comes in
who I adore. She, um she's just an older woman and I really loved her and
you know, you see the nurse practitioner pretty much always more than the
doctor. So I really loved her. She feels my belly. And she goes for a
belly ultrasound and. So she goes across my belly and she goes, huh,
there's twins. And I just cried. I cried so hard. I just, I froze, I cried
and I said, Why didn't you do an internal? And she goes, Well, when you
said you were about 4 to 6 weeks and now we're thinking you're 8 weeks,
she was like, she was like, your uterus felt way too high to be 4 to 6 or
6 to 8 weeks. She's like, I either felt that you were further along or
this was the case. And so she's like, and sure enough, this was the case.
So you are right, you are 6 to 8 weeks, 8 weeks closer, but you're 8 weeks
with twins, so everything's much bigger. And I just, I cried so hard and
Chase was there and he was like smiling from ear to ear. He thought it was
the coolest thing in the world. And my mom had my um, my one year old. She
watched her so we could go to this appointment. Um, so I get in the car
and the first person I call is, uh, my little sister, the NICU nurse, and
, uh, and I told her and she totally thought I was joking. She was like,
no way, you're totally joking. And I just start crying so hard. She's like
, you're not joking. No, I'm not joking. And I get home and I just hold
the ultrasound up to my mom. And my mom is very medical, she's a nurse.
She's seen many ultrasounds. It didn't even occur to her. I don't even
think it was so far off our radar. It didn't even occur to her and A twin
ultrasound at the beginning is very similar to one except you see two of
those little dots. But if you're not, you're not versed in the ultrasound
world, it could just look like more saggma in your uterus, you know, it
could just be anything. But if you like tell them what it is, that you're
like, no, that's definitely two embryos. So I just hold it up to my mom
and she's like, oh, that's great, good. I'm like, no, 2, Mom, 2, and I
just start crying and my mom starts crying because she knows exactly what
I'm in store for. And so she's crying, I'm crying. Chase is smiling and I
just, I think I cried, honestly, I probably cried for at least a day, if
not 2 days on and off. I cried. It didn't help, of course, that I'm
hormonal, um, and every time I kind of told somebody I cried again. And
then with a little bit of research and uh talking to some family members,
we discovered that my great grandmother had I think I could, this could be
wrong, but in the early 1900s, I think she ultimately she had three sets
of twins. In her, she had a total of 17 children, but I think she had 3
sets of twins now in the early 1900s, of course, they don't, twins don't
survive. I mean, there's a very risky thing. So I'm pretty sure, OK,
actually now I think about it, maybe two sets, but neither set survived.
One didn't pass birth and one didn't pass like the winter. But she had,
she had at least 2 sets of twins in a family of 17 children. Um, so my, so
that was my great grandmother and my grandfather's side, on my dad's side
, paternal. So When I do a lot of, again, I guess I did some research on
this, but not like, not, not blogs on Google. I was doing some scientific
research about the, the, the genetic pass down of twins and so it, it went
from my great grandmother to my grandfather to my dad, of course. So my
dad passed the twin genetic to all of his daughters. So clearly the man,
so they couldn't, I, we couldn't have been twins, my siblings, because the
man can't determine if you're gonna have twins because they just release a
million sperm. So it's the woman on how many eggs she releases. And so he
passed the twin genetic to my sisters and I, and so I had the twin genetic
in my genes and so I released 2 eggs, and it just happened to be that
month I released 2 eggs while I'm breastfeeding and so they, they were
fraternal twins and they knew that from the beginning they could see 2
sacks and everything. Um, and that pregnancy was, like I said, so
different from the first. I mean, double everything, double exhaustion,
double hormones, double, um, double calories. I mean, I had to eat so much
and I wasn't even done I hadn't weaned my first. So for the first two
months, I'm, I'm growing the twins. I'm also weaning my, my, my 1 year old.
So she's, I mean, she's clearly eating a lot of solids, so she's not
getting no complete nutrition, but I'm still producing milk. And so I was
consuming. Peanut butter, avocados, milkshakes. I mean, I was eating the
heaviest fat food for the first few months, just trying to get myself to
gain so many calories and um I actually ended up losing some weight, which
was a little concerning. Um, at the beginning, but, um, but the doctor
just asked that I increase and a lot of my fats and so I did, and
everybody was just bringing me all kinds of fatty foods and it was fun
cause, you know, that's kind of the fun part about being pregnant, they
say then you can eat whatever you want, which I did not do in my first
because I was afraid of gaining too much weight. So I still ate healthy
with my first, but this one it was like, no, you have to consume a lot of
calories. So I continue to um
Just continue to go to the now twins is high risk. From the get-go. Um, so
high-risk pregnancies, they treat differently than a normal pregnancy. You
have to go to the doctor pretty much twice as much. Um, and, but on the
plus side, you get an ultrasound with twins every time because it's easier
to find the heartbeats. So every time I went to the doctor, I got an
ultrasound, so that was fun. Um, and then also, my husband was really
proud to remind me that we were not gonna find the sex out of the baby,
that I had promised him from the first. And I argued that for a few days.
I said, what about one? Just one, come on, there's 2 in there. And he was
like, no, no. And after we argued it pretty much to the point where we
could find out. Um, about, you know, 20 weeks, 19 weeks, uh, he won,
naturally, and then it just became kind of a back burner thing, like it
wasn't even a concern in my head because my focus was on just growing
these babies. Well, still attending to my 1 year old and so I, um, so it
was, it really, it was like a fun kind of discussion for a few months and
then, then it was like just null and void. I just forgot about it really,
that I didn't know what was growing. Um, and so he, so we did not find the
sex out um of those babies, but we did go to an ultrasound pretty much
every other week at the beginning. I had to go about every other week.
Sometimes she let me go 3 weeks. And then again through that pregnancy,
knock on wood, I was, you know, my body was really healthy, um, the babies
were really healthy. And I, I felt much bigger. I felt much bigger. And
now I've always heard that on your second pregnancies and, and afters,
your body just knows what to do, so it expands much faster and that was so
true. I mean, I just, my body just like opened up. And I don't know if it
knew it had 2 in there, but at one point in July, so I was maybe like 1415
weeks pregnant. I think there there's a chemical released into your body
that opens your hips or your pelvic and gets it ready to hold the babies
or baby, and mine just maybe went too much or something, but it pinched
nerves in my lower back and I was out. I was out, I fell to the ground.
Thank goodness my husband was home that day. I was not, not even numb. It
was more pain than I'd ever experienced even in my first, in that first
breathing labor. Um. I was, I couldn't move, like I couldn't pivot. I mean
it was my it was my central back, so I couldn't pivot shoulders, my head,
I couldn't, I was on the ground. I somehow over the course of the next 12
hours, was able to get myself worked up onto the couch. My husband had to
help me inch by inch. They came and took my daughter. Because she was
really being kind of traumatized seeing me in pain. So someone came and
took her, but over the next 12 hours, my husband helped me in my way to
the couch and on the couch. And the next day, Um, I laid on the couch. We
tried a few things. My mom had some friends that were that are into like
energies and oils, and they came and like their energy work and their oil
work on my back, um, you know, and you can only take Tylenol when you're
pregnant. So, you know, I took my Tylenol and that's it. And then that
night in my husband's line of work, he uh got called out to work on down
power power lines because it was a monsoon. He got called out, so I am at
my house by myself, and he got called out and I, um, have you ever seen
the movie Misery? And you know that woman's pulling herself across the
floor. That was me. In the middle of the night I had to go to the bathroom.
