The Outsider

The Queen challenged us to say something important, something big.  I think it was a call to revolution, but my strengths lie more in counter-intelligence.   I've considered what sort of thing I could say, especially in the realm of mommybloggerhood, and it's sort of strange to me that really the only thing I could think of isn't terribly relevant to anyone else.  I commented on it briefly back on Sarah's post about how KY can suck it - and her free book. 

First I want to briefly address the so called Mommy Wars.  What a bunch of bullshit. 

 

Okay, now that I'm done with that..............

 

Let's talk about Twins.

 

I have a set.  I didn't do anything special to get them, other than the old in/out as Alex from A Clockwork Orange would say.   I didn't have complications.  I worked on a Monday and gave birth vaginally to them on a Thursday in the wee AM hours.  

 

And I am tired of being made to feel left out of the TWIN crowd. 

 

I'm sure that no-one is doing this intentionally, it may be some sort of latent herd mentality - but I swear to you I can feel the segregation when I'm in a group of twin moms - No IVF? please go stand behind the blue line.  No Complications?  No monitors?  No extended stays in the hospital before birth or post partum?  Please stand further behind the blue line.  You are not one of us.

 

I listen to twin mom conversations, the normal sort of thing women do where we compare tragedy and experience and try to understand one another, and I'm left out.  I don't know what most of these things ARE that they went through.   You had a mag-wash?  What does that do?  I get a blank stare like I'm mad - how can I not know?  I honestly feel like I'm listening to a foreign language sometimes.......I have no idea what happens in the NICU.  My twins were 7 pounds each when they were born.  

 

My biggest complaint during hurricanes the year my twins were born was that I had to stock up on premixed formula - which is expensive as hell.  I didn't have to consider home monitors not working because of power outages.  

 

And let me be clear. 

 

I am unbelievably thankful that I never had any of those things.   I would never want my children in the NICU, or have to need monitors, or to have complications or any other such thing.  But it seems like because I didn't have those things, sometimes people think I didn't suffer through a miserable twin pregnancy.    I would probably feel differently if a herd of "no twin pregnancy complication" mom's existed.  I could sit at THEIR table at twins club.  But I am perpetually the only one.

 

My hips hurt to this day in ways that I find unimaginable because of the strain put on them carrying such big twins.    That I wasn't on an emotional rollercoaster that I sometimes think I'm still not off of.    That I had to get up and go to work and act like I had my shit together each and every day because I am the director of operations and professionally, you can't sit in your office and cry because your entire body hurts.   That I was overwhelmed at the prospect of now having three children and now no support because we live 1000 miles from our family.

 

I get dismissed as the one who had the easy pregnancy, it was a breeze.  And I suppose sometimes I laugh and say it was - because I feel really guilty having seen or known people who really really really suffered.  My own suffering pales and I feel bad even bringing it up.   I will never forget waddling up after work to visit Becky in the hospital because of her placenta previa and just thinking how unreal it was that she was having such a problem.  She looked fine other than the strained face, bloated body, black circles under her eyes........but hell - we ALL had that by that time.  And as I waddled out of her room I remember feeling so bad for my friend, and so unbelievably relieved that I didn't have to do all that. 

 

And I went through the same thing everyone else did when they took their babies home, minus the C - Section pain which I am so glad I didn't have to do.  But, it was a nightmare.  Having two newborns isn't like having two babies.   It's like having 10 babies.  And you're tired.  And you're in pain (I was just in pain in a different place than the C section moms, and admittedly mine healed faster).  And you're tired.  Did I mention you are tired?  Did I mention it's a nightmare.  The worst stress I have ever endured? 

 

I am a twin mom.  My suffering was probably different than yours and no, I really don't want to trade you.  I don't.   Good DNA, luck, and modern medicine converged to allow me the best possible twin pregnancy experience.   And I am so very grateful.

But I wish that somehow I didn't feel like I'm not one of you because I was lucky.