Lies Pregnant Women Tell Themselves About Motherhood

Lie:  "I'll exercise before the kids get up and lose that baby weight in no time!"

Reality:  No you won't.  You'll wake up only when your child has been crying long enough that it's clear he won't be going back to bed.  And if you're really not a morning person, you might even train your children to go back to bed for an hour or two after their first bottle, for the sole purpose of getting more shut-eye yourself.  (Not that I speak from experience.  Ahem.)

Lie:  "I will totally stay on top of the laundry and dirty bottles and I'll even cook real meals every night!"

Reality:  You will eat ramen noodles and dry toast standing up in your kitchen while staring at the mountain of dishes piled in your sink.

Lie:  "I'll have so much time on maternity leave, I'll finally be able to stain the cabinets/reupholster the chair/insert household project here that I've been meaning to do for ages!"

Reality:  Before your child is born, maternity leave will seem like a wonderful, extra-long vacation.  But then you'll give birth and your child will refuse to nap for longer than twenty minutes, and all you will want to spend those twenty minutes doing is zoning out in front of the TV (or showering, if you're feeling ambitious).

Lie:  "I will feed my child only homemade, organic purees!"

Reality:  You will spend many an afternoon steaming sweet potatoes and carrots and mashing avocados, only to realize how much freaking easier it is to buy the damn jars for 62 cents a piece.

Lie:  "I'll still put effort into my appearance after the baby arrives!"

Reality:  Some days, you won't even change out of your pajamas.

Lie:  "I'll still be the same person, just with a baby!"

Reality:  You will change completely, in ways you never thought possible.  And it will be better than you ever dreamed it would be.

"Dinner on the table every night!  Good one, Mama!"

What I Know Now

Tomorrow, November 17th, is World Prematurity Day, a day focused on raising awareness about premature birth around the world.  Before I got pregnant, I never imagined I'd end up giving birth at twenty-five weeks, but it happens far more often than anyone realizes.  To learn more about World Prematurity Day, visit the World Prematurity Day Facebook Page, or follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #worldprematurityday.

One of the things I love most about writing this blog is hearing from other preemie mothers who hear their own stories in my words.  To everyone who has ever written me since I started writing about my twins, please know that I so very much appreciate you taking the time to share a bit about your own journey.  The more mothers I hear from, the clearer it becomes - preemie stories matter.  All of them.    No matter how easy or hard a course we had in the NICU, no matter how long we were there, these stories have become part of who we are as mothers, and they deserve to be honoured.  And, of course, our amazing, tiny, warrior babies deserve to be honoured too, whether or not they are still living, whether or not they are meeting their milestones, whatever their situations look like.  And no one will understand that like another preemie parent.

Sharing Our Stories: Maja & Alexis

The more I hear from other preemie moms, both in person and through this blog, the more I am struck by the similarity of our experiences.  Each path is different, every journey is significant, but the moment you hear yourself in another mom's story - your thoughts, your fears, your feelings - is the moment you realize that you are not alone.  NICUs are filled with families fighting the same kind of fight, and yet it can feel so isolating so much of the time .  Not only do we need to hear these stories, the stories that sound just like ours, we need to tell them, too. We need to speak of our own pain, of the close calls and the sleepless nights and the magical moments our endless prayers were answered (and the moments when they weren't).  And we need to hear them, to know that, no matter how lonely it can seem, there actually are others out there who understand.

Trick or Treat

From a cow and a ladybug!

The Problem With Early Intervention

As with most preemie parents, we take Madeleine and Reid to a lot of appointments.  They currently see a paediatrician, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, neurosurgeon, and ophthalmologist, and probably will continue to for a while.  The list may grow longer as we discover other issues and needs.  When babies are born very small and very early, things tend to go wrong, they tend to need extra help, so these appointments are put in place at discharge (sometimes they even begin during their NICU stay), with the intention of providing as much help and assistance to these little ones as early as possible.  You get a team of people on your side, a reassurance that you won't be alone in advocating for your children.  It's a good thing.

Your Children Are Not Your Children

Today, the babies turned seven months corrected.  As many mamas before me can attest to, time is speeding by faster and faster.  It seems like every week brings with it a new skill, a new favourite food, a new aspect of their ever-evolving personalities that I get to discover.  Of course, some of those new aspects are less than wonderful - the newly-developed whining, the constant teething pain, the screaming for fun, the throwing of food during meal times, the all-out nap strikes - but every day I look at Madeleine and Reid, these amazing little people who have come so, so far in seven months, and think how lucky I am to get to be the one who sees it all.

Kicked

I was folding the babies' laundry when I felt it, a quick little thump in my tummy, likely an indigestion side effect from the copious amounts of Thanksgiving turkey I'd consumed the day before.  But there was a brief moment between feeling it and identifying its cause that my mind strayed and I thought, a kick.  It hadn't yet clicked in that, no, that certainly wasn't what it was.  Instead, I thought of Reid, the baby that used to kick me the same way in that same spot.  I instinctively put my hand over it, trying to "catch" it the way I always used to when I was pregnant, in that brief window of time when I got to feel my babies move.  And then, of course, I remembered that, nope, that's over now, and my heart sank a little.