"In good writing, WORDS BECOME ONE with things."

December 30, 2013 · 10:02 PM

Disaster Baby Class Reunion

I always knew there were bound to be some disasters in going out with the twins. And now I’ve encountered them and lived to tell the tale. Of course I’ve encountered several, but will only tell one tale.

About a month ago, Evergreen Hospital invited us to return for a class reunion to see the people with whom we took our twin birthing class — to meet each other’s babies and learn how everyone was doing. This was really appealing to us because we don’t know any other twin parents (apart from acquaintances in EMOMs and one friend in the city I don’t see nearly enough) so we decided to attend. There were just two little hiccups: Mike had class on the night it was held, and it was planned for 6:30PM, otherwise known as Baby Unhappy Hour (no booze included). Not a problem, I thought. I’ve gone out with the babies by myself countless times, and I really want to see the two other couples from our class. Onward!

I arrived on time (!) and made my way down the hall. I saw a large group of parents in one room, but noticed they all held one baby, so I assumed there was another room for the parents of multiples. I went room to room — no luck. I pushed the stroller back to the main room and asked the woman in charge if there was another meeting for the multiples group.

“Oh, no, we just plan one big reunion a month and anyone who can come, does!” she said cheerfully.

I tried to mask my disappointment, but probably failed. Not only would I not be able to “relate” to these parents, but I didn’t know any of them so had no vested interest in their new babies. The entire point of a reunion is that you know the people prior to being reunited…am I right?

I took a seat and felt twenty pairs of eyes staring at me as I wheeled the twin stroller to park it next to my chair. I heard Arden stir, just as I knew she would, because it was their dinner time. I looked at the clock; there was no sight of either of the set of parents I was waiting for, and it was already twenty minutes past the class start time. After debating for a moment, I decided I’d already made the effort so I should stay and try to redeem the situation.

I pulled Arden out of her seat and fed her a bottle, and just as I did Henry woke up. I did my best casual “hahaha” to the parents around me who were watching closely to see what I would do. I was suddenly very aware of the fact that I was the only single parent in the room, and the only one with more than one baby. I said ten silent thank-yous to God that I had brought two bottles, instead of my usual routine of breastfeeding one while bottle feeding the other. The image of that happening in this room was so unimaginable I physically shuddered.

I grabbed bottle number two and plunked it in Henry’s mouth, keeping him in his car-seat since I couldn’t hold them both. I held Arden in the crook of my right arm, with my hand wrapped around her holding the bottle in her mouth, and used my left hand to hold Henry’s bottle in his. Trying to play it cool to the audience before me only had the effect of making me break out in a sweat. I was a little duck: calm on the surface, paddling like crazy under the water.

Feeling like something of a baby master at this point, I noticed that Henry was fussing, and he never fusses when eating. I talked to him and tried to soothe him, but it wasn’t working. Oh Lord, I prayed, please just get me through this and get me out of here. I will never again display the absurd audacity it took to attempt this, I promise, just get me through the next ten minutes.

I pulled the bottle out of Henry’s mouth and as soon as I did I knew — I hadn’t removed the spill-proof top to his bottle. He had been sucking on an empty nipple for five minutes. This realization sent a stab through my heart, the kind that accuses oneself of being a monster of a mother. However, I was still holding and feeding Arden, so I had to put her bottle between my knees, which made her cry, and then unscrew Henry’s bottle to remove the stopper without spilling it — all while everyone watched. Perspiration collected under my arms. I mentally grimaced at the twin moms who had not shown up.

I finally got Henry’s bottle set and continued feeding both babies until burp time. This went about as well as can be expected, as Arden cried when I put her back in her seat and Henry took about a year to burp. I told myself “that’s it, I’m out of here,” but then realized we were only two people away from me “introducing myself and my baby.” One would logically think: who cares? You don’t know these people and will never see them again. Despite that sound reasoning, I forced myself to stay in my seat to avoid looking like a failure.

The insanity of that decision is clear to me now, but in the moment I tortured myself to prove I could do double the work with half the help. Now I see it just proved what a prideful asshat I really am.

I rocked Arden with my foot and held Henry in my arms and smiled broadly to the class, “Hi, I’m Abby, and this is my son Henry and this is my daughter Arden, and they’re three months old and she weighed 7 lbs 14 oz at birth and he weighed 5 lbs 13 oz.” There was an audible gasp in the room because most of the other babies weighed less than Arden at birth. I responded with my fun fake laugh and answered the usual round of questions.

Just then one of the twin couples walked in the door…beam of light, ray of sunshine. We quickly huddled and began comparing notes, and as we did I felt the sting of realization that my road had been smoothly paved and hers had been straight through the woods with no clearing. Shortly after recovering from a near-death cesarean section, she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer — cancer! — and was in recovery. She’d had surgery, and the follow-up rounds of treatment had forced her to quit breastfeeding. I wanted to swallow my head for the dramatic pity-party I’d been throwing myself. To put me right over the edge of self-hatred, she handed me a gift for the twins. She might as well have handed me a grenade, because my heart was splattered across the floor in awe. Almost bleeding to death? A cancer diagnosis? And you went shopping for my babies? It was beyond my understanding of selflessness.

At that moment the evening shifted. I put crying Arden in her car-seat, covered her up, and pushed her around the hallway where she fell asleep instantly. Henry was pleasant and content, and I spent the rest of the reunion getting to know the darling twin girls of the woman who no longer felt like a classmate, but a friend.

