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This was a “no kids week,” meaning that our older three kids were with their other parents for the week. My husband and I need to come up with a new name for these weeks, because now that the twins are born, we’re never really kid-free. But regardless, the big kids were gone for the week, which normally means the house is more quiet, we catch up on alone time both as a couple and as individuals, and the ever-growing pile of laundry almost gets defeated. By all measures, it should be an “easier” week. Right?
Not this week. This week, for the first time since the twins were born, I found our no-big-kid week harder than our family-of-seven week. Despite having significantly less responsibilities on my plate, I spent more of the week in tears and stressed out than I care to admit. I daresay I might’ve felt the most anxious that I have since giving birth. What’s up with that?
I realized this past week that I have an easier time parenting five kids at a time than I do just one or two. I’m currently exclusively pumping for my twins, which means at least five times a day, I am attached to a pump and fairly immobile for twenty minutes to an hour. Even with wearable pumps, I cannot bend over or lift a baby while I’m pumping, which makes it very difficult for me to help out. My angel of a husband has not once complained about this, but I often feel racked with guilt as I sit there while I can hear him tackle bedtime with the twins solo, or watch him console a crying baby.
I know that I’m not useless when I’m pumping. I am literally the sole food source for two humans. I am producing the best possible food for them, better than any formula could ever be. Not to mention I’m saving us around $600-$800 a month since most twin moms say they go through three cans of formula per week. So when I’m “just sitting there pumping,” I am far from being useless.
But I am someone that is used to doing everything by myself. It’s the crux of why I got divorced back in 2022, because I felt like I was doing 100% of the parenting, all the time. If I am not tackling all of parenting, all by myself, as often as I can, a damaged part of me is convinced that my husband will grow annoyed by my “lack of effort” and resent me over time, maybe even leave. It is impossible to enter into a second marriage without some trauma like this, in my opinion.
Obviously, I am not really worried about that. But when the postpartum hormones are running wild, that anxiety simmers just beneath the surface, threatening to boil over at the most inconvenient times.
When the three older kids are here, however, there’s a lot I can do while I’m pumping. I use that time to help them with homework, to plate their dinner, to run a bath, or to get them ready for bed. They know that my movement is slightly limited while I’m “making the milkies,” as they call it, so we’ll work together to get stuff done. When all five of our kids are home, the division of labor between my husband and I feels a little more fair: I handle the older kids while I pump, and he handles the twins. It’s about as even of a split as you can get!
My struggles with pumping when the big kids are gone stem from my internal drive to be productive every waking second of the day, and nothing else. Over time, I hope that I can learn to just lean into the rest and not be so hard on myself, but until then, I think recognizing the problem is a good place to start.
Week #11 Favorites
- The Pink Drink from Starbucks. Someone said that this drink was good for increasing your milk supply. I don’t know how true that is, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try, right? It actually turned out to be very tasty! Since I’m trying to cut out all caffeine while pumping, I think this will be my new go-to order, at least for the summer.
- The Noah Kahan documentary on Netflix. I mentioned a few weeks ago that his new album was one of my favorites, but the documentary?! Tears. Noah Kahan’s music has long been an inspiration for me. I’ve listened to it while training for my 50-mile and 100k races. The lyrics, “I got dreams, but I can’t make myself believe them/Spend the rest of my life with what could’ve been,” inspired me to make the jump and go after my law school dream. His albums have been the soundtrack to so much of my writing. So to watch a documentary all about him and his music making process? It was amazing. I recommended it to a friend who isn’t as crazy of a Noah Kahan fan, and it made her cry, too. So give it a watch!
- This oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe. I was on the hunt for a new oatmeal cookie recipe because oats are good for milk supply (and obviously they must be eaten in cookie form!) when I stumbled upon this recipe. It was SO GOOD! I made them two weeks in a row because they were so tasty. Though be warned, the dough is almost as good, if not better, than the cookies themselves, so making sure they all end up in the oven is a challenge!
Week #11 Highlights
- My husband and I celebrated our FIRST wedding anniversary! April 13th marked one year of being married. I’ll be honest, this is not how I pictured the year going. April, May, and most of June were fine. We moved into a cute little townhome, adopted a puppy, and I wrapped up my first year of law school. We had so much free-time during our kid-free weeks that we would often go on multiple dates throughout the week. We loved this so much that we were beginning to wonder if maybe we didn’t want a fourth kid after all. We were debating if maybe having three kids one week and none the next would be enough for us. Right as we were about the make that our final decision, I found out I was pregnant literally days later. Not only was I pregnant, but it was twins! I spent almost the entire nine months horribly ill, and I learned what the phrase “in sickness and in health,” really means. My husband took care of everything — our three kids, the grocery shopping and cooking, the laundry. Obviously, that help continued once the twins were born. Pumping and caring for two newborns is not a one person job. I have never felt so loved in my whole entire life. Having that kind of selfless, no-strings-attached helping during such a vulnerable time in my life healed both my perspective on love and my experience with being postpartum. So no, I didn’t think we would have two six-week-old babies on our first wedding anniversary, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
- I’ve been able to go for more walks. The weather is warming up quickly here in North Carolina, and the sun has been rising earlier and setting later. I’m obsessed! I am only in one class this summer, because my main focus is working full-time at my residency placement, but that means there is less studying and reading to do outside of working hours. This has had the dual effect of (1) allowing me more free time to enjoy things like going for walks or baking, and (2) it has progressed my seniorities because this rhythm — working instead of studying — is somuch better than full-time school! The rest of this semester and summer will be so nice, but I’m sure fall will be much more of a drag now.
- My friend and her boyfriend came over on Saturday to have a little “meal prep party” with my husband and I. I made a Southwest chicken salad for the next week, she made a pasta salad recipe I got from my mom, and we both made a batch of my new favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. She’s on residency for law school, too, and we had been talking earlier in the day how we’re both still adjusting to this new rhythm of working and taking one class as opposed to taking multiple classes. I mentioned how meal prepping during the weekend has helped me at least have good lunches at work every day, she asked what does meal prepping look like for me, I said, “Well come over and I’ll show you!” It was so lovely to spend several hours all hanging out together, passing the babies around, cooking, baking, and daydreaming about a summer vacation to Maine next summer that we’ve convinced ourselves is happening.
Self-Care Tip of the Week: Sleep
As someone with two newborns, it has become very obvious how important a good night’s rest is. Luckily, my husband mostly handles the nighttime feedings so I can focus on pumping and recovering, but the few times I have handled more of the middle-of-the-night wake ups? It has not been pretty. I haven’t struggled much with postpartum depression or anxiety this time around like I did with my first, but all it take is one or two nights of poor sleep for me to question that. I feel like a different person, and not in a good way, when I’m sleep deprived.
All this to say, if you don’t have two newborns like I do (and I already know most of you don’t!), you have no excuse for not prioritizing sleep! Stop doom scrolling until midnight! Go to bed earlier! Your body will thank you!
Well, friends, that’s all for this week! As always, thank you all for being here and I’m looking forward to catching up against next Sunday. In the meantime, keep an eye out for a spicy new article on Wednesday all about what it’s like to be the second wife! I hope everybody has a great week!
Step by Step Parenting 