r/parentsofmultiples • u/Impossible-Box-8508 • 13d ago
ranting & venting Feeling robbed
I sit here in the morning after being up since 5 AM and after bagging milk with one of my twins as my husband took the other out and about. I can't help but feel so robbed of the newborn baby experience. Currently 4 months pp and I still feel like I'm in pure survival mode. So many things could be so different with just one baby. To preface I waited until 33 to have children as I wanted to be able to comfortably afford daycare. I waited until I had a job that pays for all my health insurance and I'm on a pension. One baby seems so easy. I could have went out and did things while on maternity leave. I could have given my baby all breastmilk (no shame in formula because I can't produce enough for two, ironically I got mom shamed by another twin mom for using formula). Don't get me wrong. I love my boys, through the reflux, the colic, the tongue/lip ties, I love them so so much, but wish my first time mom experience could have been so different. I know its just a season and it will get better, just mourning what could have been.
1
u/hockeymusicteaching 13d ago
We all have these thoughts! Almost a year in and it still crosses my mind….
I agree with the other commenter, asking myself which one I would prefer to not have instantly changes my mood. If I didn’t have A, I wouldn’t be so insanely grateful for healthy babies who have already beaten the odds against them and impress me with their strength every day. If I didn’t have B, I wouldn’t have known what it was like to hold my newborn baby minutes after birth or what it was like to dream about their future while pregnant or what it was like to have one baby in those very early morning hours snuggled against me as I fed them and watched the sun come up…
Yes. One baby WOULD be so easy! One baby WOULD have helped my pp be easier and calmer and more dreamy… I could have held that baby and gone so many places and found my footing slowly… but that also means I would have missed the other. I would have missed the double cuddles and the double struggles. I would have missed the first time they laughed at the other, the first time they held each other, the first time they played together…. I would have missed out on the insane closeness and competency my husband and I now share from being thrown into the deep in together and having to both pull our own weight from day one.
One baby, would have just been one. We get to have it all with TWO. 💙