preparing myself
by britt kaufmann

My husband and I sat side-by-side in the waiting room of the radiology department, neither of us reading magazines.

“I’m sure I’m miscarrying,” I told him again, preparing myself. I’d been bleeding too much for too long. It would be fine, I would be fine, I just needed to know for sure.
“Or it could be twins,” he said trying to lighten the mood.

I chuckled with a wan smile. “Right. I guess it could be bad news or worse news.”

As it turned out, we were both right. My body was trying to flush a blighted egg that hadn’t been fertilized, but it couldn’t because I had two other viable pregnancies. Two. Twins.

“Do twins run in your family?” people always ask. But it hardly matters whether they do or not, I’m pregnant with them.

Perhaps by the time I get done explaining that the older you get, the more likely you are to release multiple eggs (especially after 35), and that my grandmother did have one set of twins, but they were her 10th and 11th children out of 12, and that one (of my many) aunts had one set… so no, it doesn’t really run in the family, they would have tired of my answer as much as I have tired of the question.

Besides, twins run in my karma. Life tried to prepare me for this. My first babysitting job – twin girls. My first summer-long babysitting job – a girl, a boy and twin boys. Between college years, as a live-in nanny – a three-year-old and six-month-old boy/girl twins. Add a newborn to that family for the next summer. Finally, as a childless adult not teaching over the summer, I helped a mother of four children three years apart (boy, girl, and boy/girl twins) have a few hours of sanity each week.

Now it’s my turn to mother three children just two years apart.

But has all that experience really prepared me?

I’d say I’ve learned enough to know I am issuing in, what will inevitably be, the worst year of my life.

My self-editing side says, “Rephrase that, use most challenging or most sleepless, most self-sacrificial or most housebound instead of worst.” But my mathematical side knows when you add all those mosts together, it equals worst.

It’s not often you can see your worst year coming, the proverbial storm on the horizon. Only upon latter reflection is it apparent. But I can see it creep closer and closer to its due date.

How does one prepare for the worst year of her life?

For me, preparation has begun with prenatal health. The worst year of my life will be better if I have healthy babies. And I have a fair amount of control over that. Twins are often early and underweight, but not always. Especially if mothers eat well.

My college roommate, also a mother of twins, gave me When You’re Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads by Dr Barbara Luke, one of the few people publishing research about prenatal diets for mothers of multiples. I’ve been doing my best to follow her 3500 calorie, 120 ounces of water a day recommendation, since her results are so good. On average, mothers who attend her multiples clinic and adhere to her diet deliver later and have larger babies who spend approximately half the time in the hospital as other multiples.

Ultimately, Dr. Luke’s recommendations have been very similar to my midwives’, and I’ve done quite well so far. At 30 weeks my twins were already in the 78th and 81st percentile for size – for singletons!

Likewise, the worst year of my life will be better if I am organized.

I’ve taken to writing out a weekly menu. We are making and freezing casseroles and easy dinners. I’ve put all the addresses of friends and family into a database so I can print out labels for announcements and thank-you cards, and the announcement is already made up and just awaits such details as weight, length, date, and photo. And I’ve done copious amounts of reading.

But those are all tangibles. Emotions are far slipperier.

I know the worst year of my life will be better if I acknowledge my inner turmoil.
Preparing emotionally has been the most difficult task, despite some amazing resources. First, one of the new friends I’ve made since moving to North Carolina is a mother of two sets of twins 18 months apart. I’ve got nothing on her, and plan to cry on her shoulder frequently. Secondly, my sister-in-law has agreed to come live with us for six months, to help take care of me, my toddler, and the twins.

When I relay this latest tid-bit to other mothers of twins I see anger flash across their faces for a shadow of a second. I can hear their inner voice shrieking, “Why didn’t I have that?” But then it’s gone and they say, “How wonderful.” And it will be. It was only after she agreed to come that I first felt excited about the prospect of twins.

I have also done a lot of grieving. Grieving that we needed to buy a gas-guzzling mini-van to accommodate three car seats. Mourning my current loss of mobility. I also had to give up my desire for a non-medicated delivery since I couldn’t find anyone in the area willing to do a twin delivery without an epidural. Having done the last birth naturally, I so wanted to do this one better. But I’ve let it go. I’ve had to. Depending on the twins’ positions, I may have to have a scheduled C-section.

I sometimes grieve too that I am a college-educated woman who usually spends most of her days in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.

I simply do not have the coping mechanisms that allow some women to readily embrace and happily succeed at mothering. I am no earth-mother-goddess type, nor someone who finds biblical significance/reward in motherhood. It is not the culmination of my being, my biological destiny fulfilled. I do not even see “mother” as my primary identity, nor do I want it to be.

Nevertheless, motherhood will utterly consume me for the next few years. And that is sometimes difficult to come to terms with, especially in a culture that values the stay-at-home mother so little. It seems one must be doing something else to be validated.

I keep envisioning the next years as “going under” and am desperately trying to find new images as I re-invent motherhood for myself – an esoteric task for one who will hardly find time to shower every day.

Nevertheless, I must find a comfortable place with these difficult issues as well as figure out how to position two children at my breasts to nurse. At least there are diagrams for the latter.

My emotional preparation continues, by writing down how and what I feel, by talking to others, by frequent naps. Cliché as it is, I am preparing myself for the worst (my hospital bag is already packed), but expecting the best.

I also keep in mind a quote by the late Katharine Graham: “It was different for women of my generation. We did it like a cake, layer by layer.”

Revisioning my life in those terms sounds reasonable. Motherhood is just a thick sticky, chocolate layer, and I will add others later, after I survive this one. And I will love all my children, myself, and my husband every minute of it, no matter how many of us are in tears that particular minute.

Bring on the twins, the change, the turmoil, the sleeplessness. The worst year of my life may not be the sweetest layer, but who eats cake a layer at a time—that’s just the way you make it.

 

Britt Kaufmann lives in Yancey County with her husband and two-year-old daughter. The twin boys are due in early November. Before her full-time job popping out kids, she taught high school English, coached volleyball, and published a few poems.
[ brittk@juno.com ]