Five years ago today I held my babies for the first time. To say I was in pretty bad shape is an understatement. When the NICU nurse placed Max in my arms, I remember waiting to feel the rush of absolute, unconditional love that I had heard described so many times by those who had done this before me. But, what I felt most in that moment was a state of being utterly overwhelmed. My inner monologue was going a mile a minute. “Where is it? Why don’t I feel it? Oh my God, I am a horrible parent. What if I never feel it? What if they all develop attachment disorders because I am a cold and unloving mother?“ I held each of the babies for about half an hour that morning and then returned to my room overcome with fear.
I had spent the first 28 weeks of my pregnancy trying not to become too attached to the idea of three babies because the pregnancy was high risk. I told myself that if I made it to 28 weeks, then and only then could I begin to remove price tags, build cribs, paint the nursery, breathe. Unfortunately, at exactly 28 weeks I was put on hospital bedrest. I spent the next six weeks in that hospital room alone for about 22 hours a day. I heard countless babies make their way into the world in the rooms next to mine, always wondering how and when my time would come … always worrying that all three wouldn’t make it here safely. In the end I couldn’t eat or sleep … and I mean that in a very literal sense. I was getting no more than two hours of sleep a day … and those hours were not consecutive. I was in constant pain. I couldn’t sit up to eat, but if I tried to eat in a reclined position the pain of the heartburn was excruciating. On top of that, I had developed cholestasis, a liver condition that caused agonizing itching on the inside of my skin … an itch that couldn’t be scratched. The icing on the cake was that every couple minutes the compression cuffs on my legs inflated or deflated … 24 hours a day.
There was a window of a few hours in the middle of the night each night when I knew no one would come into my room to check on me, and I spent that time getting all of the crying out so I could hide it in the daytime. I began to feel myself slipping. I was reaching the end of what I could bear, and I was so scared that even if all four of us physically made it through delivery, I wouldn’t be able to be emotionally present to care for them. That first day holding my babies I thought my fears had become reality.
In the afternoon, I returned to the NICU … mostly because I knew that was what a good mother was expected to do. When I got there, the nurse handed Baby C to me. Ava had a feeding tube and looked so tiny and fragile. Suddenly she threw up what seemed like a huge amount of milk … and that’s when it hit me. Like a Mack truck. Tears started pouring uncontrollably. I knew then that I loved this tiny person and her sister and brother more than life itself and would do anything to keep them safe.
Five years later, sometimes I still can’t believe that I am a mother to three people. I thought I would feel more like a mom, but most of the time I feel like I’m just my old teenage self masquerading as someone’s mother … like some kind of fraud. To be honest, being a first time parent to triplets is a lot like taking your first swimming lesson in the middle of a hurricane. There’s no trial run; if I mess up, I’m messing up all three at once.
I always somehow believed that when I became a mother, a switch would be flipped and suddenly I would have all these great instincts … that I would just intuitively know how to do all this mom stuff like transitioning to solids, diagnosing skin rashes, pulling off potty training, doling out discipline, and designing bento box lunches. But I guess I got the stripped down version, just the instinct to love and protect these little people who have been entrusted to my care. In the end, I suppose that’s all the instinct I need, but sometimes I cave to self-doubt.
Sometimes I spend too much time on Pinterest or reading articles from Parents magazine, and then I start to chastise myself for what they had for dinner or how much TV they watched or how we rushed through their homework or how the craft supplies I bought are collecting dust in the garage. At times like those, I know I need to step back and strip things down to those most basic instincts again. Do they know without a doubt that I love them? Do they seek me out for comfort and assistance? Am I there for them in those times? If the answer to those questions is an affirmative, then I know I’m doing okay.
On this fifth anniversary of the day I fell in love with them, I would like to wish Ava, Olivia, and Max a belated happy birthday and thank them for all that they have taught me on this journey. I am a better person because of them, and it is my sincerest wish that despite the fact that about 90% of the time I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, somewhere down the road, they will be able to say that they are better people for having had me as a mom.
How could I not have known what a big difference there is between the average second grader and third grader? Did I really sign up to do this?
Fantastic. Of course, April denies ever saying such a thing, but unfortunately, Ashley doesn’t really have enough going on upstairs to fabricate such stories. April’s response went something like this … “I don’t kill people; I don’t even use knives.” Well, okay then. 
She then followed that up with “But my dad does.” 
I had a packed house, so that’s good. 
Poisoned by Fairy Tales 