Well, the twins turned one.

It might be obvious to anyone looking at a before and after photo of our family, but it took a long time for my brain to wrap around going from 4 to 6 kids. It might still be wrapping.

The reality is there are so many different aspects of the changes to our family, to my role as a mom, and so I have just been trying to go slow, have grace for myself and others, and adjust to these changes. Almost daily, I think through what I hope to accomplish, and then somewhere around 11 am I realize I’m going to have to reset those expectations. Those would have fit with 4 kids all in school, but they don’t fit with twin teething babies or sleep deprivation or two chubby bodies on the move, even with help.

And my work plate has been very full with lots of different opportunities, but my quiet mornings of just writing have been fewer than I’d like. So I am taking this one to record the highlights of this year, since one day I’ll muse about this time, and like every twin mom I know I’ll say to myself, “That first year was a blur” and I’ll wish I had written it all down. So as a gift to my future self, I’m doing just that here.

Having twin babies is like drinking out of a fire hose every day. There is a lot of joy, and laughter and awe and amazement. But there isn’t a lot of rest. There were many, many moments this past year with a line of five urgent things that needed to get done right this second. It was triage. It was ER room-esque shifts, complete with a 12-hour cycle but without the days off. Moms with multiple kids know this feeling. When we had 3 kids 3 and under it was also stressful. But it was a different kind of stress. It was everyone in diapers, no one can get themselves a drink kind of stress.

Having big kids alongside baby wrangling is at once easier and harder. I had baby holders but also big kid schedules to run while I was in the baby trenches. I was coordinating with teachers and doctors and handy men and sitters and family and friends for rides, tests, homework, illnesses, playdates, birthdays and life at the same time as I was sleep deprived and empty and v v busy putting diaper cream on one baby while keeping the other one’s hands out of said diaper cream.

For a good two years my desires – writing and running and working – were slowed while I grew two humans. (And for the record, they were completely and totally worth it.) There was a lot of growing and stretching on the outside, and then on the inside as I had to say no to hard things, dig deep for patience often, cling to prayer, and put others first not once, or twice, but six times over.

This year has taught me so much about pouring yourself out, and about living life moment by moment. It’s surprising that no matter how hard your circumstances are, doing this really does yield joy and peace and a deeper happiness than I have ever known. And the best lesson of this year is celebrating the way that community helps us, and adds so much to our lives.

So here is a look back on some of the big moments of the past year.  The ones that we lived through laughing, white knuckling, praying or celebrating. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought my life would look like this but I am so so grateful it does.

1. Birth Story: There was the end-of-a-twin-pregnancy chapter, which was a special endurance race the likes of which I have never encountered.

And then all of a sudden, they were born.

We knew that one of the twins was very likely to have Down syndrome from our testing done around week 13. I wrote about it here. But I was so overwhelmed with getting big at the end of the pregnancy, and the strain of every day, that the idea of one of them having Down syndrome receded.

But I remember laying on the c-section table, and hearing the first baby’s cry – it was Michael, and he was so beautiful!

And then I remember laying there, feeling the weirdness of them pulling a baby out of me, watching my husband’s eyes peer over the blue curtain, and when they had pulled the baby out, I knew from the change of his flicker that Ronan had Down syndrome. Then there was a cry, but also an odd silence from the medical team before they cheered this baby too. My husband whispered in my ear what I already knew. Ronan has Down syndrome. 

And he was so stinking cute.

Right after he was born, Rob went over and looked into Ronan’s eyes, and he says he immediately stared into his soul. And most people who meet him say the same thing.

It turns out it’s pretty easy to love a baby with Down syndrome, because they are, um, a baby.

So the rest of the stay was a lot of snuggles and feeding and diaper changes. I didn’t love having a c-section, and as pragmatic as I am and believe the only thing that really matters is what is good for the baby(ies) I missed the way postpartum happens with a vaginal birth. But I was totally in love and in awe of our double blessing!

I worried when there were issues with Ronan feeding in the hospital though. He didn’t nurse well, and he didn’t bottle feed well. And there were issues when we got home. It would take an hour to give him 1-2 mls of milk. We were discharged on Day 4 and on Day 5 a visiting nurse came and spent 3 very unhelpful hours telling me that Ronan ‘just needed a longer nipple’. There was some concern that his body temp was 96 degrees, but I was scheduled to see the pediatrician the next day.