I, in hindsight, I should have just gone on the ground, but I had to pull
myself into the bathroom and I went to the bathroom. I almost fainted from
pain, got myself back into the living room. My husband came home the next
morning and I was on the floor, and he was like, that's it, you're going
to the hospital. So we had to call 911 and the ambulance and the fire
truck came and put me in an ambulance and we went to the ER and I had
actually end up, I called my doctor and I had to end up getting a shot of
morphine. And morphine is just, you know, muscle relaxer. So I was relaxed
, you know, most of my pain was because I was tense. I was relaxed, but I
still had very isolated nerve pain. So again, when my body opened up, I
think a nerve pinched, and I have yet to really figure out exactly what
happened, but All I know is it was painful. The morphine relaxed me, and
then over the course of the next 2 weeks, I went 3 times a week to
acupuncture, and I found someone that knew the trigger points, of course,
of labor and being pregnant. So she worked on um like these cross lines.
So she didn't put anything in my midsection. She put them on my wrist and
my ankles that were all kind of crossing my midlines. And um within a week
, it was much better and the following week I was even able to drive
myself. Um, but that was, that was horrible. I mean, it was traumatizing
for Laney to see me hurt my oldest, and it was, it was just really, um,
and that, that kind of started a pattern of Um, a pattern of events
through this pregnancy that really did disable me. I mean, just, just put
, just put a wall up to me being able to do anything. So it was from that
, then it was then it was my belly. I mean, then it was just like trying
to cram all these organs. Up here and then the two babies down there is
just, I mean these women that have more than 2 babies that have triplets
and 4 are just, I mean, it's just amazing what where everything goes and
you feel it. I mean you feel things everywhere. And so I um so I was just
uncomfortable forever. I was uncomfortable forever and so again, not
finding out the sex of the baby was not a huge thing because I just was so
uncomfortable and And that was, and, you know, and then but trying to stay
positive for my daughter and still trying to have play dates with her and
keep up with her and stay positive for my husband and everything. I mean
it was it was a lot to handle and then as the summer grew and we went into
the fall. It just became more and more obvious that I was not, it was, it
was gonna be very challenging for me. My due date was the end of December.
And of course they say twins pretty much mature by 37, 38 weeks because
they know they've got to get out of there soon. They're running out of
space. So they say that they they pretty much they they in the last few
weeks they'll grow faster, their lungs will develop faster. So I had a
feeling that I was gonna go towards the, you know, I would, I would
hopefully carry towards the end of November beginning of December. Um, So
I, I pushed through the best I could, uh, through the summer and then the
fall came. And I developed this horrible allergy cough. Like, I don't know
, and I, again, you can't take anything. So it was like it was a cold and
then it turned into more than a cold and this horrible chronic cough. And
it was like a cough that happened any time I kind of like took a kind of
deep breath or laughed a little, it would just domino into this chronic
coughing spell. And so through September and October, I just was in this
horrible coughing spell, and I also was then required to start doing um
NSTs, non-stress tests. A lot of high-risk pregnancies you have to do
non-stress tests just to make sure the babies aren't stressed in their
environment. And so they were requiring me to do 2 non-stress tests a week
plus a regular doctor's visits. So I started those in September. And I'd
have to go check myself into triage, and they would find the twins, two
different heartbeats, and I'd had they'd have to sit there and for 20
minutes they'd have to stay non-stressed. They have their heartbeats would
have to not dip or go high or anything. So to find two twins and hope they
don't move. For 20 minutes was a long process. I mean, sometimes I was in
and out there in a half an hour, but sometimes it'd be like an hour. Now
the coughing thing that I'm talking about was moving them all over the
place. I mean the pressure that I was coughing onto my cervix and then the
twins going up and down. I mean it was, it was just again a domino effect
event after event started happening and then October came. And I was
getting very uncomfortable and coughing still and still trying to walk and
do things with my daughter. And um I went to bed one night and I was
getting Braxton Hicks and they were just strong and I was in the shower
and I was like, this is just too much for me. So I woke my husband up at
about midnight and I was like, maybe even close to 11. I said, I'm going
to check myself in. I need to go just get checked. And so I didn't want to
freak anybody out my family because I like I said in In the beginning, I
have a huge support system. So had I called one sister, they would call
the other, they would call the mom, and before you know it, I'm gonna have
6 individuals at the hospital with me. And I am so thankful for that. I am
, but I didn't want to make people get out of bed at midnight for
something that was probably just because I was Going to Braxton Hicks, so
I go check myself into triage and um. Sure enough, I'm dilated, which is
fine. I mean, I'm dilated. I think I was like 2 centimeters or something.
But she said, you're, you're contracting, so we want to hydrate you and
just monitor you overnight. Well, at least, you know, that's what the
nurse said the doctor said. So they pumped me like full of 3 bags of IVs.
Um, I was the only woman in there, which was fantastic. So the nurse was
great, um, pumping me full of fluids and so then of course I do decide to
call my family and like I said, everyone starts calling me. I told
everyone I will be fine. I'm just gonna get hydrated. The doctor did ask.
OK, so this was, I was 30. 31 weeks when this happened. So the doctor said
, I'd like you to get the steroid shot for their lungs. Um, just in case,
and then that way if they do come early, their lungs are gonna be a little
, a little stronger. And again, that was 31 weeks and so I had to get the
steroid shot before I left. Oh, and the doctor said you're on bed rest. So
go home and lay down and don't get up again. And so I reluctantly told my
mom and my sisters that the doctor put me on bed rest because I knew they
would make me stick to it and I got the steroid shot and then the next day
was Halloween and I went back for my second steroid shot, went home, went
to bed, laid on the couch, and I tried a few times to do things like drive
to the store to get coffee and I got yelled at so much by my mom and my
sisters. They were like, nope, bed rests means no driving. So now I have
my 1 year old and 3 appointments a week to the doctor and I'm not allowed
to drive or pick up my 1 year old. And that was the 31 weeks. So for the
next 5 weeks, I'm on bed rest and going to 3 appointments a week, everyone
in my family is just rallying to like take my daughter once or twice a
week, come pick me up and drive me to the doctor. And again, the
non-stress tests are very unpredictable as to the time. I can be there
half an hour, I could be there 2 hours. And so, Uh, so it was, it was a
definitely a village effort to take care of me for 5 weeks and still
continuing to pump me full of calories. So, so that was, it was
challenging. Bed rest is hard. It's hard. But once I realized the risks,
again having a sister that cares for preemies, once I understood the risks.
And also knowing what I knew from my first when I had experienced how
much work she is when she comes out versus being in my belly. I, when
you're on bed rest, you have time to think about all this. I was like, no
, it's not worth it. It's way easier to keep these babies in my belly than
out for everybody. And the last thing I wanted was to go to the hospital
and go home without my babies. It would just be. a nightmare.
So I really stuck to bed rest, um by Thanksgiving. I was pretty much in
tears half the day cause I was so uncomfortable. My poor family was really
rallied together to help me get comfortable. They were making me beds
around the house that I could lay on, trying in different positions, and I
just, I just remember looking. At my brother-in-law and he was like, I'll
do anything to make you happy. And I was like, there's nothing, nobody,
nobody can do this. I'm just, I'm so big I sitting up, I can't breathe,
laying down, I can't breathe, laying on my side, my, my sides go numb. I
mean it was just, it was very uncomfortable and so. Um, so, Thanksgiving
that year was on 26, 25, 24, 23, 4, 22nd, I think, November 22nd on
Thursday. And my birthday is May 26th. My husband is February 26th, and my
daughter came April 26th. That Monday, on that Monday was going to be the
26th. It was gonna be the Monday my doctor came home, came off vacation,
and it was gonna be the Monday that I reached 36 weeks, and that was my
goal, was 36 weeks. So, I was like, this is it on Thanksgiving. I'm like,
the babies are coming next Monday. They have to come. So I willed them and
willed them and thought, and Monday I was signed up to go to another NST
and my um sister, my younger sister was the one in charge of taking me,
and she was rooting for me to have the babies also that day. So she goes,
we're gonna go get a pedicure, and I'm not dropping you off at the door.
