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.