This picture was taken while we were waiting for the pediatrician, who came in and took his temperature, which was 95 degrees and said we needed to go to Boston Children’s Emergency Room right away. I was unprepared for this news, as my snapping the photo at this time may suggest.

2. The NICU + Surgery: Then we enter the chapter that could be called ‘health crisis’ and as anyone who has had one of these knows, they are stressful and hard and harrowing. Especially when you are recovering from a C-section, are nursing a newborn, and have four older kids at home.

But you get through a crisis through prayers, grace, love and the amazing support of neighbors and family. And we had so much faith and confidence in our doctors at Boston Children’s, and felt so fortunate at the success of Ronan’s pull-through surgery and placement of a g-tube. All those prayers helped!

Still, I was surprised at some of the PTSD that showed up months later. Like every time I saw the gauze pads I used to have to tape around his g-tube, or how how emotional I was this Halloween, remembering a year ago when Ronan was still in the hospital. You feel incomplete when you don’t get to take your baby home with you, when you are worried about vital statistics from an hour away and rely on amazing nurses to show your baby the care you want to give. I know many NICU parents describe this feeling. You don’t take having your baby home and healthy for granted after that.

In fact, Ronan’s whole stay opened my eyes to how many struggles other people go through. I wrote about this period here in this post entitled Love In A Time of NICU. Suffering is hard, but if it leads to compassion for other people that is beautiful.

3. Homecoming/Life with Two Babies:  Ronan’s homecoming was so joyful and at the same time was the beginning of life taking care of two babies. The day after he was discharged, it was Sophie’s birthday. She just admitted to me last week, a year later, how hard it was to have a mom who just had her first night with two babies and was sleep deprived, how she really wanted a sleep over but we had to say no. Though I wished it hadn’t fallen on her birthday and the mom guilt storm brewed mightily, I know there is growth in her too from this experience, and her birthday this year included both a sleepover party and an iPod, so she has recovered, I think.

We hit our stride around Christmas…

There were still a lot of doctors appointments and sleepless nights but the joy of kids anticipating Christmas is enough to keep a sinking barge afloat, let alone a sleep-deprived mom of twins. I snapped the pic in the very center of this collage, with our little baby Jesus that was left in the diaper bag after a special blessing at church, as I waited for two hours (!) for a cardiologist to meet with us (he was cleared of a slight stenosis that had righted itself, thank God). It ended up being the center photo for the year, which sums it up nicely.

He was at the very center of our year, of our lives, which is where He should be. And why I felt so much joy.

4. Months 2-7: The Crunch

Overall, the hardest thing about this year was the sleep deprivation. I wrote about on another post (the sleep training one) but in short, my description is this:

There is an acute edge to sleep deprivation. It is subtle, incessant, fluid, crushing, quiet and loud at the same time. Everything you have in you that makes you strong is quiet; everything that overwhelms you and makes you cranky and sucks patience out of you is loud.

I am convinced a babies smiliest days coincide with the hardest days of sleep deprivation.

We also had one of the hardest weekends ever when both babies were admitted for pneumonia (Ronan) and bronchiolitis (Michael). I spent 7 hours in the ER on Saturday with Ronan and 6 hours with Michael on Sunday.

Though these babies didn’t sleep that well, they did travel well. They barely ever cried in the car since they always had siblings talking to them or handing them a bottle from the front. We took them to Florida and they did great on the plane!

We also had a lot of trips up to the White Mountains of NH, and to Maine, and they did so well driving in the car. Again big kids helped so much. So much easier than traveling with just little kids.

In reality, these months were very focused on keeping life going for big kids – as I pulled out these pictures of the twins, they were surrounded by pictures of basketball, skiing, eating, performing, dancing, baseball, lacrosse and swimming with our big kids. We didn’t slow down much.

The double twin stroller was a constant fixture in our community. As was the big black van. We survived on wheels and grace.

You might (or might not at all) remember that my husband travels for work. We got through this time with an au pair, but at this point in the year, we lost our trust in her after our dog went missing one weekend when we left her with the big kids for a wedding and she seemed…unconcerned. We very amicably suggested rematch and all learned a lot and still keep in touch.