I'm parking back here and you're walking. So she parks in the back of the
parking lot. We walk in. I get a pedicure. I'm telling the guy, I'm like,
get these babies going, get something moving. He's pushing my legs and
he's doing things, you know, who knows? But sure enough I'm sitting there
and I'm looking at the clock and I'm feeling different. And so my sister
is like, you are like definitely concentrating and I'm like, I know
because I'm like willing them out of me. So I go to, we go to my NST. Uh,
now Monday, after a holiday is a very popular day for people to schedule
inductions and C-sections because they usually want to do the holidays and
then come and have the babies. So I go into a waiting room full of people.
Now being in NST you're pushed back, which is fine because there's women
there that need to be seen. So I'm getting pushed back and I'm OK with
that, and I know all the nurses now because I've been going for 3 months
to twice a week, and my sister's pretty much always going with me. And so
I'm just, I'm kind of waiting patiently, but I'm focusing and my sister's
like, I'm not having it. We're we're getting you in there. She goes back
to the triage room. She goes to one of the nurses, we know, and she goes,
things are happening, things are happening. She goes, get her in here. So
we go in there and the nurse checks and she's like, You're 6 centimeters.
You're ready. And I was like, thank God. So, you know, so I'm just so
happy we make all the phone calls. You know, I've got Laney for her
overnight scheduled, so she gets shipped off, my husband comes, everybody
comes. They get me all wrapped up now with twins, you automatically
deliver in an OR because the risk of a C-section. Um, and. with my first
pregnancy, I shared my dad, my sisters, everybody was in the room. I think
we might have broke the count, the head count rule a little bit, um, but
we kind of just acted like, I don't know, we did, everybody was just kind
of coming and going and The nurse was really nice about it, um, but with
this one, I was, uh, you know, I was a bit, I was happy. I was happy that
it was just going to be Chase and I because there was no question about it.
Nobody else could go with us in the OR. There wasn't room for anyone else.
So everyone joined me in the pre-operating room, I guess you'd call it,
which was really the delivery room. Everyone joined me in there and, you
know, everyone was happy and I was so happy. And again, Um, I wasn't even
gonna try to go unmedicated clearly cause this was possibly going to be a
C-section, which I was not really wanting. I really, really didn't want to
also have one vaginally in the second flip and do a C-section. And I've
had that talk with my doctor numerous times. Now, my doctor, who was on
call for my first pregnancy, she came in for this pregnancy because we've
formed this relationship. And it was twins. She herself is a twin, so she
always said she's always rooting for the second baby because she was the
2nd baby. So she's always ready to get all of them out healthy and so she
wanted to, you know, and we had had that talk so many times, how I just
wanted them vaginally. As as much as I did, and she said her response to
me all the time was my job, they're healthy babies, healthy mama, and I
will do my best. So we're, we're getting all scrubbed up for the OR room
and the doctor comes and she's having a good time and I, and again, I'm,
I'm getting prepped for my um anesthesia and am I saying that right? What
is it? epidural. Yes, I went on that word. So I'm getting prepped for the
epidural and um I'm feeling really good and the contractions are coming
and. Uh, my siblings and my mom, they're all in there and then Chase gets
all suited up for OR and they go through that long list of questions, you
know, before you have your baby. Oh my gosh, when the nurse comes in there
on the computer, felt like forever and the epidural hadn't really kicked
in, so I'm, you know, I'm I'm contracting and concentrating at the same
time and still feeling good. But by the time they get through those
questions. They check and they're like, you're ready to go, you're 9
centimeters. Let's go to the OR. And I was like, this is amazing. This is
the best birth. So we wheeled into the OR and I think I was in the OR for
like a total of 20 minutes. So they wheeled me in and I just, everyone's
ready, you know, they have two sets of baby nurses, they have two mama
nurses, they have my doctor, my husband. I'm all there and uh it's a
hideous room. I mean, it's ugly, but it's so fun and um and so I, they get
me all suited up and I'm ready to push and so I push and I think I, I
think I was with the girl, so like the girl, I had a girl cause I didn't
know that yet. So I think with the girl, she was first, I pushed maybe.
I want to say maybe 20, no, no, 20 minutes. I was in there. 3 rounds of
contraction, so maybe 6 or 8 minutes. I pushed and the girl came out and I
was like, what is it? What is it? And they're like, it's a girl. Now in my
gut I felt like I was having a girl and a boy. Statistically, that's like
the the most likely to happen with fraternal twins. Uh, so they held up
and they're like, a girl, the last thing I wanted was all girls. So I
panicked right then they're like, it's a girl and I'm like, that's it.
There's 2 girls in there. I know it. I'm screwed. There's 2 girls. They
take her off and I, and I hear them saying the Apgar score, which is
always fun to hear, uh, that I'm actually hearing it too between my
contractions. Um, and so she's all registering grade, you know, I see her
looking at him, I'm watching her while I'm about to go through another
contraction. And when I look down, I have two amazing nurses, and their
hands are just all up on my spare space in my belly. They're just pushing
down so this baby does not turn. And I feel my doctor's hand literally in
my vagina holding the next baby's head. And I was like, just get the next
baby out of my vagina. She's like, well then, focus. So I'm ready to
contract and I push and she's like, it's not quite, you gotta do this
again. So I had to wait and then the next round of contractions I push and
, and he comes out, it was a boy, and they forget to tell us right away
because I'm just ecstatic that he came out. And he didn't flip. And so
they took him away and then I get I was like, wait, wait, what is it? And
my husband goes over there and he had um a lower Apgar score. His color
was a little, it was a little um bluer, but nothing they were concerned
about. It was probably because he was second in line and he had a little
bit longer in there. Um, so they were, so they were kind of washing him
and up and cleaning him off. But, um, but my husband went over and was
like, it's a boy. And so it was so exciting because It's exactly what we
wanted and everybody was waiting and out in the, you know, out in the
waiting room and so she, um, I didn't tear or anything. I they came out, I
guess, I don't know if they came out fast because I would think if they
came out fast, you would tear, but maybe if my body was just used from the
first pregnancy. Um, they were, let's see, the little girl Elsie came out
first. She was. 5 pounds, 11 ounces, and then Wade came out second and he
was 6 pounds 1 ounce. So, I mean, single babies weigh about 6 pounds and
so they were, they were pretty good size, but, um, and Wade, he's all he's
the boy, he's uh he's bigger, he's broader, he's a bigger head. So I think
she just really, she's, she was much more petite. So I think she really
just kind of opened everything up and then he was, had he come first, I
probably would have torn. But I think she just really opened things up and
he was just coming out quickly. But they, um, you know, afterwards while
she's cleaning me up and checking me out and making sure afterbirth comes
out and everything. I see him working on the twins. Now, the hospital I
delivered at, um, they're not equipped for preemies. Um, they're actually
, they were actually just starting to work on getting younger than like
thirty-sixers, which is what my twins were. They actually, I don't think
would have even taken them had I been 35 weeks. They may have, but for
sure 34 weeks I would have been shipped to another hospital. So, I think
they were being extra cautious, especially because my sister is an ICU
nurse at a, I don't know if you call the level 4 hospital one that does
work with super preemies or what they call micro preemies. So she was
telling me that she feels like they were being extra precautious because
they're trying to earn credentials to be a hospital that can support
younger preemies. So she said they were doing things that at her hospital
, they would be like, oh, that's nothing, but they're, they're being very
um diligent and which is fine by me. I mean, I'm like, you take all the
time you need. I was really anxious to get them on my chest, and that was
one kind of sad thing post labor that was really hard for me because I
didn't get them right on my chest. Um, you know, I got them both for I
under a minute in my face for a minute so I could like just kiss them and
smell him and talk to him, um, but then they whisk, they whisked them away
um into their little bassinets and I could see them, but it was just a
bummer and they weren't on my chest. And so I was, I was really just proud
that they were there and healthy, so I wasn't, and I'm not one to to to
question. I guess, uh, you know, authority or doctors and so unless I
