Motherhood: Identity Deaths & Births That No One Warns You About

You mean, I have to sit here for hours on end and just be a vessel to feed my babies?

I was not prepared for the identity death of Robyn, as she was before I birthed twins into this world.

I hadn’t even heard about the concept of a motherhood identity death before becoming a mother and the new accompanying identity birth that would come with it.

I had purchased all the supplies we need to bring new babes into the world.

I took an online breastfeeding course so I could be prepared to feed not one but two babies at the same time.

I researched different possible birth scenarios for giving birth to twins in a hospital setting.

However, I was truly naive to think that I could give birth to twins, take maternity leave from work for 6 months, keep the twins alive, and then go back to work like nothing really happened.

If I could go back in time, I would tell my younger non-mom self to take more weeks off work before giving birth to truly settle into just being. I would not go straight from work, into only taking one week off of work, and then jump right into a scheduled induction. I would tell that Robyn to take more time to relax, to nurture herself before she would be thrown into a double whammy scenario of having to take care of two babies and herself at once. And if I really could go back in time, I’d tell her to tell the OBs to screw their induction and trust her body who carried her perfect twins even further to term.

Of course, I didn’t have the foresight to know that a scheduled induction would railroad me into a birth trauma scenario, having to stay in the hospital for two weeks, where I would then develop a thrush infection that would last months. I had no idea that I would be trying to figure out how to just be with my babies while also healing physically and mentally from birth trauma and PTSD.

I would have way more conversations with other mothers on what it was like to transition into the role of mother and how to be prepared for just being. And yes, I’m well aware that you can’t really “prepare” for just being. But as an a-type, organized personality, I would’ve really appreciated time to at least think about what that meant for me.

I knew that my job after giving birth was to breastfeed my babies. Even after seeking tandem breastfeeding resources, I was truly not prepared for how non-stop and all-consuming breastfeeding would be. At the start I would attempt to feed both babies. Sometimes it was a success and at other times I would have to pump and then bottle feed my son (who got a bottle early on in the hospital – but that’s a story for another blog). I then shifted to feeding just my daughter while bottle feeding my son in a boppy pillow beside me at the same time. At the start I would spend ALL day on the couch and then ALL night in bed just feeding my babies. It was exhausting, all-consuming, and HARD. Remember that thrush infection I mentioned earlier. It lasted for 3 months and I had no idea I had it until later. I was in so much pain, and I thought it was normal.

Something else, I would go back and tell pre-mom Robyn was to ensure I was supported so that I didn’t feel like I had to do it all. I would have hired a cleaner to come weekly, I would have hired someone to do the laundry, I would have prepped more freezer meals (although I had made a ton) and I would have asked for more help to sleep. The birth trauma + sleep deprivation + working woman identity death was too much for me. I experienced not only PTSD from birth trauma to postpartum depression and anxiety. Because I lost so much control while in the hospital it translated into me wanting full control of everything at home. I would’ve asked for monetary gifts to afford help instead of a registry of gifts.

I am writing this now 2.5 years after the twins were born. I am acknowledging that I am still healing. I am still processing it.

This has been my healing soundtrack…

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. I do want to talk about the hard parts because I wish I had known that I was going to have such a hard time with just being with my babies. When you identify with doing for so long when you have to stop doing and just be THAT’S REALLY HARD on the nervous system!

I do really want to highlight the beauty or the light that exists amongst the darkness.

While I’ve been able to find many resources talking about identity deaths, I haven’t seen a ton of language around motherhood identity births. And I have been birthing the most beautiful new version of Robyn.

For the first time in my life, it’s completely acceptable to just be. I do really wish I could have come to terms that my only job for the first few months was to feed, eat (for myself), nurture (the babes and myself), and sleep. I would have stopped trying to strive to manage the house. I would’ve relinquished control and really asked for more help.

As our twins grow into toddlers I’m learning this even more so firsthand when they experience “big feelings”. They just need me to be. They need me to regulate my nervous system so they can regulate theirs. And they’ve been growing with me for 2.5 years so it’s understandable that they’ve absorbed some of my postpartum depression and anxiety. I cannot dwell on that but I can be in the present and be what they need. A calm presence that allows them to feel. Someone who allows them to cry. To hold them when they want to be held. To keep them from banging their head on the ground in frustration. To tell them, I understand they are frustrated. I hear what they are frustrated about and guide them in what we will do next.

