Unabridged Reflections of a Fed-Up Generic Macaroni Beached Whale Mom

Right now, I dread leaving my house or even my desk at work. I just want to keep my head down and go about my business. The second I do get up and enter the general public, the comments start.

“You look so adorable!”

“Looking cute, mama.”

“How are you feeling?”

No, I am not adorable. I am not cute. How the FUCK do you think I’m feeling? I am 34 fucking weeks pregnant with twins and all I want to do is go home and crawl back into bed for the duration of this pregnancy. I am exhausted and nearly in tears each day at the thought of dealing with almost another month of this: another month of discomfort and contractions that do nothing; another month of my 5-year-old acting out and being sad that his mommy can’t go with him to the park or read to him in bed at night; another month of people staring at my stomach and reminding me that I look like a beached whale by assuring me that I look cute. There is nothing cute about this. My body has been hijacked for the last 8 months. I throw up on a regular basis. Last night I puked because I didn’t spit out my tooth paste soon enough and a little got close to the back of my throat, causing me to gag. I haven’t slept in my own bed in over 4 months. This is not cute. This is some version of hell. Don’t get me wrong – it’s worth every moment for these children I so desperately wanted for the last 4 years – but that doesn’t mean I have to revel in it.

And as much as I want them to be evicted and get my body back, this is really only the beginning. The real battle begins once they are born. That’s when the circus begins, and this time it will be amplified on account of the fact that they're twins. I already have people treating me like I’m some sort of museum exhibit. So, before you gawk at me and ask, let me just take care of the conversation for you: I’m having a boy and a girl. No, they are not identical. They were conceived by screwing and my ovaries feeling the need to over-achieve that particular month. They will be born via elective c-section in a hospital. Good for you for having vaginal, non-medicated water home birth with your midwife, but I feel more comfortable in a hospital. They will sleep in bassinets. Yes, I realize that it will be difficult to get up with two babies in the night, and no, I am not looking forward to it. No, you may not touch my stomach or, after they’re born, them.

I have actually had to provide all of these answers to people – some of whom I don’t even know. It really throws you for a loop when random strangers ask if you conceived by having sex or, implying with the question, if you endured the struggle of infertility. As if it is their business. But that is the thing: when it comes to parenting – motherhood in particular – it seems like it is everyone’s business. There are a lot of expectations piled on top of moms by, it seems like, everyone. The mommy wars are real, and they are brutal. I remember the intense shame I felt with my son when I struggled to breastfeed and ended up supplementing with formula. I was made to feel as though this was failing and that breastfeeding should have come naturally and easily. When I had to go on an extended trip for grad school when he was 9-months-old, I weaned him. One mom incredulously asked if I could have just pumped and dumped to keep my supply up while I was gone so I could resume breast feeding when I returned. Like my boobs were their business. But it stung. A lot. Clearly there was something wrong with me and I was failing as a mother. It turned out ok. He gained weight, was healthy, and is now an inquisitive, bright 5-year-old who blows me away with the things he figures out on his own. I couldn’t tell you who in his preschool class was breast or bottle fed or both.

 

Now, as I’m entering into having infants again, that fear of judgement is returning and I feel my anxiety creeping back. We live in a fairly affluent area with a lot of stay-at-home moms. I stayed at home with our son while I finished grad school and I felt incredibly out of place. We were living on a shoe string and the mom’s group I went to every other week all seemed like Stepford wives in comparison.  They were talking about planning trips to Disney and what type of soccer club to enroll their kids in while I was deciding if I could get bananas cheaper at Aldi or Hy-Vee. That was a difficult time and I felt incredibly isolated. 5 years later, my degree is finished and I have started a career that I am incredibly proud of. It’s a significant part of my identity and helps me feel fulfilled both individually and as a wife and mom.  Now, with twins coming, the question comes up a lot: Are you going to stay at home with them? It really emphasizes how much our culture has this particular picture of what motherhood “should” look like.  Like, I’m supposed to be this perfect mom who keeps the house clean, complete a Pinterest project each day, have our son doing developmentally-appropriate educational activities while I’m not shuttling him back and forth to various activities all over town to make sure he’s socially, emotionally and educationally prepared for kindergarten, serve him a well-balanced diet of organic fruits and vegetables with grass-fed, free-range, hormone-free meats that are cut into the shape of dinosaurs all while constantly having both of the babies (in their cloth diapers and bamboo onesies) constantly stuck to my breasts to ensure we are well bonded, and I’m supposed to proudly do this in public as well and post photos of myself breastfeeding and eating lactation cookies to boost my milk supply so people know that I exclusively breastfeed because pumping and using formula are clearly grounds for contacting DHS. Oh, and I have to take my baby weight off immediately and look like the Kate Middleton every day in my perfectly styled pottery barn decorated house to which my husband comes home after a hard day at work to find dinner waiting for him on the table.