really feel like I'm being. Um, neglected or anything or if I'm really
concerned, but I wasn't concerned. They were being taken care of. I just
really wanted them on my chest. So I didn't ask and I don't know um how
long time passed, but I think maybe about 1015 minutes passed. And then
they were like, OK, well, they want to take him to the nursery they call
it because it's, it's not again it's not a level 4, it's not an NICU. They
want to take him to the nursery and check them out. And I kind of was
confused, but I, I didn't ask. So they took him to the nursery and I, but
I was like, can my husband go? And they're like, of course. So he went to
the nursery. And I was wheeling down the hall and my sisters, I saw my
sisters and my mom, and they're like, what, what is that? I'm like, you
guys haven't heard and I felt like this was like 20 minutes after the
babies were born. They're like, no. So I got to share the news with
everybody um that it was a boy and a girl and they were ecstatic and
they're like, Well, where are they? And I told them and then. Now my
sisters and my mom are ones to question. I mean, they're ones to be like,
give me the facts. Why is why? So they, so my mom's like, well, what's
going on? Cass, go find out what's going on. So she sent my sister to go
ask the other nurses. So funny enough, one of the other nurses working
there is per diem at my sister's hospital. So she was, she kind of had the
end, so she was talking to the other nurse and the nurse said, you know
what, they just are being very cautious. Um, they're just gonna listen to
them and make sure that check their blood levels and My sister's like,
they're 36 weeks, they're so healthy. And the the other nurse is like, I
know, but they just gotta follow this and so the Elsie had a little bit of
a low blood sugar, so they, um, so they brought her to me first so I could
feed her. So I finally was able to get a baby on the boobs. So that was
great. So I got her on the boob right away and started feeding her. Um, to
get her blood count up, I mean her blood sugar. And did she take right
away? She did. Yeah. I was so lucky in that, even in my first, you know,
like when I was the lactation specialist came in with the first baby, um,
even though I was saying in the first how awkward it is to sit and
everything, I never got bloody nipples. I never got scabbing, you know, I
did get mastitis with the first. Mastitis is when you get the clogged uh
milk duct and then you, it's an infection and it killed women early on. I
mean, this thing, it's, it's um, it, it's a rapid growing infection. But
now, of course, and nowadays you just, you could catch it with if you
catch it within the first few days, you get an antibiotic which is safe to
take while you're breastfeeding. So I did get mastitis with the first, um
, and I, um, got on it and being again from a family of many nurses, they
knew what was going on, so I just had to call my doctor and they, and I
got on an antibiotic. Um, and with the twins again, Elsie just latched
very easily, um, and ate. And then The most difficult part though was
managing too. I mean, in my head I'm like I have 2 boobs, I have 2 babies.
This is natural. No, it's not natural. It's so uncomfortable. They knew
what to do, you know, they're suckling, they're, they're getting it, but
it was just, it was the first night was hard trying to, and then in my
head they're also telling me how her blood sugar is low. She didn't wake
up to eat all night the first night, and I remember being like this is not
normal that she needs to eat. And I was rattling her and shaking her and
trying to feed her and she just never got up to eat and I asked the nurse
and she said, you know, she's she's just went through a huge traumatic
event like she's tired, but her, you know, we'll we'll see if she's in a
little bit and I was concerned about that, but that, so that kept me up
all night. That was just the beginning of many sleepless nights. So I
didn't sleep that night and the twins, you know, my husband was in the
room with me, um, the babies were with me, so they got out of the nursery.
So both babies got to come with me into the room and um they were, they
were on and off the boob. They were being held by my sisters and my dad
and my mom and everybody that was there. But She, uh, they, the, the first
night, my husband. Uh, I would say slept. Like a champ on the couch when I
was trying to like figure out what to do with these two babies, I think I
had one in my arm and one between my legs and the nurse would come in and
be like, you know, you have to have these babies. Bassinets, and I was
like, No, I'll put them in. I'm not going to sleep yet. No, I just kept
one in my arm and one between my legs and I didn't sleep and they're just
sitting there, um, and kind of one at one point, um, the little boy
weighed. I was like, why isn't he moving? He's very still. And I was
panicked as I undressed him and everything, and then he started like
grunting. And then he pooped and I was like, thank goodness, like this is
one of the things I can check off to get out of here sooner. So I, so that
was, so the first night was, was hard. I was up all night. Excuse me, the
2nd day came and um they actually did tell me that I was probably going to
stay two nights with the twins being a little bit that they were early and
twins and high risk. So, so I was like, OK, well I want Laney to meet the
baby. So Laney got to come the next day and I just burst into tears
because now she's my big girl. She was my baby and now she's this 19
months, so it's 19 months between the two of them. And now she's my big
girl and I was just crying because it just wasn't her and I. We had this
awesome like we just had this awesome routine together from the morning
when she got up to lunch to nap to our outings and I was like, that's all
done now. That was our time and now we have to share it with these two
little humans. So I was emotional, to say the least and um Balai was
really cute with them and Everything was really going well and they pooped
and they were eating and um, you know, and I was moving around and I had
done all my things on the checklist. So the second night, my husband, I, I
really felt bad leaving our daughter two nights in a row. So I was like,
how will you go sleep with Laney at the house? So one of us is with her
and my mom said she would sleep with me at the hospital. So my mom slept
with me at the hospital and she was, you know, a little bit more.
Attentive, I should say then my husband, so she was, she was taking one
baby and sitting with the baby in the chair or sleeping slash sleeping in
the chair and the nurse was a little uneasy about that, but I'm like leave
them alone, they're sleeping. So they were sleeping and I would have a
baby and the whole the whole night was the same. I mean, I wasn't really
sleeping very much because I was worried about them eating, uh, but then
the next day came and. The hospital said they had to pass a car seat test.
And my sister again coming from kind of a higher level hospital was like
, well, yeah, we do that, but I'm really small babies like. So babies that
are born before 37 weeks sometimes forget in their head they haven't quite
formed the connection to breathe, continue to breathe while they're either
eating or be sleeping. So younger babies sometimes, again, they'll go into
these apnea spells where they forget to breathe because they're in such a
deep sleep, or they'll forget to breathe because they're eating and
they'll forget to stop and breathe. So that was a valid concern of the
nurses, and they said, well, in the car seat that apnea will, you know,
they'll sink and get into this position and the, the heart rate will drop.
So they had to pass a car seat test and they said they just had to sit in
the car seat for for an hour. It's crazy. It was the craziest thing in an
hour. They had to sit in their car seats, hooked up to a heart monitor, uh
, pulse ox to make sure that their heartbeats didn't drop or they whatever.
And I remember packing up the room and my mom was there and everybody had
been, I'd been discharged. And my mom was going back and forth checking
and I think I went in and took a picture of them and everything seemed
fine. And then my mom came back and she was like, Elsie failed the car
seat test, and I was like, what does that mean? She goes, she has to stay
here. And I lost it. I lost it. Seriously started crying right then and I
don't think I finished crying for 72 hours. And I um. And then they, so
they said since one of them failed, they'll keep the other one. Which In
hindsight it was better than to have an infant at home and an infant in
the nursery, and I'll get to that point in a second, but I looked at my
doctor and I said, un discharge me. What do you need me to tell you? That
I didn't poop, that I still can't feel my toes? What do I need to tell you
? Keep me in this hospital. And she was like, I can't. Insurance will not
let you. You've already been discharged. You have to leave. And so the
nurses were fantastic. They let me stay till the last minute that I could
at that hospital. I think it was like 10 p.m. And I was so sad leaving the
hospital, and I was exhausted. I was sad and I was just like, how am I
gonna go home and sleep and leave these babies in the hospital? It's my
job to take them home. And I went into that nursery and I just cried and I
cried and I'm like pumping and pumping and that's not helpful to try to
pump or feed babies while you're crying. So nothing's coming out of me.
