Twins, home and away

For those of you who don’t know (which is probably none of you, since I think a total of four people read this blog, all of whom know what’s going on in my life) my wife and I had twins last Friday.  Jacob and Joshua were born at 34 weeks, 2 days.  Obviously, this is a little preterm, so they were small, and Joshua was much smaller than Jacob.  Both of them have spent the last week in the Neonatal Special Care Nursery at the hospital, but tomorrow we get to bring one of them home.  We are absolutely thrilled, but were taken a little off-guard at the myriad other emotions we felt as well.

My sister, Martha, once told me that parenthood is all about guilt.  She has a 4 year old boy and a 2 year old little girl at home, so she knows what she is talking about when it comes to parenting.  Still, I kind of dismissed her statement with a laugh and a non-commital “no kidding.”  But let me tell you, how right she was!!!  Of course the statement is a bit on the dramatic side for effect, but I get the point now.  Really, parenting is all about love, and my sister would be the first to agree.  However, what most people don’t tell you is that when you love something as much as you love your kids, an unavoidable side effect is a great big bucket of guilt.  It’s not just guilt, though.  It’s a whole realm of emotions that is just easier to group under the category heading of GUILT.  Anxiety, apprehension, self-loathing, fear, and a bunch more.

I want to admit something that I think many expecting parents who already have one child may be reluctant to disclose:  I was extremely worried about whether or not I would be able to love the twins as much as I love Michael (our two year old).  Every experienced parent simply says “Oh don’t worry, you just will,” with supreme confidence.  That confidence did comfort me somewhat, but I also still kind of felt like an adolescent who just knows that no one could possibly understand how they feel because no one has felt this strongly about their first child.  Now your guilt is threefold—you’re guilty for your current child for making him share you, you’re guilty for your unborn child because you can’t fathom loving anything more than your first, and above all you feel guilty for just thinking about such things to begin with.

***UPDATE*** So, today we brought Jacob home.  We are absolutely thrilled and, of course, absolutely guilt-ridden.  Joshua left alone at the hospital, and Mikey’s little world and schedule totally turned upside down.  As I write this I know we are not the first parents to feel this way, and we know that this too will become comfortable and normal for everyone—us and the little guys.  But I figured it was worth mentioning to the masses in case anyone else felt this way and stumbled across this blog–you are not alone!  And now I get to be one of those parents who can say “don’t worry, you just will.”  As soon as I met my youngest two boys, I was not only smitten, but also very aware of how different they already were from Mikey and each other.