Kindred spirits...

Lately I have been getting alot more negative comment regarding being a mom of multiples. People accusingly ask me if I did IVF so they can shove me in the same category as the crazy lady from California and they are so disappointed when they find out that I did not. I can always tell that they want to ask more questions like "well then are they natural or did you do something to make this happen to you?". They want to know "Is this your fault or God's fault" and "Are you a victim of circumstance and I should pity you or are you a victim of selfishness and greed and I should tell you that it serves you right". I know this because some people are not so subtle, some people come right out at you and say these things. I have literally had people say "Did you bring this on yourself or should I feel sorry for you?"  I suppose that in some ways I did ask for this...I did want children. I wanted them badly, almost desperately and I always said that I wanted to have three before I was thirty...well I checked off that box, lol.  But some days I ask myself whether or not I am a good mom...somedays when I am tired and overwhelmed and I have spent the day fending them off instead of nurturing them and loving them as a good mom should I wonder..."Did I do the right thing?" and "Am I doing right by them?" Although I couldn't decide which one to trade in if I had a gun to my head...I am overwhelmingly guilty to admit that some days I have moments when I wish I was "normal" and that I only had one child at a time so that I could show them love more and give them the attention and affection that I wish I could.  Most days I am all business just to make it through the day and now that I have even less time with them in a day it feels even worse because I get home and hit the ground running...make dinner, make bottles, get babies ready for bed, put them down and then Mike gets home and I am mad and exhausted from my long day and from my even longer 1-2 hours with the babies....this is not how I pictured my life...but the Polly Anna in me asks "Is it ever?" and I get up every morning and make it work...we all do.

Someone on triplet connection forwarded along this blog entry. I agree with much of what she says...and I probably need to take her advice and get on the medicated band wagon...but even more than that, it reminds that I am not alone on this island at a time when I am really struggling to figure it all out...we all are...

WHAT YOU WISH FOR
By M. SINDY FELIN

Eleven and a half months ago I gave birth to triplets. That’s THREE babies. All at once! Not impressed? No doubt then you are among the hordes marveling at what is turning out with each passing day to be a curiouser and curiouser shipwreck in the person of one Nadya Suleman of Whittier, Calif. Suleman disgorged octuplets (seven plus one stowaway) a week ago.

I’ve been asked often in that week whether having triplets gives me any insight into what Nadya Suleman is about to face. It absolutely does not. Perhaps if these were her first children I might have something to say about sleep deprivation (it’s unimaginable), coordinating volunteers (a lot more people will offer to help than will actually follow through) or exclusive breastfeeding (don’t have your heart set on it). But with six children, including a set of twins at home, Suleman should have more of an idea of what is in store for her than I did when I found out I was carrying triplets.

So I don’t have any words of wisdom for Suleman other than, “Please, stop!” I do, however, have some advice for those who have recently found themselves pregnant with triplets or more. Many of these women find their way to the message boards of tripletconnection.com, where they post desperate questions about the chances of their babies being born without disabilities and their chances of finishing the pregnancy without becoming debilitated themselves.

I understand their worries; I had the same ones. But after nearly a year of being the mother of triplets I can see that theirs are not the right questions. What these new parents should ask — and what I should have paid more attention to — was what happens after the children are born.

To start, there is the financial strain. On the message boards parents share strategies on how to get free formula and diapers, how to find formula on the cheap on eBay and how to qualify for WIC, the government program that helps with the cost of formula and cereal for infants. I used to joke that I spent so much money trying to get pregnant that I wouldn’t be able to afford diapers by the time I finally did have a baby. It wasn’t so funny a few months into my triplets’ lives when I found myself exactly in that position.

Then there is the emotional strain that at times comes from a wicked level of postpartum depression coupled with weeks on end of getting virtually no sleep. I formed a close online bond with a group of about a dozen women pregnant with triplets and due around the time I was. When my babies were 4-months-old, I gloated to a friend that I was the only one of the group not on antidepressants. Sure, I spent quite a bit of each day shaking and sobbing alongside my newborns, but I wasn’t on meds! Not two weeks after that conversation, I stormed into my doctor’s office and demanded she give me something — anything, to make my day-to-day life bearable. A few weeks later, I had her double the dose of my Zoloft.

Finally, there is the strain on marriages and families. Couples counseling and divorce are often the topics of conversation on the message boards. My own relationship with my partner, shaky for some time before we became parents, did not survive the stress of raising three babies. I find myself now among a growing number of women who are single parents of triplets. Even the octuplet grandma out in Whittier has thrown a public temper tantrum and declared she will not be around when her daughter and the octuplets are released from the hospital.

And humming along in the background during all this chaos is the constant awareness that “I asked for this.” Triplets rarely just “happen.” You pay in money and emotion trying to conceive. Then you suddenly go from barren to oh-so-fruitful, and any regret or second thoughts feel hypocritical.

So you give up the idea of attachment parenting, breastfeeding until kindergarten, Mommy and Me classes, making new mommy friends at the park. And you forget all those daydreams about what finally holding our little ones in our arms would be like — the woozy, tearful love, the hours spent cradling a single, precious child. And you take on three times the postpartum depression and three times the screaming. A baby eventually sleeps at night but one or two are always awake. ALWAYS.

You do all this on your own, if you can, because reaching out for help is tinged with embarrassment that after years of yearning you can’t seem to handle it.

But here is the last thing these parents-to-be need to know. Each night there is a brief period of time where everyone is sleeping and you realize you did it — everyone is alive, dry, and fed. People like to say “I couldn’t do what you do,” and you nod heroically but in reality you know that yes, they could. When faced with the seemingly impossible, we women have a way of rising to the occasion. Because even with the seemingly insurmountable difficulties I face raising triplets on my own, I would rather be fighting this beautiful battle than return to the days I thought I would never carry even one child of my own.