Everything is different the second time around.

They tell you this is how it will be. They say, you are different now and your baby is different than your first and so everything will be different. They are right.

I remember how it was last time—crying in the shower, crying while my baby bit down on my nipples so hard I thought they were going to bleed, stress cleaning the bathroom instead of sitting and holding my sleeping newborn because I couldn’t let myself sit still. The anxiety of not being able to sleep despite desperately needing to because I just had to keep checking to make sure he was still breathing (he was). Stressing over every feed—do I try to breastfeed? Pump? Formula? All 3 in a row, just to make myself crazy? Wondering 100 times a day about what to do about this next new development in my baby that I wasn’t prepared for.

What I went through then was common, but it wasn’t normal. Postpartum depression and anxiety are so common that we think it’s normal for moms to have “baby blues” instead of a medical problem that can and should be solved. I didn’t realize that I didn’t have to feel that way. I knew other moms experienced newborn bliss, but I really didn’t think I could. 

This time, I was determined for things to be different.

I made plans for how I would do things differently and I’m following through on those plans. Here is what is different:

1. I focused on my own recovery.

Giving birth is an extremely physically difficult experience, no matter how you do it. Unmedicated, epidural-ed, or c-sectioned, your body experiences major trauma and then they hand you a baby to take care of. If it were any other medical procedure, you’d be on mandatory bed rest with your healing being your full-time job but instead you turn into a “lactation-oriented baby accessory” as Dr. Emily Oster so aptly puts it.

After having Jack, I focused only on the baby and didn’t realize how much care my own body would need to recover. I went for a walk at the lake 2 days after giving birth, not considering the amount of pain medication I was on just in order to sit upright comfortably. I had no idea the stress I was putting on my body. 

This time, I tried following the 5/5/5 method—“5 days in the bed, 5 days on the bed, 5 days near the bed.” The idea is that you spend your first 5 days post-birth as sedentary as possible, then the next 5 days moving a bit more around the house, and the last 5, you start going on short walks and increasing your movement. It was a clear, 15-day plan that both David and my mom (who has been staying with us after the birth) were both totally on board to help me make it happen.

My recovery wasn’t quite as simple as I intended since the babies were in the NICU for the first 6 days, but I still did everything I could to follow the spirit of it. I had David push me in a wheelchair through the hospital when we had to park far away. I didn’t go upstairs in our house or take care of a single meal for anyone (including myself). I had to trek through the NICU, but on the flip side, I got to sleep through the night for a week! I took a bath and a nap almost every day since the babies came home.  

I also decided not to go for a walk until I was done taking my post-birth pain meds. Last time, I was taking all the pain medication without thinking about it and so I didn’t even realize how much pain that was being masked when I pushed it to go on a walk at the lake 2 days postpartum. This time, I waited until I didn’t need medication for my daily life to start increasing my movement. I was fortunate not to have any tearing this time, so that made my healing much faster. 

I have to say—this is what made the biggest difference between last time and this time. I am 100% committed to ME, not just to my babies. I think I’ve been able to nurse better than last time, in part because my body has had the energy to make breastmilk because it isn’t maxed out just trying to keep me upright. My only job for the first two weeks was to eat as much as I want/need, drink water, and feed the babies. That’s it. Everyone else is in charge of dinner, caring for the toddler, changing diapers, carrying car seats, cleaning the house, and doing laundry.   

2. I know more now.

This is the shitty thing—you can’t know until you know! There are a million tiny things that you have to learn when having a newborn and until you’re a primary caregiver, you can’t know all the things that you’ll need to know. Last time, the pace of learning was exhausting and extremely stressful for me. This time, even the hard things from last time (bad latches for breastfeeding! Thrush! Unexplainable crying fits!) feel 1000x easier and less stressful. I don’t know that I could have made it easier on myself last time but I do know it’s good news that it genuinely is easier the second time around! 

3. I’m saying yes to all help.

The silver lining to having newborn twins and a 19-month-old toddler is that everyone realizes the sheer insanity of your life and offers help. I have said yes to pretty much every offer of help and that’s the only way we’ve managed it these past two weeks. We are so fortunate to have friends and family who’ve done a meal train for us (OMG having dinner delivered to your house 3 days a week is revolutionary for decreasing our mental load) and parents who can take care of the kids with us. I know not everyone has the support we do but my god, I wish they did! 

4. I’m talking to myself differently.

Whenever possible, I’m talking myself out of potential anxiety spirals. It’s not always possible and diagnosed anxiety isn’t something that you can just talk yourself out of. I know this. However, there are a lot of low-grade anxieties that I can either chose to entertain… or not. I still am very vigilant about safe sleep and making sure my babies are breathing in their sleep, but I’m talking myself down when I feel myself start to tip toward unhelpful anxiety, “are they breathing?? I have to go check!”  

I’m rolling with the punches with setbacks like slow weight gain (Eli) or nighttime fussiness that drives us mad (Viola). I know these are short term problems that they will resolve. Today’s problems are real and need attending to, but they aren’t forever. They might not even be tomorrow’s problems.

Thank God things are different. Thank God I am different this time.