Baby announcements can be so exciting.
There’s this breathless feeling of wanting to share your incredible news with the world.
When it happens againright afteryou’ve just had a baby, however, it can feel pretty awkward.
While we were excited (and nervous!
), we waited a while to announce it because we knew that people would have something to say.
We just weren’t expecting how crazy things eventually became.
As my belly grew, we learned a lot about what it’s like to live through back-to-back pregnancies.
Here’s some insight that I’d like to share.
“You know how this works, right?”
Pretty sure I don’t need the “sex talk!")
“Wow… what are you going to do?”
(I dunno… give birth?)
“You guys need to take a cold shower next time.”
(With so many babies, we probably won’t have time for showers, right?)
“You are the most fertile person I’ve ever met.”
(I doubt it, but okay.)
“This is the last time, right?”
Of course, I was expecting twins, so that didn’t help the situation!
I had horrible hip pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, cardiac arrhythmia, dizziness, and so much more.
With my other, well-spaced pregnancies, my body felt pretty much back to normal before my six-week checkup.
This time, I’m struggling to recover nine months later.
My baby never seemed full, and when I tried to pump, I got next to nothing.
Fortunately, I was able to boost my production with some herbal supplements.
I, of course, learned about this when it happened to me.
Still, it looks like the correlation is mostly tied to fraternal twins, and my boys are identical.
You never know, though!
You will have less time for your baby
That first year of life is so precious.
In our case, we had so many doctors' appointments and ultrasounds to monitor the twins.
When we did have a day without plans, I often just wanted to sleep.
This is so much more difficult with back-to-back pregnancies.
With two babies, I definitely didn’t want to be left alone in the hospital.
You will be completely exhausted
Pregnancy can be exhausting in so many ways.
I just could not get enough rest!
I won’t sugarcoat it.
I felt like I couldn’t get much done, and I cried a lot.
I was just mentally, emotionally, and physically depleted.
You might feel embarrassed
No one should ever feel ashamed of being pregnant.
I can remember going to a department store for supplies and seeing the shocked faces for the first time.
To be completely fair, the reactions from people seemed genuine and uncontrollable.
In those moments, I felt like some pervert who wasn’t responsible enough to space her pregnancies properly.
A baby, however, lacks the ability to understand any of these concepts.
It hasn’t always been easy, but we’ve done the best we could.
In fact, we still feel this way.
The morning snuggles we had been enjoying with him were often interrupted by a screaming baby.
As was his playtime.
When the positive result came up almost immediately, I just sat there in stunned silence.
For a moment, I felt, said, and thought absolutely nothing.
When it did, I threw the test under the bathroom sink and gave in to sheer terror.
My partner did his best to calm me, but I could see the panic in his own eyes.
We just kept looking at our baby boy, not understanding how to digest this news.
Our family hadjustgrown, and life was already pretty rough.
How could we handle more than we already had?
When we found out we were expecting twins, it had the opposite effect of what we expected.
We felt calmed in some way, like it was meant for us to have more.
We knew we’d find a way to be okay, somehow!
We knew our hospital and specialists.
I remembered all of the uncomfortable pregnancy sensations and warning signs.
We were seasoned veterans by the time I went into labor again, and that was a fun feeling.
