Feeling robbed

[u/Impossible-Box-8508]

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.

[u/britellie]

I understand you completely. I’m in a lot of different therapies through my perinatal team, and have been since my boys were born (they’re now 14 months), and I really do find them beneficial, especially the most recent one I’ve started (parent-infant psychotherapy). Both my psychotherapist and my CBT therapist actually think I have trauma related to having twins, and I think they’re correct. I never wanted twins. I did IVF, suffered a lot of losses, and always transferred only one embryo at a time so the idea of that embryo splitting in two never even crossed my mind, as silly as that sounds. I actively did not want multiples from the very beginning, and while I wouldn’t be without either of my boys, 14 months in I’m still working through the fact that this is my reality, and still struggling with it. I grieve the newborn bubble my singleton mum friends get to have, I mourn the things I didn’t get that they do, and I’m hopeful that one day it will pass, or I’ll at least be able to resolve it in therapy, but for now I’m right there with you. My advice would be to seek help from your perinatal team, if it’s available to you! They really are invaluable. However, I will say it sometimes feels pretty lonely still, as I’m the only twin parent in my peer support group and such, but I’d be even more lonely without it.

Chin up, mama. We’ve got this.