The Breast of Times, the Worst of Times

Taking care of one baby is no problem, but I'll tell you what is a huge problem for me: breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding is one thing about motherhood that I imagined would be easy -- baby comes out, roots around, latches on, and soon you're whipping out your boob in line at Starbucks with your baby slung around your body.

Not for me. In my story, the babies come out, get whisked to the NICU and have a feeding tube stuck down their throats.

For three weeks, nurses painstakingly taught August and Fin to be able to eat tiny amounts of expressed breast milk from tiny bottles. While the babies were there, I did work on breastfeeding. I met with a lactation consultant and learned how to position the babies, how to squeeze milk into their mouths and watch their suck swallow reflex. I breastfed both babies a handful of times in the hospital.

Once I got home, though, it all fell apart. The exhaustion and the frequency of their meals beat me down so that somehow pumping and feeding milk to them in bottles seemed easier.

Then August and Finley's appetites quickly out-paced my breast milk production, so we introduced formula. Every day, I'd half-heartedly try to get one of them to breastfeed, but they would scream –- really scream –- and push me away like I was poisonous. It may sound silly, but I felt so totally hurt and rejected by my sons. The breastfeeding sessions usually ended with all of us in tears -– and a bottle in the baby's mouth.

I've been ashamed to admit it, but I'm a breastfeeding failure.

Then, I turned a corner, sort of. I met a nurse while Finley was at the hospital last week. She asked me why he wasn't breastfeeding. (Don't even get me started on how people look down on non-breastfeeding moms.) I told her about the NICU and the screaming babies and my feelings of rejection. She stared at me with steely look -– not pity or judgment –- and said, "It's not too late."

The nurse told me that if, for one day, I made August or Fin try the breast at every single feeding, if I pushed through our mutual frustration, by the next day the baby would know how to breastfeed. So, I spent one horribly exhausting day with August yelling, crying, throwing his head back, and pushing his little fists into me at every feeding –- and then he did it. He learned to breastfeed. I tried it with Finley, too, and got him to take partial feedings from me.

It's still not easy. I'm never going to be that laid back earth mama with two babies breastfeeding at once. Both boys still often take a bottle with a mixture of breast milk and formula. I still pump about a million times a day. And I can only get Finley to take one boob -- it's a work in progress -- but I finally, finally, finally can breastfeed my boys.

One Baby, No Problem

Okay, this might not earn me any new friends, but I just have to say it: People who complain about taking care of one baby have no idea how easy they have it.

For reasons I will explain later, Finley had to spend the night in the hospital last night. We knew this was coming, so Matt and I decided I'd take the day shift with Fin at the hospital and Matt would stay with him at night. So that meant I'd be home with August all night and into the morning alone. (Our night nurse currently doesn’t work Wed. nights)

As the day approached, I was a bundle of nerves. I debated whether or not to ask my dad to drive in from Palm Springs to help me take care of August. I've been alone with both babies for a few white-knuckled hours at a time, but this would be at least 16 hours of just us two. Yikes!

August can really scream – especially when he's hungry. And I am so sleep-deprived that I literally feel dizzy almost all day, every day, like I am walking around on a ship swaying side-to-side. Usually Matt is here in solidarity with me as we stumble through the haze of 2 a.m. feedings. Would I be able to keep it together by myself all night? Would August come out unscathed? Would I?

Well, I have my answer and I'm here to tell you that the last 12 hours have been like a vacation. I feel like I've been getting a massage on the beach in Hawaii. Sure, August ate at 11:30 p.m., 2:30 a.m. and again at 6:30 a.m. Yes, he yelled bloody murder while I warmed up his bottle up and he got fussy for no clear reason right before bed. But so what – it was only one baby!

My life has become about the physical and mental act of balancing two babies who both want to be soothed, held, fed, changed and entertained at the same time. Taking care of one baby is like juggling one ball – just plain easy. Mostly.

This morning after his 6:30 a.m. feeding, August went back to bed. I took a shower and shaved my legs. Seriously, I had time for personal grooming. I made coffee and oatmeal and was able to consume both!

When August woke up around 8 a.m., I waltzed into his room and cooed to him, "Good morning, August. Good morning!" He grunted and half smiled. I rubbed his tummy and picked him up as sun streamed into the room. I held him to me and nuzzled his neck. In return … he spit up all over the front of my shirt. So much for my vacation.