And, and as I'm feeding Wade, he slips into an apnea spell. So they're
like 5 days, he has to be here for 5 days. And I'm like OK. So I'm, I
don't want to leave. I'm pretty much staying in this rocking chair they've
put me in, and then my husband's like, you got to go home. And the nurses
are like, to think about us as like really highly qualified babysitters
and go home and sleep. And I was like, no, I'm not gonna sleep at all and
and Chase is like, well, it's something that's gonna help me sleep. And I
was like, uh, I need Laney. I need my oldest. I need her to come to bed
with me.
So I went and got me Chick fil A. 10 o'clock at night or something. And I
went home and he moved lady into my bedroom and her and I slept together
that night. Um, and I did sleep, but um, it was hard. It was hard. And I
was up, of course, at 6 o'clock and we couldn't check in, go check on the
babies till 7. So The next morning I go to the hospital. And this is all
new to me. I have no idea like. The system That goes down on what it means
for babies to be in the nursery. So I'm trying to learn. And I don't know
if it's because my sister. They knew my sister was a Nikki nurse and my
mom was a nurse, but um I think maybe they thought that I knew more than I
did. So I didn't feel like I was getting. Answers And I wasn't asking
questions in my defense, but I don't feel like they should have just
expected me to know some of the things. And so I've some of the nurses, I
, and I was probably hormonal. And sensitive, but I felt like some of the
nurses were being um.
A little bit cold and I was like, I don't want to experience this. So I, I
did tell um. There was a director that I knew. I had worked with her son
in my past career. So I I called her and I said, you know, I just don't
feel comfortable. Some of these nurses are not making me feel welcomed or.
Um, Oh, what am I trying, they're not making me feel adequate, like
they're just not giving me the tools I think I need. And so the next time
I came, so she's like, OK, and this is after a whole day being there.
She's like, OK, you need to go eat lunch. You need to go home, take a
shower, and then you come back this evening. So when I came back that
evening, the twins were set up in their own room. And I had the most
wonderful nurse.
And so she sat with me, got me a rocking chair and a seat cushion and. Um
, and it was this, OK, it's the born November 26th, so this is November
twenty-ninth-ish. So it's close to Christmas. And so they're decorating
for Christmas and I love the Christmas season, and I love Christmas music.
So she was like, how will we turn on some Christmas music and so we turn
on Christmas music and we just sang to the twins and I fed them on and off
and. And I also came to the realization that night that I was gonna have
to start giving him formula, which is a really hard thing for me. Then it
was then to accept that I was going to have to give him a formula. But
this nurse made it so logical that this is like adequate. This is babies
need this nutrition, and it's not your fault. You can't make it right now
or make enough for the both of them, but Um, but you need, you need to get
caught up on your health and your body needs to get ready to start
producing this milk. So I had to accept at that time that they were going
to start getting formula. And that was probably a hard thing for me. And
I'll get to it later, but that was probably a hard thing for me for months.
But let me tell you this, the moment I passed that hurdle, it was like.
Formula is formula. It's fine. I'm doing as much as I can breastfeeding
was the was the moment I was like. Free of a lot of chains that I had put
on myself when it came to breastfeeding and formula with the twins.
But the so. So they were in the nursery, that that was like the 1st 24
hours after I had to leave them. I was a mess. Um. And then when I would
be at home. My husband posted this picture of me. And we had done this
room edition in my house. It was all under construction and it was we were
in a we're in a hurry to get it done before the twins came, so we had more
space. And it was very dusty and so I knew the twins were coming home. So
I was like in this crazy manic mood to like clean the whole house. So my
husband has this picture of me. I still have my hospital bracelets on and
I'm in a tank top and I'm outside the window washing it and I look like a
ghost. And he puts it on Facebook, you know, and he's sweet. I mean, his
intentions were great, but he was like, this woman just birthed two babies
and she's a badass cleaning the windows. And I look at the picture and I
see a depressed, sad, malnourished, tired woman. And it's just, I mean,
it's sad because I was like just trying to keep myself so busy. And I bet
you if my mom was there or my sisters, they would have been like. They
would have snapped me around and shoved me in my room, but. I mean, I was
just trying to keep myself so busy getting myself to the point where I
could.
Realize what the next few days were gonna, again, I didn't know what, I
didn't know what the next few days were gonna offer. I didn't know how to
get to the hospital, how to come home and be with my daughter, how to get
to the hospital, come home and be with my daughter, how to sleep, how to
eat. My husband's vacation time ran out. So for the 1st 3 or 4 days that
he was home, we kind of got a good system. I would get up at 7 a.m. I
would be go to the hospital first. I would stay at the hospital through
lunch till about 4 cause my daughter usually went down for a nap at 2, so.
Chase would do the morning activities with Laney, put her down for a nap
around 1 or 2. I would come home at 4 just in time for her to get up from
a nap. We would be there together and then he would go back to the
hospital for the evening until 8. And then they actually, they actually,
um, I'm sorry, 7, because at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. they kick you out for an
hour so they can do a nurse changeover. So he would go back for the, for
the later part of the night and then he would stay as late as he wanted.
Um, and in the course of the next 3 days that they both were there, that
really was, you know, a good system working for us. And I was pumping when
I was home and whatever I pumped, they would bring and they would feed him
my breast milk first and then just for the rest of the feedings, um,
formula. And now, Again, going to why they were in the nursery.
My sister was telling me that in her hospital, they would have already
been home, like they were there purely to be monitored, um. Because they
would just had the pulse ox on and the heart monitors on. They just wanna
make sure they didn't sleep apnea spell that they couldn't get out of.
They never did that. They went into a couple apnea spells, but they always
shook out of them. And again, my sister said that's because that's what
they do at 36, 37 weeks. They go into a deep sleep, they stop sleeping,
but they get, they shake out of them. But you want to be safe than sorry.
And I kept telling myself that, better be safe than sorry. They're with
caring people and we've got this down. So they, the rule is after each
apnea spell they have to stay 5 days. And my sister's out of her hospital.
It's only 2 days. But here they're just trying to earn these credentials
, so it's 5 days. So remember Wade had slipped into that apnea spell while
I fed him. So he was there for 5 days. Elsie. Didn't go into a full apnea
spell, um. In that car seat, it was just, she just kind of failed it, so
she was 3 days. So after 3 days, Elsie got to come home and so she came
home first, but then Wade went into another apnea spell, and so they added
5 more days on. And I was like, and then Chase had to go back to work. So
having an infant at home and then having the internet at the hospital for
3 days because there was 2 days over there they overlapped for having him
at the hospital separate for 3 days was a nightmare. It was a nightmare.
We tried to keep up the same, but I was like, I, it just doesn't make
sense for me to not to not, I don't know. Nothing made sense to me, to be
honest. I don't know. There was no real answer of what we could do. So I
stayed at home. I mean, we did the routine for a day or two, and then
finally I was like, that's it. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of this. I don't
want to go to the hospital anymore. I want him home. So my sister actually
went with my husband. To go pick up Wade when he was discharged because I
just couldn't stand it anymore. I was like, I'm done. I'm sick at the
hospital. I just don't, my baby's here.