5. Months 8-12: Flying Solo + More Sleep

Once they started to sleep more, I could breath, though early morning wake ups were still common which was hard when we flowed into the summer, and big kids were home with lots of energy and wanted to stay up late. We had a great summer sitter who helped us survive, and I couldn’t have done it without her since my husband had to travel a lot for work this year.

Signs that I lost my mind include getting an aquarium after a fair fish died:

And thinking the beach could be fun with twins. It is impossible alone, survivable with two adults, and a much much better idea to get a sitter for the babies and take the big kids, which is what I did a few times.

The thing that really helped us is joining a pool with lifeguards and bringing a playpen the babies could go in. They seemed to do great when they were outside, in the shade, with lots of toys. We brought that playpen everywhere – parties, the beach, BBQs, and the pool. It might be my #1 twin survival tool in addition to the Snap and Go stroller.

And then in August we got another au pair who has worked out great!

Even though it’s still hard and every day is fuuulllllll to the brim, I feel like a new chapter has started for all of us. One with sleep and actually getting dressed, and making plans that a year ago we wouldn’t have. We actually took them out to dinner and a parade this weekend and they did great, I actually got to enjoy both events as opposed to sweating I was working so hard.

I’ve heard that the next year is also a tough one with twins. Things like playgrounds and pools and malls are really hard, and now Ronan is very mobile and into everything too so I am happy/scared to report I think we will have two kids going in two directions.

Like every parent, the best things about this year is getting to know a new personality (or two). Michael is VERY determined, and very smart and surprisingly sweet. He is always giving the best hugs. Rob calls him Hudini because no matter what gate/chair/box you use to block him from something we will figure out a way to get around it. He said, ‘all done’ at 8 months when I was trying to teach him the baby sign – just skipped right over the hand gestures – and started walking at 10.5 months. He studies everything and is always looking around for who is having the most fun, and then makes a bee-line for that sibling. He is a man of action.

Ronan is such an observer, and surprises us all the time by showing he knows what’s going on. He can manipulate toys better than Michael, and figures out what do with them before his brother even sits down. He LOVES his bath. He also loves 5 am wake ups which were trying to dissuade him from liking. But now that he is crawling the world is his oyster. And I don’t think I have ever seen a human light up the way Ronan does when you pick him up, and then it’s the giggle jackpot if you tickle him.

Looking back, this year was the first one that mom guilt really ate at me. I think it’s just a part of having twins, since you can’t always give to both of them. I spend a lot of time sitting down on the floor so I can hold them both at the same time and they don’t see me holding one when they are reaching for me. I also feel a strange protection for each of them – when Ronan gets attention or I share about his Down syndrome, I’m trying to make sure the world knows how special I think Michael is too! And when Michael gives kids more reaction and they favor him, I’m like ‘Ronan will get there! He will be so reactive too once he gets to know you!’ So there’s a snap shot into my craziness for you, if you were wondering.

And I am always talking to the older ones about what they need, and trying to carve out special time with each one of them. But on the whole, their adoration for their baby brothers far outweighs any angst. Andrew especially could have felt a lot of growing pains, but he just loves the babies, and tells anyone he sees about them.

When I look back on this year, I have this throbbing nostalgia for how much my other kids have grown while I was so busy. Andrew being 5 is just blowing my mind, and RJ and Sophie are practically teenagers. Lucy is at the best age – 9 – where she is still holding on to girlhood while she tries on big kids qualities and develops the best sense of humor. It’s just the nature of drinking out a firehose that it’s harder to pay attention to what’s going on around it, but I am trying with all of my might, because I want to remember everything about them at these ages.

People are always asking me how I do it, and the answer is I don’t do it alone.

Love and grace got us through this past year. For the babies, for each other, for the unexpected gifts life brought all of us. God knows how to give the best gifts we don’t even know to ask for, and then he sends the grace to help carry them.

Life with six kids isn’t going to get easier any time soon, but I know that will keep carrying us through, and will keep bringing us so much joy.

Lots of people say we’re crazy (including our close friends!) but when I think about how much fun it is to love these people, I think  it’s crazy not to love this many kids and having this much joy. They are so so worth it.

We love you Michael and Ronan!