I’ve birthed a new Robyn. Robyn the capable twin mom. Robyn, a loving, caring working mom. The person who would do anything for her family. Who has work boundaries in place so she truly be with her family when she’s not in her home office. Who gives hugs and kisses throughout the day as she comes out of her office. Who helps put the twins down for naps if they need their mom. A working mom who gives them kisses and hugs before going down to her home office and tears up as they stand and blow me kisses and yell “see you soon Mom”.

If you are reading this as a mom to be, I hope this was a new perspective you might not have been aware of. If you are reading this as a brand new mom and struggling to just be, I hope it gives you inspiration to take charge of your nervous system healing so you can be present for your babe(s) and yourself.

Tips on Hiring & Managing a Nanny

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When we hired a full-time nanny last year I had no idea where to start. Thankfully one of my best friends had a nanny already so she held my hand during the hiring process. I thought I’d share my tips and tricks here that might help you out if you find this post.

Where To Find A Nanny

I posted in an Ottawa area Facebook group and put up a profile on Canadiannanny.ca. It costs around $40/month to put up a job posting on the website. We actually ended up finding our nanny in the FB group. She had experience nannying for twins and triplets so we figured she was more than capable of handling our twins.

Interviewing Nannies

We asked nannies to meet us in a local park. This allowed them to feel comfortable meeting in a public place and we were staying with my parents when we moved back from BC to ON so it was easier to meet out at a park. This allowed us to see them play with the kids and ask them all our questions. Here was the list of questions I asked them:

What is your experience nannying?
Do you have a recent background check?
Do you have recent first aid?
Do you have any experience working with multiples (ie. twins)
What is your hourly rate?
Will you take them outside and play with them?
What sort of activities will you do with them to teach them new skills?

For those who were students, we asked if they were willing to commit to a long term contract as many were simply looking for a summer job.

Setting Up a Business & Payroll Account

I’ll share the steps I did to set up a business and payroll account with the Canadian government.

I registered a partnership in our names and then opened a payroll account with quarterly remittances. The payroll software actually remits it once a month so we’re always up to date.

How to register a business number with the CRA

How to open a payroll account with the CRA

Payroll

I had initially used Rise People as they had a free entry-level platform. I could do a direct deposit into our nanny’s bank account and they sent the government remittances directly to the CRA. However, they shifted their free plan to one that costs $6/month. So I shifted to Payment Evolution which promised a free plan. However, there was a $62 charge to onboard, and there is a $3.50 / payroll processing per paycheque. So technically I’m being charged around $12 a month. If it wasn’t such a hassle to transfer back, I’d probably shift back to Rise. I’ll just need to find time to do it.

Managing A Nanny

I made a white board to help communicate with our nanny. We started sleep training shortly after we hired her and to this day wake times are sacred in this house. So I would write down the wake times we were following at the top of the board. Then there is a section for nap times. So based on their wake time in the morning I would write down when they were to go down for their first nap (and now one nap).

I would write down what to feed them for lunch and snacks.

Then I have a section, for daily chores. I wrote down 1 daily chore to tackle while the twins nap as we hired her for light house work. I weekly schedule looks like this:

Monday: Mop Front Hall / Vacuum Mud Room
Tuesday: Vacuum Living Room
Wednesday: The Twins Laundry
Thursday: Vacuum Living Room
Friday: Mop Kitchen Floor

Now as the twins get older I also write down a bunch of age appropriate things to do with them to teach them new skills.

At 16 months old, the list looked like this as an example:

Put Tupperware Lids On
Rip Paper
Word Book

I hope this helps! Good luck hiring a nanny to care for your children.

The Realities of Being a Twin Mom

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I still don’t have “being” a twin mom figured out. Far from it. I will be figuring out how to be a twin mom for the rest of my life. However, I have a few things figured out in their 18 months of life so far. I thought I would share a bit of what I’ve learned. If you’ve found this post and you’re already a twin mom and have some tips and tricks for me that would be amazing too. If you’re a new twin mom or are pregnant with twins I hope this post helps in a small way.

10 Realities of Being A Twin Mom

Here are some of MY Realities of Being A Twin Mom. I do have to caveat this that everyone will have a different experience:

Be prepared for a lot of intrusive questions.
You will compare your pregnancy to singleton moms. TRY NOT TO!
You will compare your experience to singleton parents. TRY NOT TO!
You will have bouts of jealousy toward first-time singleton parents. Despite however hard you try not to.
You might always feel like your attention is split two ways.
You’re going to have to be efficient with your downtime.
Acknowledge when you’re tired and rest.
Friends or strangers might call you supermom and you’ll feel far from it at times.
You think about whether or not the double stroller will fit wherever you’re going.
You have to budget for double things soon out of the gate.