My Dirty Secret

Yes, I have twins and it's totally, crazily hard. But I have to reveal a secret, something that makes me feel ashamed and like a whiny, entitled snot.

I have help. Lots of help.

Five nights a week, a night nurse comes to our house at 10:30 p.m. and takes care of our babies until 6:30 a.m. I still (usually) wake up to pump milk at some ungodly hour like 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., but Matt and I basically get six hours of sleep on those five nights.

I realize that lots of people – normal people with jobs and no kids and fun lives -- function on that much sleep. But for me six hours of sleep is like eating frozen yogurt when I really want gelato. It satiates me, but it pales in comparison to the delicious treat (or eight hours of sleep) I truly crave.

During the two days a week when we don't have help, Matt and I are like cranky, crazed zombies – pale and sunken, angry, grunting and mindlessly eating whatever is in our paths.

And that's not all: For the last several weeks, my mother has been renting an apartment nearby and coming to help me every day. She arrives at about 10 a.m. and helps me all day with August and Finley. She feeds the boys, changes them, does laundry, washes dishes, makes lunch and even waters the yard and sweeps up the giant dust bunnies created by the plush rug in the boys' room. She encourages me to nap, which I rarely manage to do, and she babysat while I got my hair cut and went to the eye doctor.

When I step back and look at my situation, it seems like taking care of twins should be a piece of moist chocolate cake. But even with the night nurse and attentive grandparents and friends bringing over homemade dinners, this is the hardest thing I have ever done. Having twins is relentless and exhausting and all consuming.

Whenever I leave the house, I imagine scenarios in which I use having twins as an excuse for all sorts of bad behavior like violating traffic laws or cutting in line at CVS. I picture a cop pulling me over for running a yellow/red light and telling him, "I just had twins. I'm sleep-deprived. I can't think straight. My life is on fire." That is how it feels, like the life I knew is burning to the ground. It's okay – a new, lush life will grow up in its place -- but the process is searing and arduous and confusing. I mean, even this blog post has gotten off track. …. The point I set out to make was the fessing up about all the help I'm getting taking care of my twins. People all seem to feel so sorry for me as a new parent. I feel badly taking their sympathy without revealing the full picture. So now that the curtain has been lifted, you can decide whether or not I deserve your sympathy and respect. I hope I do.

One last note: for me, the experience of parenthood is like a shift of the Earth's continental plates. It is connecting me to the continent of humanity. I am no longer an island. I have always been the kind of person who does not like to ask for help, but this has forced me to be humble, to seek and accept people's support and kindness. It's a jarring experience, but I think it's making me more complete.

The Indignities of Parenthood

As an adult without children, I was able to go through life mostly avoiding humiliation. Sure there were some drunk dialing incidents in my 20s, some public stumbles, the time I forgot to mute my phone during a work call, but my everyday life was fairly safe. Parenthood, on the other hand, comes with daily humiliations and indignities.

Pee: On one of August's first nights home, I was changing his diaper at about 3 a.m. when I was hit in the face, in my hair and in the eye with something unidentifiable. In my sleep-deprived haze, I imagined I'd walked through a spider web made by something the size of that spider from the third "Lord of the Rings" movie. I jumped back in horror trying to process what was happening. Then Matt pointed out that it was a strong, steady stream of urine. And that was just the first time I got peed on. Now that both August and Finley are home, being urinated on is a regular part of my days.

The hands-free breast pumping bra: The garment is like a thick black bandeau with two holes cut for your nipples. It seems like it could almost be sexy, except that two bags of milk are hanging off your boobs and your stretched out post-pregnancy belly bulges out from underneath it.

Hygiene: I used to be clean. I showered every single day. Now I'm the kind of person you'd see wandering around Target in milk-stained pajama pants and her shirt on inside out, and wonder 'What was that woman thinking when she left the house?' The answer: She wasn't.

Sanity or lack thereof: There's a Paul Simon song that goes "Losing love is like a window in your heart. Everybody sees you're blown apart." I think the same goes for having twins. People can see I have been blown apart by storm August & Finley. All the veneer and decorum has been blasted away by fatigue and crying jags and poop smeared blankets. There are moments of bliss, like right now when they are both asleep looking adorable and I'm writing on my blog for the first times since they've been home. But in general, the polish has come off my life – haircuts, manicures, showers, high heeled shoes, parties and movies are gone for the moment. Instead I am stripped to bare essentials – holding, soothing, feeding, washing, helping….mothering the best I can.