Twin Mom Survival Mode
5 months in, 2 months adjusted in age of our boys, and here I am, in survival mode, trying to breathe and make it another day.
105 & 115 days in the NICU, yet here we are trying to survive parenting twins & our 4 daughters.
No full nights sleep, only an hour or two here or there. A nursing and pumping mom who lacks sleep and food, just trying to survive another minute. No showers everyday as exhaustion hits the eyelids. The twins siblings in need of a bedtime read. Here we are, trying the best that we can.
We try to cook dinner, yet here we are having take out as we are too exhausted to cook, yet alone eat.
Being parents to newborn twins is all exhausting. It feels there’s no sleep ever to come. Skipped meals making your belly empty and dizziness occurring. Forgetting to pump at certain times only to find yourself hurting from a missed pumped session. No strength to get through the next minute. It feels lonesome and tiring. It feels time is getting stolen from your other kids who need you too. What a sacrifice of giving your own self up for the sake of your children, your newborns, your spouse, yet you lose yourself in it all.
No food, no sleep, the desperation of needing help yet there was none… it was challenging and hard. The twin mom newborn stage is one i call survival mode, learning to take it one minute at a time with one breath at a time.
Missed times with Jesus as your “Jesus and Me” routine has changed.
House dirty, laundry piled up, baggy dark circle under our eyes, oily hair, no makeup face…. what a mess. Waking up late missing the times to get the kids to catch the bus at the beginning of the school year. Alarm on snooze for the fiftieth thousandth time…. Yet here we are relearning a new schedule…
But there’s light. Light I see. As they’ve grown I see sleep is beginning to slowly come. I see time is slowing down. I see smiles and hear giggles as each day passes. I see newborn diapers and clothes no more. I see them sleeping a little longer each day. The pumping schedule is slowing down, the nursing and formula feeding is finally finding a schedule, dinner is finally able to be made, oh the joy of having home cooked meals.
From one twin mom to another, I see you. I hear your cries. I feel the loss of losing yourself yet seeking one who is higher and in more need. I see the no shower days and the zombie survival days. I see the house trying to be picked up, I see chores adding up, but mama…. It’ll pass and it’ll get better. Hang in there. I know it’s hard right now, and it’s ok. Maybe if we stopped in the hard so we could refocus and see the good in it. It’ll help us embrace the good that much more.
Maybe dear twin mama, we were born for such a time as this, learning to become humble and dying to self-reliance. Maybe dear mama, we are being taught to not rely on our own strength cause we have none and instead rely on Our Father’s strength. Maybe dear twin mama, we are meant to walk this tough road to help pave and shape the way for other twin moms giving grace in the hard days. And maybe, just maybe dear twin mama, we are to learn to give ourselves grace for the times we give ourselves a harder time for a lack of sleep and tidying. Maybe just maybe twin mama….. we are made for this by the Lords strength and love.
Maybe just maybe….