1. Questions/Comments

The questions begin in pregnancy. Most pregnant women will experience intrusive questions. If you choose to divulge that you’re carrying twins the questions just seem to increase in volume. Then there are questions or comments on the pregnancy depending on your size. So here’s what you can expect:

“When are you due?”

“Are they natural?”

“Do you know what you’re having?”

“You definitely look like you’re carrying twins” or “You don’t look like you’re carrying twins”

“Are you having identical or fraternal?”

“Are you planning on a c-section or natural birth?” and then when they are born “Did you deliver naturally?”

“Do they both sleep well?”

“You must have your hands full!” (This is a good one when we go out for a walk as a family with our two dogs!)

“Are they twins?”

“Do twins run in your family?”

So here’s the thing. You get to choose how you answer or if you even answer. For fun, you can come up with your own sassy responses. My go-to is “Do you like nachos?” “Well, it’s NACHO business”. I think we even answered one time “Are they twins?” “No they are 3 months apart.” Just to see if the question asker could do the math.

2, 3, and 4. Comparing Your Pregnancy & Experience

So we all know the blessing and curses of social media. We can use it to connect with others and learn things we didn’t know. But also the comparison game is real and a struggle. Well, at least it has been for me at times.

I didn’t truly understand the multiple to singleton comparison thing until I was in the midst of the pregnancy. And then again when I became a twin mom.

During the pregnancy, I would see images or stories of other pregnant women. I only connected with a few expectant twin moms. For the most part, I would look at how easy most women’s pregnancies “appeared” to be. I was so jealous about how easy it looked. I know that social media is a highlight reel. But you very rarely see women truly complaining about their pregnancy so I wasn’t ready for the hardships which made me feel very alone in my experience.

I wasn’t ready that I was going to start peeing myself at 25 weeks. My belly was already quite large and looked like I was full term. Ask my husband how hard I cried when he cleaned pee off the bathroom floor for the first time? I was slightly embarrassed that he packed another pair of underwear for me if we went out. He inevitably knew I’d need to change my underwear (as I was still too stubborn to wear pads). I wasn’t ready for the number of appointments I’d have to go to, to monitor the twin’s growth. It didn’t help that I was going to them alone, during a pandemic. And on the flip side, I wasn’t ready for the joy of feeling them both move at the same time!

When the twins arrived earth-side, I knew tandem breastfeeding was going to be hard. I didn’t realize how hard it was really going to be. I wasn’t ready for the full-blown exhaustion of having to take care of two tiny humans at once. Our breastfeeding experience was stressful and far from the blissful images and videos I was seeing from singleton families. Now I’ve always said that everyone experiences their own types of hard. I just wasn’t prepared for being SOOO jealous over a singleton mom’s experience.

One of my good friends avoided complaining to me after she gave birth. She said, “it doesn’t even compare to what you went through”. Which just makes us more lonely instead of being able to lean on each other for support. My only solution to this is to find your twin mom friends. Find them and keep them close. Talk to them when you’re tired and exhausted. Lean on each other for support and tips and tricks or even just to vent. I was introduced to a twin mom who had her boys one month ahead of us. We had similar birth experiences so it was so nice to not feel alone.

5. Splitting Your Attention

I wasn’t ready for not being able to split my attention well. If one child needs a cuddle and you pick them up and then all of a sudden the other twin wants your attention.

I wasn’t ready for how frazzled I’d feel or how fast I’d try to do things. I’d be changing one twin’s diaper and then the other one would start to cry. You can’t really rationalize with a 3-month old that you’ll be right there. You can’t really explain to them that you just need to finish wiping poop off their brother’s butt. I learned that sometimes you just have to let one twin cry. When you finish you’ll get to them and comfort them. Needless to say, while I leaned into reality, it has definitely heightened the fright/flight response in my nervous system. I’m easily triggered by noise, especially crying.

Our solution moving forward to ensure they are getting focused attention is to always explain why mommy (or daddy) is doing something. And then showing the complaining twin attention after finishing whatever action I was doing. My husband and I are also going to make sure that at least once a week we take one twin out on a date and then switch the next week. This will help us ensure they are getting ample solo attention time with each parent.

