Hellobee

Over the past month, the twinblings hit their one-year birthday and with that milestone came a lot of press for the Starfish clan. We did a follow-up article with Cosmopolitan’s online magazine, and we did a story with NBC’s Today webpage. It was generally a lot of fun to share our update and story again, most importantly because we hope that it helps to diminish some of the stigma associated with infertility and surrogacy.

As we were interviewed by the writers of these stories, I found it interesting that both of them asked me if I have ever felt pressure to enjoy every minute of parenting because of all of the difficulty and time that it took me to finally become a mom. I suppose that is a natural question to ask me, or really any parent who struggled with infertility and/or experienced a substantial delay between the time they wanted to become a parent and the time that it actually happened. After all, if you spend so much time building up parenting expectations, will the reality of it feel like a letdown once it actually happens? Or, when you realize that you in fact cannot be a perfect parent despite all of your planning to be pretty darn close, will you feel like a failure?

I spent about three years in infertility and I made it a priority to see a therapist who specialized in the area throughout those years. My therapist rarely talked to me about life after infertility because I was in need of so much help getting through my time in infertility, but she did gently bring it up to me a couple of times.

I think the most helpful thing about the therapist that I saw was that she had been through the wringer of infertility herself, and eventually she came out the other side. She understood the whole process, from start to finish. And she defeated infertility, and she became a mom after a hard-fought process and plenty of heartbreak.

She helped me to understand that, despite my perspective at that moment, parenting and being a mom wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. She told me that I would absolutely not be a perfect parent. She told me that my kids would disappoint me, and that I would disappoint them. She told me that I may feel pressure to love my kids every moment of every day given all of my hard work to bring them into the world, but to try to live up to that pressure would be absolutely foolish.

I learned a lot over those three years I spent in infertility. And I consider those lessons from my therapist to be among the best lessons learned. Because as all of you can likely relate, I have really hard parenting days and I absolutely do not love it every single moment of every day!

Recently Lilly hit a phase of truly terrible stranger anxiety. For a few excruciating days, she screamed all the time. Her behavior was stressing out me, my husband, and her sister. I was really frustrated. I was losing sleep about it, consumed with worry about her and her behavior. And when Lilly was screaming her precious little head off, all of my calmness and all of my composure were tested to the extreme. I felt like I was failing to “fix” whatever was bothering her, and I also felt very irritated with her behavior! I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t love those moments and those days.

With both girls I will say without hesitation that my lowest point of each day is when I have to brush their teeth before bedtime. They scream and twist and contort around me, trying their best to get their toothbrushes out of their mouths. It’s not good – I am tired from a long work day, they are tired from a busy day of learning and exploring. I’ll be honest with you again; I really don’t love those moments of toothbrush torture.

Brushing teeth on a good day is still not my favorite…

And for the first time in about nine months, the girls are so needy and clingy that it is physically impossible to attend to both of their needs all the time. It’s crushing to have to choose only one girl to pick up and cuddle when both of them need or want a hug. It’s a terrible feeling to have both of them climb into my lap with different toys and only being able to play with one of their chosen toys. It’s heartbreaking when they fall into each other and I can’t comfort both of them at the same time. I’ll be honest with you yet again; I don’t love those moments of not being able to provide for both girls at the same time.

Attending to both girls at the same time can be challenging.

Although it was horribly excruciating to be stuck in infertility for three years, it was a blessing in the sense that it taught me how to cope with obstacles, and to embrace a life that is not always what I expected. My kids are not always the little angels that I had envisioned they would be when I dreamed of them. And I am not always the kind and doting mother that I hoped to become.

So to circle back to those reporters’ questions about whether I feel pressure to enjoy every moment of parenting… No, I don’t feel that pressure. At least, no more than any other mom feels that pressure. And for all of us, can we agree that such pressure does us no good? Parenting is most definitely not always sunshine and rainbows. To set such an unrealistic expectation only does us a disservice when things do get hard, and I refuse to believe that I have to love and embrace every minute of screaming toddlers and their flailing toothbrushes.