Um, oh, and another kind of fun story is every Thanksgiving weekend. We go
Christmas tree hunting. My whole family does. We go up to the White
Mountains and we cut a Christmas tree down. Now, clearly I couldn't go
because I was on bed rest and I was like ready to explode. So everybody
went in, they got me a Christmas tree. Well, the week after Thanksgiving
was the week they were in the nursery. It was crazy. Everyone was kind of
crazy helping us with Laney. So the night that both babies came home, uh,
or that Wade came home, my dad and my brother had already um gotten the
plan to bring my Christmas tree over. So that night, they, everyone came
over, the babies were there and they brought the Christmas tree and they
put the Christmas tree up and they put the lights on and everybody was
home and that was fantastic. I mean that was just like completeness. I
have some awesome pictures from that night, just all of us together. I
look like Death walking around the house, but I was just so happy
everybody was home. And then that's when. All the real work started. I
mean, just having two infants at home. Um, and a one year old was, uh, to
say the least, probably the biggest challenge anybody could be under. And
somebody once was like, do you think it was, do you think it's going to be
harder or easier that you already have one? And in my head, being an
optimist that I am easier because I know what to expect. You know, I've
already been through it. I know I've been through that beginning first mom
stuff. No, the hardest job about having My twins, was my 1 year old, and I
say that to everybody because she was at a sponge age. She wanted to learn
everything. She needed my attention. She knew me, she needed Chase's
attention. So after about 2 or 3 months of the twins being home and me
figuring out that,
It was like a light bulb went off and I was like, these twins just need
nourishment. They just need to be held and loved. Yes, by me and Chase,
mostly, but really, if they could just be held lovingly and fed. Then, you
know, they're gonna do just fine. So I just, everybody in my village was
just a huge help. Everyone took night shifts. I was too exhausted to
figure out any kind of sleeping schedule, you know, I'd read about these
moms that came up with these wonderful sleeping schedules where their two
month old twins were sleeping through the night and I'm like, I don't have
the energy to do that. I'm just, you know, I'm just going to wing it. And
, and that's my personality too. I'm not a planner by any means. I'm a I'm
a definitely go to day to day person. So none of the none of the books
with their suggestions was at all my personality. And so I just was like,
we're just gonna wing this. We're gonna have swings, we're gonna have
poppies, we're gonna have anything we have and we're going to have family
and people just took twins. People would come over. I had A wonderful
woman in my life who I nandied for and it was like. Let me give you money
for a babysitter. Let me give you money so you can have someone that you
were to meet. So she gave me some money. And she said, just put this in an
envelope and find a babysitter. And so there was this one babysitter I
kind of used with Laney, but I never needed a babysitter because I just,
we just hung out all the time. And and I have an enormous amount of family
that would take Laney. So I had this one babysitter and I was like, well,
I'll give her a call. She ended up being a godsend. I mean, she ended up
being just 100% reliable, dependable, completely confident with the twins
, took charge. So she just, she just came and I remember being like, can
you just come and stay the night at my house and do something with one of
these twins. So that started a routine of her coming at least once a week
, she would come and she would be in the living room with one twin and I'd
be in the bedroom with another twin. And so that way I only had to get up
with one. And again, I was still had that barrier with formula, but I was
there, so she still did whatever I pumped she would use, but I was in the
bedroom feeding, breastfeeding one twin, and she would be using formula in
the living room with the other twin. And then I only had to wake up with
one. So she would come once a week and that was a huge relief. And then
everyone in my family pitched in, you know, one, maybe another night a
week, somebody would come or um one time I remember my brother and his
then girlfriend took the twins, both of them for one night. That was
pretty amazing. Um, and they just, I, I, I mean it was just a whirlwind
the next few months and I was just trying to figure out how to make
everything work, the breastfeeding, the bottle feeding. The plane with my
daughter and I had many, many breakdowns, many breakdowns. Now with my
first baby, I feel like I got the baby blues postpartum. I did always see
a light at the end of the tunnel. With the twins, there was never a light
at the end of the tunnel. There was never a light. I just continued to get
more and more in this deep hole. And Me saying how I felt like they just
needed to be loved by other people kind of got to an extreme at one point
where I was like, I don't even want anything to do with them, and that's
what was a huge red flag for me. And um, and knowing that depression runs
in my family. Um, finally, my mom, being in the mental health field, was
like, you're gonna go talk to somebody. So they arranged all the childcare
so I could go see a freaking doctor. It was like it was like seriously a
group effort anytime I needed I needed a couple of hours away. And that in
itself, I'm not a person to put burden on anybody. So that in itself was
so hard for me to ask for help because I don't want to put anything on
anybody.
But um to make a group effort to take care of my little tribe, so I could
get to the doctor was huge and talking to the doctor and I just remember
crying for an hour. And she just was like you. You're postpartum and this
is fine. Like she goes, this is totally normal, you're good. I just cried
. I don't even think I told her anything. She's like, you don't need to
say anything. I see it and you. And so she, um, so I got on anti um
depression or anti-anxiety, I don't know what it was.
Yeah, yeah, that's how out of it it was. I don't know what it was. I was
like, just give me beds. She said, This is not going to make it easier by
any means. You're not going to sleep more. She said, this will just take
the edge off of everything. Just take the edge off this dress. It'll just
, you'll see a light, she said. It took a long time. I would say 34 weeks
for it to really. Um, for me, for me to see it. Other people saw it first.
My husband saw it Um, saw me kind of have a lighter feeling about things.
My family saw it, saw me like kind of letting go a little bit more. Um,
but it took me easily 434 weeks to start feeling a little better. Um, and
by that time, you know that the twins were about almost 3 months when I
did finally go see a doctor, um, because I just was just surviving for 3
months. And, and sometimes it was hard to ask people to come out because I
didn't want them to see what a shit show it was, because then they'd be
like, this is too much for you, you have to change it, but I didn't know
how to change it, so I didn't want someone to tell me to change it. So it
was, it was a cycle. It was nasty and I was, my husband and I just spent a
lot of nights crying. So 3 months, probably, and then 4 months, I was on
the medication. So by the time the twins were 4 or 5 months, things were
kind of becoming a system in our house, um. I had the same nanny. She was
coming. She was in nursing school and the nursing school was right down
the road. So she came to my house every day that she wasn't in nursing
school. And I was like, I don't care what you got. And the lady that that
I nanny for gave me more money because she's wonderful. So she's like,
just get the nanny as much as you can. So she was wonderful. So she would
either take my daughter, which again, I told you was the hardest part
about twins, was my one year old, because she just was so wanting me. But
she also, I mean, she's, you've better. She loves she loves anybody. She's
very easily loved. Um, and so the nanny would also take her on outings and
just leave me at home with the twins, and that was a huge break to have
her gone. And I could just not speak the whole day because when you have a
1.5 year old who's learning their ABC's and their 12, 3s, they ask
questions. I have to speak all day. But when she's not there and it's just
these blobs, these infants, you don't have to speak. You just can just veg
on the bed, literally just be in your bed all day. Um, Sandy Hook happened
during that time, and that was horrible. I was in my room, I remember, and
I had my Nanny had the babysitter and I was just in the bed in Sandy, and
I just remember looking at the TV in complete shock with these two infants
that I at that point did not like and I'm watching Sandy Hook happen and
that was a huge turning point for me when I was like. I need to I need to
shake it off. I need to be happy. This needs to be a different perspective.
So that was a huge event that happened that helped me push me into
talking to somebody. Um, again, thinking that we were the best moms before
we had kids is so true when it came to these twins because I did
everything I said I wasn't gonna do. From the formula bottle feeding to
sleeping and holding the kids to sleeping in the swing to I, I did
everything I said I wasn't going to do, co-sleeping, Boppy sleeping.