6. Efficiency

You have to be efficient with your time when the kids are awake. But you have to get even more efficient with your downtime and your parent partnering.

I am very impressed with how much of a well-oiled machine my husband and I are at times. Monday to Friday we have the babes from 5 pm (when the nanny leaves) to around 7 pm (bedtime). My husband starts making dinner around 4 pm, we eat around 5 pm. While the twins finish eating, I will usually set up the nursery dehumidifier/diffuser with essential oils and water. I’ll lay the sleepers and PJ’s out and start running the bath.

We’ll take one kid each, strip ’em and put them in the bath. Then one parent will watch the twins while the other makes their bottles. Then we’ll get some joint playtime together in the bath. One parent takes one twin and does the essential oil, fresh diaper and PJ routine. Start reading to one, give them their bottle while the other parent does the same for the other twin. My favourite moment of the day is when we each pick up a child and do family kisses and hugs before putting them down to sleep.

Naptime is another time for efficiency. When they shift to 2 – 2.5 hour nap time when they are a bit older it’s golden time! You don’t realize how much you can get done in 2 hours until you have to!

7. Resting

Now before the twins came I did hear that you need to rest when the baby(ies) rest. I was so worried about things always being perfect. I used the babies’ downtime to clean, do laundry and work on my dōTERRA business. When the exhaustion really started setting in I knew I needed to ask for help. We hired a nanny to come in for a few hours every morning, even though I was on mat leave. She would help me with the babies and help with cleaning. This would allow me to have a shower or nap while she was in the house. My husband was let go from his job in November 2020. We kept our nanny so I could work full-time on my side hustles during the time she was at the house.

8. The Supermom Term

I didn’t expect to get the supermom term. And at times it came across as the nicest compliment. But because I was struggling with everything at the start I felt like a fraud. And I felt that I had to live up to unrealistic expectations of myself.

9. The Double Stroller Dilemma

I swear on my Bugaboo stroller that I seriously thought it was going to fit through every doorway. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t the case when the car seats are snapped in.

I remember heading out to get a coffee. We piled into the car. I put the stroller in the back, drove to the coffee shop, pulled the stroller out, put the twins into the stroller, pushed it up to the door, opened the door and I didn’t fit. I hadn’t figured out that I needed to take one car seat off to actually fit through the door. While many onlookers looked at me from inside the shop, I struggled a few more times and then gave up. Embarrassed and slightly annoyed, I piled the kids back into the car, put the stroller back into the car and went to a different coffee shop that I knew had a bigger door. A 10 min trip took well over 30 mins. I don’t think it helped that we lived in a small town with older buildings with smaller doorways LOL.

10. Budgeting

While I knew it was going to be expensive. I wasn’t exactly sure how to build a budget for having twins, let alone budget while on mat leave.

The good news is that once you’re done with something (if you only planned on having twins) you can sell things right away. You only have to go through pregnancy once (if you didn’t enjoy it) and you only have to give birth once (if you didn’t enjoy it either).

So while having twins is HARD there are some blessings (other than your twin blessings) to look forward to.

The Twin’s First Birthday!

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It was the Twin’s first birthday on July 29! Holy cow where did this first year go!? We had a lovely first birthday party for Alora & Ryland last weekend with friends and family. We loved being able to host everyone in our backyard for a few hours in between morning and afternoon naps!

I chose a “Wild One” theme for the party and ordered matching onesies for the babes, and t-shirts for Mike and me. I bought massive balloons that spelled out “Wild Ones”, themed plates, cutlery, napkins and cupcake toppers. So I definitely went all-in on the theme. I bought a vegan and non-vegan charcuterie board for snacks and then Grandma Pineault made dessert.

Their Grandma (Mike’s mom) made the cake and cupcakes using the same recipe she used for our wedding. And the twin’s Nana (my mom) whipped up the non-dairy icing so it was a grandmother collaboration on the dessert.

The balloons didn’t really work out as the wind was whipping them all around so I probably would have done this differently. I ended up putting them online for free on Marketplace so if someone else was hosting a Wild One birthday they could use them.

Celebrating the twins birthday with a cake smash

As you can tell by the photos, Alora loves to eat and is our messy eater and Ryland is definitely more careful!

At a year old they are quite mobile walking everywhere (almost running in some cases). They still nap twice a day and sleep 12 hours at night (thank you sleep training!). They love to give high fives, blow kisses, kiss each other, play with all their toys and say mama and dada.

If you’re planning a first birthday with a Wild One theme, enjoy!