Ok, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but some days I feel like that’s what people expect, and “good parenting” varies from person to person. I’m getting really tired of hearing that my version of that is somehow warped. When our son was an infant, we could not get him to sleep through the night. Whenever we would lay him down in his crib, he would wake up and cry. We were exhausted. Our pediatrician recommended letting him cry as, based on our feeding information, he was getting plenty to eat, and she gave us some tips on how to help him soothe himself to sleep. It worked for us. He’s a great sleeper to this day. He’s a very normal little boy who loves trucks and trains and dreams of someday being a construction worker and a firefighter. That particular sleep training method doesn’t work for everyone, and that’s ok. I was recently visiting a favorite children’s resale store in town. As I was perusing the racks, the clerk was talking to another mom about how horrible and damaging it was to allow children to cry it out, and how co-sleeping was so much better for children, and anyone who chose to have children cry it out were heartless. I felt my cheeks get hot and I had to bite my tongue to keep from snapping at them, defending myself, and reminding them just how stupid and insignificant their conversation was in the scope of real life. I had served as a chaplain at a children’s hospital and watched parents mourn deceased children regardless of how they fed them, where they slept and what kind of clothing they wore. Many of them had done everything “right.”  In that space, walking with bereaved parents into that very real personal hell, the mommy wars ceased to matter. At the end of the day, loving, nurturing and caring for your children in the safest and best way that works best for you is what matters. I kind of wish I had said that. I wish I had stood up for myself and my choices and reminded them that parenting takes a variety of forms, some of which don’t even involve giving birth or conceiving a child. Parenthood is not the epoch of life or the only measure of success, and neither is how you engage in that parenting be you a “crunchy, cloth-diapering, organic, homemade baby food” mom, a “stay-at-home” or “work-at-home” mom, or a “generic macaroni-and-cheese-served-in-front-of-the-TV at the end of a long work day” mom.  Having and parenting children is simply one way of living and experiencing and finding joy and meaning in life. It was what I chose, and my choice to have children and parent them the way I do makes me no better or worse than anyone else. It simply makes me a human trying to figure out who I am in the midst of my own life.

I’m not sure what the next few months will look like. I’m scared, but I’m also excited. I’m excited to meet my babies while afraid of the sleepless nights ahead. I’m sure there will be moments of doubt and second-guessing all of my choices. I will probably still feel like a beached whale and not bask in the joy of parenting, and that’s ok. I and my husband will survive. As for you, whoever you are, keep asking me questions. I will answer them honestly, and I’m sorry if you don’t like what I have to say. And there’s a good chance it will be accompanied by an eye-roll or heavily laden with sarcasm, because, really – let’s be honest - it’s none of your business. If, on my leave after they’re born, my husband comes home and our house hasn’t burned down and our babies are alive, mostly clean and healthy and my sanity is still somewhat intact and our son feels loved and included in the midst of the crazy, it will have been a good, successful day. Just as my friends who are childless-by-choice will have had a successful day by doing the things that they love and caring for the people in their lives. It’s not about how we get from point a to point b. It’s about how we love and care for others in the midst of that journey. And I would really love it if you would care for me not by asking me how I’m feeling, but by telling me that I’m doing a good job and offering to hold a baby while I breathe or shower for five minutes. That is how we can support each other –not with unsolicited advice and snobbery – but with compassion and recognizing that, no matter how we choose to live it, life is hard and beautiful all at the same time, and we need each other to get through it. I felt awkward with those stepford moms years ago in that stay-at-home moms group, but over time I came to recognize that our differences didn’t matter. I needed them. They helped me find sanity and assured me when I felt most alone. They shared with me how they struggled to breastfeed and assured me that however I fed my son was right. They came and picked him up for play dates on days when I was sick and my husband couldn’t miss work. We were at different moments in our lives and had different priorities. Today, that is still true. Despite that, they are some of my best, most supportive friends who encourage me to no end, and I am so grateful they are in my life. I hope that I am that for them, too. They taught me that it’s not about the trips to Disney or being a perfect mom who gets their kid in the right soccer league. It’s about being a decent human, loving your neighbor, and making sure whatever you grow or bring into the world reflects that as well.