Anything that involved them sleeping was the best idea invention ever. So
at one point, you saw my couch in there, we have a sectional. Or not, yeah
, satisfactional? I think it is, right? Whatever. It's big and comfy. And
so my husband, we would put my 2 or 1.5 year old asleep. We would get
settled in the couch. I would breastfeed one baby, get that baby settled
and swaddled, put a binky, give him the sleeping baby. He would get
settled in on the couch and hold that baby sleeping. I'd get the second
baby swaddled, fed. I would hold that second baby and we would sleep on
the couch. And then whenever one of the babies got up, we would swap and I
would feed that baby. And if they both got up, he would just make a bottle
and feed his baby. Oh, I had to feed the other baby. We did that for
almost 2 months. And then somebody was like, you gotta break that habit,
and I wanted to kick that person, but it's true, we had to. So it was time
for something different. So, um, So we did anything swing was a popular
one for Wade. He loved the swing until um he was able to roll and then he
just got, he's so heavy. He's a heavy kid. So the swing, I think worked
for a few weeks and Elsie just liked being held, so I just cuddled with
Elsie and he slept in the swing. Um, and I would, and after we slept on
the couch, my husband and I, so for the first few months, I was trying to
be in the bedroom and I was trying to do it normal, you know, I was trying
to like Be there with my twins. They were going to be in the bassinet. I
would be in the bed. I would get up, feed them, put them back in their
bassinet. No, that was a nightmare. I was keeping my husband up again, he
has his line of work, it didn't, so we moved, I moved out to the living
room by myself. That was a little bit more relaxing. But then when I
couldn't handle that, that's when we both moved out to the living room and
we both at least got chunks of sleep when we were both on the couch. Um,
but then when we had to change it up again, uh, I said, OK, we, we need to
do something. That's gonna be more permanent, so we got the boppies. And
we put pillowcases on them and I wedged them in um the the pack and play
next to my bed and swaddled them tight and I shoved them in that bobby so
they were kind of like in this hole and that was the key. That was it for
like easily for another 3 to 4 months. That was how it worked and You know
, and again with my.
My medication under control, my emotions under control, my barrier down
with formula. Um, I was getting some, some sleep, and when I mean some
sleep, I mean as as a mom of, you know, an infant, you know that. I would
be like, oh gosh, you know, I slept for 3 hours straight. I slept from
like 9 to midnight, 9 to 1. I'm great today. You know, and, so that would
be, that would be for months. That was how, you know, 4 hours was
fantastic and I'm OK with 3 hours here and 2 hours in the morning. Um, my
husband, on the other hand, he needs consecutive hours. So he, during the
week would not partake in nightly activities. When we did move to the room
, he slept in the living room. Because he needed he needed his consecutive
sleep. And we, and we had it under control in the room. You know, I would
at least 3 hours at the beginning and then it moved to 4 hours and it was
like 2 hours in the morning. And some mornings Laney got picked up even
before she was awake. Someone would come pick her up and take her, so I
wouldn't even have to leave my room in the morning. And sometimes our best
sleep would be from 6 to 9 a.m. And we, and I would just not leave my room.
Um, so it, it became easier, no, it didn't become easier. It wasn't
easier. not it just became, it just became normal, more and more normal.
Uh I remember one time when I run into other mom twins, when I run into
other moms when I had infants and they tell me their stories, you know, in
my, you know, I, I sympathize and then in my head I'm like, you don't even
know. But when I run into a twin mom and they tell me stories, I'm like,
thank you, you, if especially if they had twins that were older. I'm like
, there's, there's a light, there's an end to this. And when they tell me
positive things, I cling to it. This one time, uh, a twin mom. I said
something like they were only a few months old and I said something like,
it's only got to get easier from here. And she's like, oh no, it doesn't.
Uh, that put me straight into a downward. I was crying that whole night. I
was like, she has twins, and she said, it doesn't get better. That was the
only twin mom though, that I, I don't know, you know, they come in all
walks so. I don't know what she was, you know, what, what happened maybe
in her life, but every other twin mom said yes, it gets easier. You get to
understand them and so sure enough after that first, you know, the year,
it was a mess. It was a mess. And then after a year, Uh, we did not have
our master bedroom done in our house, so I was like, I can't sleep in the
room anymore with these twins because they see me, they hear me. We, I, OK
, so, so formula breastfeeding pretty much for the 1st 5 months, but it
was a lot of work. And so my mom is a dairy goat farmer, so we have access
to raw, um. And she could pasteurize it, but we, she does milk tests. She
knows her goats, so we have access to raw goat milk. It's very healthy and
clean and so they say raw goat's milk is complete, the components of
breast milk. It's closest to breast milk. So I was determined to get to
like 6 months breastfeeding and then formula feeding as well, but I think
I got to 5 months and I was like, OK, I'm ready to start introducing
goat's milk. So we started, my mom pasteurized it for the first few rounds
just to be safe, and their, you know, their guts took it. It was fantastic.
And so we went from formula to goat's milk and breast milk. And then by
about 8 months, I would say I pretty much stopped breastfeeding. It was
just so much work. And I remember, it was really funny. I remember being
at my house and friends would always come visit me and I'd be
breastfeeding twins, you know, I'd be set up on the couch and I'd be
breastfeeding twins and Anybody that came to visit me at my house. There
was always a time they had to leave. Clearly no one could stay at my house
the whole time. Everyone that left, always, I could always feel it in them.
They didn't, but they felt nervous leaving me like they were like, this
this woman gonna be OK, but I've got to leave this craziness and get back
to my life. But everybody was always cautious when they left me because
they were worried about me, everybody. Especially if I had two twins on my
boob, and they'd be like, can I get you water? Here's grapes, here's a
remote control. What can I do for you? I'm like, nothing. Just go back to
your normal life and leave me here. But it was, it was like it was just a
roller coaster for the first year and finally getting them on goat's milk
was a huge relief because again, not being. Not having that, that formula
stigma, which I was over, but not having that over my head and then
knowing I wasn't solely responsible and we started the rice and then we
did everything by about 6 months, we were, I was introducing food very
fast because I was ready, I was ready for it to be not me. Um, that all
moved very quickly. But by, by a year, they were, again, I was in the room
with them still cause our room wasn't done. They, and I was like, that's,
I can't be with them anymore. They hear me. They want their bottle, they
want me. So my husband and I slept on the couch for the next 3 months
because our room wasn't done yet, so we just lived on the couch. And the
twins got the bedroom and finally our master bedroom got done and we all
got our space and the twins had their cribs and it, and you know, by, by a
year and a half, we, we just all got a really good system down. Now
systems change all the time. I mean that was one thing I definitely
learned the moment you think you get your kid in their system, they're
like, psych, we're gonna take a sharp left here and throw a curveball at
you. So I, we were, I mean, I was ready for this, the systems to change. I
was more adaptable and I think that all had to do with medication and more
sleep because those 1st 3 months when I was not sleeping and I was very
postpartum, it was, it was scary. I don't think I was ever in any, any
position to harm anybody, for sure. Uh, I think I would have recognized
that and my family would have, but I was, it was sad. I just cried a lot,
a lot, a lot, and It just felt really responsible as we were saying, you
know, you're the ultimate caregiver. It's not like you can just be like,
OK, now, now to the next person, you're the person. You're the, the mom
and so it was a lot to handle in those 1st 3 months, but it did get easier.
It did, and Lady was always the hardest, you know, even up till now, you
know, they're 315 and she's 53 is a weird number. And I've always heard
mom say that 3 kids is the hardest. Like if you're gonna have 3, you might
as well have 4. But I'm not willing to chance having twins. I'm just not.
It was that traumatic. I just, I can't, I can't do that to my family, that
my 3 kids, my husband, myself. It's just I don't want to put myself in the
possibility of having twins again. So I, so we're not going to have any
more, but 3 I've heard is the hard number. And I, I know for a fact
because if one of my kids is gone, it doesn't matter which one. They're
now at the point in their ages where they all just, uh, they form these
alliances in odd numbers. And so if one's gone, they don't have that.
They're either playing independently, which is fantastic, or they're
together. And it's still, they're still playing cooperatively and so
Always it was always her. She was always the hardest. She's the easiest
child. She's the biggest rule follower. She's the most cautious. I never
had to cover outlets covers. I never had to be worried about toilets.
