This post has actually been rattling around my brain all week but I am lazy so I didn't write it. Much of this will end up being in response to a blog post going around today from a woman who is having twins and because of this feels she has "ruined her family". I read the post after it was shared on facebook, expecting to feel some empathy for this woman and to find that her post was not as bad as the title made it sound.
Let's start with what I was feeling earlier in the week when this topic started its rattling. When little kids are on a soccer field playing bunch ball or even when older kids are playing but not communicating well with the other players on the team, coaches and other adults on the sideline often yell "SAME TEAM". Two simple words that have a wealth of meaning. Spread out. Pass the ball. Communicate with your teammates. These other people sharing your uniform are Your People. Be a part of the greater Whole and you can reach your goals so much better than if you try to reach them alone.
I have yelled the same thing at my kids when arguments among them start to be more than a discussion - SAME TEAM. This family is a team but more importantly they are a team. At some point, we, their parents will not be here and even while we are, we are not in the same stage of life as them. As they age, I think that they will need each other more than they need either Jake or I. I want more than I want almost anything for them to be careful with each other that they do nothing that will cause one another enough hurt to break up the team. A team without chemistry doesn't win. A team with factions within it cannot win.
When Tanner was a toddler, it was important to me that we make him a brother. Part of that is because I feel apart from my siblings. Dan is 4 years younger than me and is a boy and is, well, Dan. And then, he got Josh anyway. I love my sister & even when she was born and I was 8 1/2, I was excited and loved her. But I am apart. Partly because of age difference and also partly because my personality is so much more of a caretaker than anything else. Then I got married young & started having kids while they were still either in high school or not even in high school. For Tanner, I wanted so much for him to have a brother close to him in age. I crave babies like other people crave chocolate but more than I wanted another baby, I wanted him to have a brother. Yes, it did occur to me that it could have been a sister. I still wanted one close in age to him. He got both. And then they all got Kaleb. I have ended up with one isolated in age from his sibs, which I don't think is optimal but there are things that are not within my control. This is very much about the Big Four.
At the beginning of the week, Tanner, Chloe and Kaleb took a little road trip down to Santa Barbara & had a ton of fun. Goofing off, going to the beach, hitting some goodwill stores for silly stuff, they had fun. Chase was gone for a week to So Cal with friends so he missed out on that but had his own fun trip. I love that they are willing to hang out together. Tanner deserves a ton of credit for being the kind of big brother that he is. Rarely has he expressed annoyance with the younger kids. He includes them, hangs out with them, misses them when he's gone. I feel like my team building exercises have paid big dividends. SAME TEAM.
Within our team, we have the twin team. They may be at a stage where they are often annoyed with one another but they are still on the same team. When they were small and Chase would go somewhere without Chloe, she would soon start to ask where he was and when he would be home. Neither liked it when the other was gone too long. The day before Chase got home from this trip, she quietly asked "when is Chase going to be home?" and admitted, also quietly, that she did sort of miss him. There will always be the Twin Thing with them & it is something rare and precious. Only 2% of the population are twins in the US.
I didn't find out that I was having twins until I was 20 weeks. I hadn't had the ultrasound to date my pregnancy since I was pretty darn sure when it had started. At 20 weeks, the ultrasound showed both babies. A boy and a girl. The girl was usually kicking the crud out of the boy on ultrasounds but that is a different story. My first reaction was certainly not WOO HOO. I first thought about someone very close to me who was having trouble getting just one baby. How painful was this going to be? It didn't seem fair to me and it surely was going to be crushing for her. I also decided I needed a bigger car. The Civic just wasn't going to hold three car seats. Those of you who know me are not surprised that the new car was one of the first things I thought of but that, too, is a different story. Here are the scary thoughts that flooded - what are the chances they will be born too early? if they are born too early, how will we deal with that emotionally? what are the chances of complications during pregnancy? during delivery? if born too early, what are the odds that they will end up healthy?
And the more practical questions - how much more is this pregnancy/birth going to cost us? Double clothes, diapers, car seats, swings, bouncy seats, diapers... (yes, I said diapers twice. Have you ever had 3 kids in diapers?)
Of course I wondered how Tanner would handle it. I should have wondered more how I would handle it because Tanner took to the older brother thing like a Pro while mothering twins is NOT a piece of cake. I was no longer able to work and there were a lot of medical bills from a complicated, high-risk pregnancy. Financially for us, it was a killer. Emotionally, it was Hard. With a capital H. It never occurred to me that I had "ruined my family". What I had done was get Tanner a little brother. And a little sister.
As I read through this woman's post, I understand the panic and stress. I understand the worry. As you look at things long term, though, I wonder a few things. Would any of my kids trade one of their siblings for a trip to Disney? The writer of the post says that they have "dreams" like all families do. Like going to Disney. Sending their kids to college. Would Tanner trade one of his brothers for the chance that we could pay for him to go to college rather than just help him as much as we can? Would Kaleb trade Chase for the chance to travel Europe? (That's my dream and I wouldn't trade any of my kids or my siblings for that chance.) Would Chloe trade Chase for the amount of attention that I had to pay him that, then conversely, she didn't get as an infant? Would any of them trade Tate to pay for one of their "dreams"?
Do they feel like we don't have the money to do all of the things that all of the other kids do? I'm sure that they do. I'm sure that that feeling is sometimes worse and more frustrating than other times. Does that mean that they would be willing to lose a member of their team to overcome this stress and frustration? I often feel guilty that I cannot provide for them all of the dreams life dreams up. I feel like I could work harder, do better, go without more personally but I don't feel like I ruined my family by having more kids than monetarily practical.
Being pregnant with twins was a surprise. Being pregnant with twins was painful and expensive. Mothering them was so much harder than anyone without multiples can imagine. Mothering them while struggling with depression was excruciating. I know how that woman feels, I do, to the point that I understand how you could feel that way. She ends her post by saying that she is sure that they will love these babies in the same way that they love their 3 year old son but that she is having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I often have trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, too. The thing is - my kids are the light IN the tunnel. I was sure that I loved them from the moment I knew of their existence. I was sure that no matter the way they got here, in what order, how much pain, terror, stress, craziness has been involved along the way - at every point, I have known and continue to know that they are what lights my tunnel allowing me to see that there is an end at all. I have faith that they will be the lights in each others' tunnels. They will be the hand holds on the climbs, the harnesses to catch each other as they fall and the ropes that will pull each other out of the inevitable quicksand they will find in their tunnels.
Two words are all it takes to convey to them what I want them to be. They know exactly what I mean. SAME TEAM.
