Parenting transforms us on every level. Within the span of three minutes, we have doubled, from two to four. Now we are oxytocin bodies, with increased feedback loops for protecting and bonding. Our old leisurely lifestyle is out the window. Our new schedule revolves around eight feedings and twenty diaper changes per day.
Like clockwork, I sit down every three hours to assemble my feeding fortress out of pillows. Then I place my hands in the ready position for you to deliver one baby to each arm. Tandem nursing is a time saver and also a sweet surrender, rhythmic melody, and sacred trinity. As the milk flows from my breasts to their bellies, I fall deeper and deeper in love.
Like a lighthouse in a dark sea, this love fuels me through exhaustion. It is steady, reliable, and wonderful love. Love that swallows everything up. Love I could drown in. After our nursing session, we are all full. Then we sleep to the sound of each other’s beating hearts.
Bathing is equally ethereal with all four of us piled into our big jet tub. We place a few fingers under our babies’ shoulder blades and they effortlessly float in the warm, womb-like waters. I look at you and think, we are doing it. All the things. Bathing, changing, feeding, comforting, rocking, dressing, swaddling. We are mastering the business of babies.
On nice days, I carry the twins into the shade of the sun and they soak in the magic of sound and light. I imagine them as travelers to a foreign land, slowly learning the language of her winds and waters. Through their hazy, unfocused eyes, I see the beauty and wonder of life on our magnificent planet.
I think the twins are actual astronauts, having journeyed from one atmosphere to the next. As their cellular bodies continue to rapidly multiply, they are literally flying the spaceship while they build it. I watch them push their hands through the air like mimes, slowly exploring this mysterious new density. Already, my babies are learning the weight of the world.
They are good babies, easily soothed in my hands, by my breasts. I am never far away and my arms are always open. As soon as I hear the alarm signal of their cries, my nervous system jolts me into action. To achieve the solace of soundlessness, I am the key.
It’s not that you’re not helpful. You are right there with me, every step of the way. Only, you don’t have my magic touch. You can hold them, feed them, soothe them for a time. But there is a magnet that draws them back to me. I am the ever faithful antidote to their distress.
In many ways, this web of trust, love and calming chemicals is a blessing. The moment I hold them, all is right in their worlds. But there are two of them and one of me, and sometimes I am tired, especially at 12am, 3am and 6am.
Soon, we both grow frustrated that you don’t share my special powers. Perhaps, I decide, a demonstration could help. I pick up a baby and slowly shift my weight from foot to foot.
“This is what I do,” I say, carefully demonstrating the subtleties of my personal sway.
“I’m doing that,” you insist. “It doesn’t matter what I do.”
Night after night, your defeat grows as you attempt to rock one distressed baby after another. Sometimes I soothe one while the other howls in your arms, awaiting handoff. Then we switch and repeat the cycle. Other times, I take two at once.
After a few weeks, you begin to sleep with earplugs.
“They only want you at night. At least this way I can be more functional during the day.”
I can’t argue with the practicality. You take the 6am shift and I sleep into the morning.
Only occasionally do I turn to you with resentment when they both wake up screaming. On these nights, I try to manage the situation until my failure is as certain as my anxiety. Then I speak to you too sharply and the whole family is discomposed.
Some nights, when I have my equanimity and the babies do not, I slow my breath and brace for their wails, allowing them to use the only real tool in their possession: sound. I hold them in my arms and I listen, as if deciphering a message. There, in the vibrations of their infant voices, I hear it with certain clarity. Like a wolf howling at mother moon, the translation is this: I exist.
The same screams I would do anything to soothe are also my infants’ simple and profound proclamations of personhood. Here they are: small, but mighty. Wholly dependent, yet fully active participants in this process of Life. As they bellow their beings into further actualization, all I can do is rock them and tell them I understand.
“It’s hard being a baby,” I say, giving voice to the same words we all need to hear. “It’s okay to cry. Momma’s here.”
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Ash Quinn’s Twins(Author)