She's the, she's the most cautious child, but just the third, that just
her being at that age, she was the hardest of the twins for the 1st 2
years. But once the twins started walking, every milestone was fantastic.
When I didn't have to carry them all over the place, when they could
crawl and meet me places, when they could walk, when they could ask me
questions and tell me what they wanted. Every milestone was a just another
huge weight off my back. And every year now, I mean, those milestones came
really fast when they were small. But now every year I feel a little bit
more freedom. And so moving up here. Uh, this year. Before my oldest
reaches kindergarten. And they're 3.5. I now am confident that they're not
going to walk onto the main road. I know they're not going to eat berries
off the back tree. I, I mean, they're probably gonna do some stupid things
and get hurt, but I'm not concerned. About their safety, you know, they
can run around the house and I can go 20 minutes without seeing them and
not feel like they're in harm. And, and there's a checks and balance
system. With the three of them. So there's always one of them that's
willing to come tell me what's going on, especially if they're the one
that's being ostracized by the other two. But it every year, every
milestone, it just becomes way more of a unit around the house and it
makes me more and more confident of not having any more because just not
willing to go back to that first year. Once we've gotten all this, so.
That's intense, man. Yeah. My second story is a lot more intense than my
first. I just, that's why also I think maybe in between them had I maybe
you interviewed me about my first pregnancy, maybe I would have had more
to say about it. But when you have, when you go through a pregnancy in a
labor like the twins in first month. And I look at that one and I'm like
that was a walk in the park. I'll take one child. I always tell my friends
and my sister, when you, when you're pregnant with your first and you have
your first. Don't feel guilty about not getting off the couch the 1st 3
months because when you with your next, you have no choice. You have to be
busy with that child when you have a toddler. So when you have that first
born, you can be a vegetable, no questions asked. So soak it up. OK, so
towards the end, we usually ask um the mothers, if you could summarize
your experience, even if you just want to focus on the twins' birth or
births, um, with like a word or a phrasing of words because we separate
these stories into themes and the themes can be anything. It could be
connection or sensory stuff like the physical experience of it or faith or
whatever. So you can kind of think that's a huge question to ask. I just,
I really feel like.
Um, the postpartum is a huge part.
And Uh, if I discovered a lot about myself. And I don't know if my
hormones changed or what after kids. Um, I stopped antidepressants after a
year and a half years of being on them, but just recently within the past
year of my life, just the move leaving my system in Tucson, even though I
we're super close still and I'm, you know, my kids are older, uh, it kind
of, it it it put me back in the category for anti-anxiety. And so I am
open to it now and not that I wasn't open to it before, my mom's very
pro-counseling, pro. Medication, um, but I just, I recognized it. The red
flags were really very obvious for me. So maybe just, you know, emotional
or, uh, yeah, emotional. And postpartum is is is really where I put a lot
of my. Myself when it comes to deliveries and pregnancies. Totally.
Can I ask you one more question? What did it feel like having two babies
moving inside your belly? It's crazy. It's crazy. It's the weirdest
feeling. I mean, you're constantly, you know, when you have one baby, do
you have kids? OK. When you have one baby, you feel you're like, Oh, a
hand, a foot. When you have two babies, it's like, Oh, finally a break. OK
, no, just kidding, not a break. Always, there's always pressure somewhere
and it's, I think there's 2 craniums in there and 24 legs and 4 arms and
all, you know, I love IVF and I actually have a very dear friend. Um, who
went through the IVF process and I think she would be, did you already do
your interviews in Phoenix? We, we have,
it's an ongoing she would probably be a really cool story for you because
she actually has had some very, very, very sad previous stories to where
she found out when she couldn't have a baby and why she couldn't grow a
healthy baby. So she went through an IVF and an egg donation process this
past year. And so she has a 3 month old from this process. She has the
coolest story ever, um. And I forgot where I was going with that. But
yeah, um, about carrying too. I, yeah, just having the two, the two bodies
in there and the two everything is just, did you have like really bad acid
reflux because all of that, oh man, Spit. I mean, anything, anything made
me have acid reflux. I was like, anybody that suffers with this regularly
, I don't know why you just don't get your esophagus ripped out. This is
horrible. It's the worst. I'd sleep sitting up, not because I was
uncomfortable, but because I just all the acid was coming up. It was
horrible. Um, oh, I was saying because naturally the twins grew, right? 2
eggs versus IVF women that, you know, get 3 or 4 eggs put in them and so
they, so they they know that there's that chance, but to honestly be just
like sideswiped by the fact that you're having twins and you didn't think
it was a possibility. It was just a a whole new perspective for me. So
it's and now, you know, then, of course, my sisters. We're wanting to
still have kids and they then discovered that they have this genetic trace
of twins. And since then my older sisters had a 3rd child, not twins, and
then my youngest sister is pregnant with her 2nd, and she doesn't have
twins, and I think she'll be done, and my oldest is done with her 3. So
they didn't have twins, but I, I, I, anytime I hear of a woman that's
pregnant with twins, I just, I open up that story. I opened up that story
. I said it's It's not, not pretty. I did join a multiples group, which I
always feel like is my biggest advice to moms that have multiples is get
part of a multiples group because like I said before, when you talk to
moms as as we called seats. When you talk to moms of singletons, you kind
of are like, OK, that's, that would be fun. I would rather that. But when
you talk to moms of twins, you just they they just know and they relate
and it's pretty crazy world. Yeah, I can imagine when singletons are
complaining, it's like, that's charming's cute. That's really cute, yeah.
Yeah, it's, it's, you know what, I went to a breastfeeding class with the
twins actually, um, to, to kind of get a feeling for how to feed them both.
And I was like, um. What do you, what you know, when people look at
someone like they're not real or they're like. Uh, no, they're fictional.
I felt like that was me in this breastfeeding group. I felt like women
were looking at me being like, we don't have it that bad. I'm like, thanks.
You want to take one? Gladly, yeah, I only felt like if a mom of triplets
walked in, would I feel put in my place.
Yeah, how would that breastfeeding work? Not. You don't. I did see a a a
picture once of a mom feeding twins and then she had a bottle, like she
was feeding them and had them propped up and then had a bottle in the
third. Yeah, I mean, you do what you gotta do and you'll survive and
everyone always asks me, I don't know how you do it, and I always tell
them, you would do it when you have no choice, you do it and you complete
your day and then you get up and seriously 4 a.m. would hit. 40 a.m. was
the time that I'd give myself to drink coffee. If I was up anytime after 4
, I'd brew coffee. And if it became that time, it was a new day for me. I
was like, it's a new day, this is a new routine, the sun is up, the rest
of the world is up, which is a huge relief because in the middle of the
night you feel like you're so alone. So the rest of the world was up and I
, I, my dear college roommate, her mom is straight from Mexico, very
Mexican. She told me, honey, drink a beer every day. Drink a beer. It
doesn't matter if it's 9 a.m. or 20 p.m. Drink a beer every day. So that
got me through some months. I would be like my coffee, and then 9 a.m.
would roll around. I'd be like, I've been up for 8 hours. And then
seriously I drink a beer, I'd relax my milk would just gush. It would be
fantastic. So, and, and my doctor that I had told you about that said if
it feels good to you, you know, he, he said, you know, drinking and
breastfeeding is like drinking and driving. If you, if you're too drunk to
drive, you're probably too drunk to breastfeed. So it's in your system,
it's in your bloodstream. So if you feel like you've had too much, sleep
it off and then the next day you can breastfeed because it gets out of
your blood, it gets out of your milk stream. So if you're, you know, and I
didn't have the energy to drink any more than one beer, to be honest. And
so I was like one beer I was ready to just relax. But it was, it was a
challenge every day. It was just a new adventure.
That's a good ending. I like that. I, um, my neighbor told me that
Guinness helped your personal, and I had never drank beer and then I drank
a Guinness.