I left the building forty-five minutes later knowing that I wasn’t the one who had survived a disaster. As I passed the nervous and hopeful-looking pregnant couples walking in for their birth class, I smiled at them with the special knowledge of all that lay ahead of them. One woman whispered to her husband “Oh my gosh she has TWINS” and I thought…it doesn’t matter. You’ll have your own challenges, as I’ve had mine. And regardless of their severity, you’ll come through it.

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Filed under The WORD (Faith)

Tagged as adventure, babies, twins

November 21, 2013 · 3:30 PM

The Body Issue

I think we can all agree that pregnancy is, primarily, all about the baby it produces. However, once the baby has arrived and the dust settles, you come face to face with the little spaceship your baby arrived in, otherwise known as your body.

All of my adult life, and even some of my teenage years, I’ve feared what shape pregnancy would leave me in. Not in an obsessive way, but when I felt like I was in good shape, I’d have this reactive thought: “Well that’s easy for you now; wait until you’ve had a baby and then we’ll talk about how hard it is to get in shape.” I’m not sure where this fear came from; no one I know has transformed into a beast postpartum, not my mother or grandmothers, no close friends. I suppose it’s just a natural anxiety most women have; pretty-young-thing before, overweight-Mama-Bear-from-the-Celestial-Seasonings-box after.

So when I became pregnant, I thought about what would happen afterward — but not nearly as much as I expected I would, because a twin pregnancy was as far ahead as I could focus. I hoped that I’d be small-ish again someday, but I didn’t want to psych myself out about it in case the resulting body was completely unrecognizable. I’d say, “You carried two people!” to let myself off the hook if I didn’t snap back in a socially acceptable time frame.

Luckily, the Lord made our bodies to be elastic. It’s actually shocking to think that I was this size, and now I’m not.

That was four days before I was induced. Thirty-eight weeks pregnant. Waddling. Swelling. Ready not to be pregnant anymore.

The day after the twins were born, my stomach shrunk considerably. I was still enormous, but so much smaller than before. I completely avoided touching my belly because it felt strange and separate from my body — squishy, empty, loose. It was an eerie sensation so I pretended it wasn’t there. This worked well until the nurses came around every day to push my belly in to ensure my uterus was shrinking back to its original size. File under: Things No One Tells You.

Three days after giving birth, my feet were still giant canoes attached to my swollen legs. The doctor came in and did an assessment on my recovery, and I was like yeah, yeah what about my FEET and ANKLES? I tried to sound professional. I might have said, “Doctor, my feet and ankles are still quite swollen…when should I expect them to return to normal? Tomorrow?” He interrupted me, “Yeah, those are cankles. It’s gonna take about a week.”

1. My doctor said “cankles.”

2. A WEEK?

Other than that, I didn’t give my figure another thought, and how could I? I was recovering from surgery, bonding with my babies, learning to breastfeed and pump, seeing visitors, and trying to sleep whenever possible. The idea of worrying about losing weight was absurd.

The day after Henry was released from the NICU (babies were 18 days old), Mike and I visited the Juanita waterfront for our first stroll with the bambinos. We walked around and laughed about how I looked like a woman pushing newborn twins while seven months pregnant.

The following day, my sister Erin and I returned to the park for a concert for babies. This sounds ridiculous for two-week-old newborns to attend, but it was irresistible to me; sunshine, water, my first “mommy” activity, and the bliss of taking the babies out of the house.

It’s strange that my stomach looks smaller in just one day, but that’s how it was — virtually every day it shrank smaller and smaller. Elastic, I tell you.

By the six-week mark I looked less pregnant and more generally out of shape, like a passerby might think, do a few sit-ups, why don’t you?

This was shortly before I got the all-clear to start exercising, but even since then I haven’t burst into action. The insane calorie-burn of breastfeeding has done all the work, leaving me with ten pounds to work off on my own. (I’m not going to lose those for a while, however, because things need to stay a little heavier with two babies counting on me as their food source.)

My exercise now consists of stroller walks and the Tracy Anderson Post-Pregnancy DVD. This involves about three thousand crunches, and half as many leg-lifts. I exaggerate, but only slightly. I’m doing it as often as I can during nap-time, and already I feel more held together. I also seriously considered buying that corset-like band, but never got around to it and figured it wouldn’t help that much anyway.

Here’s the thing: I wish I was very mother-earth, all zen, walking around saying, “it’s just a body! I got to participate in the miracle of life! Who cares?” But the truth is I’ve never met a woman who didn’t want to return to her pre-baby body. For some people, things fall right back into place, but for most of us we’re left with various parts that aren’t exactly how we’d like them.

Here I am about three weeks ago, fourteen weeks after giving birth.

I am not delusional — I realize I basically look like I did before I had the twins. But let’s be real: I’m wearing leggings that cinch me in and a hoodie that zips me all together. It’s DIY Spanx. Things are not as they were…my body hasn’t sunk like the Titanic, but it’s also not sailing into New York as good as new either. Would you like an example of good as new?

Ridiculous, no? Awesome, yes?

She gave birth four days before me. There I go perpetuating the pressure on women to snap back…hardly. Kate is not women’s standard; she’s our dream, and there’s a difference.

I don’t think my body will ever be the same, and that’s okay. I have stretch marks, a scar, and — this is what I remind myself — two healthy babies. If that’s what I lay at the altar of my vanity, so be it. Rather than striving for the body I had, I’m moving toward the body that’s awaiting me: new, different, a little flawed, but beautiful.

After all, on days when I’m not feeling quite Kate Middleton-esque, I’ve figured out a way to hide that tummy, and it beats the hell out of Spanx.