A letter to my BF Julie

Julie’s post has brought to the fore a post that has been floating around in my head for a while, so I decided I would write up a letter and post it here, because it is something I have wanted to talk about for a while. 

Darling Julie

My darling BF, I am so sorry you are having a shitty time at the moment.  It seems you are feeling like how I felt in the beginning.  Remember when I told you I was so jealous of you because you seemed to be coping so well, you seemed to be enjoying motherhood so much when I hated it so.  You feel a bit like a freak don’t you.  It feels like there is something wrong with you, that every one else seems to be loving it, or at least liking it while you are so not loving it.

You wonder if you haven’t somehow hit the worst luck and somehow ended up with a difficult, unhappy baby who will grow up into an unhappy, difficult child.  That you will never enjoy your child or being a mother.

And then you wonder if there isn’t something wrong with you.  Perhaps you are a shit mother, perhaps you were never meant to be a mother.  In your darkest moments you wonder if the whole infertility thing wasn’t a strong message that you were too thick to listen to.  (just read the extremely helpful comment by my2cents, winner line of thinking that, must have really helped)

Or at least that is how I felt. 

One of the unique benefits of having twins is that it provides you with a holistic view of motherhood and of how the individual child affects your experience of motherhood.

I have mentioned this to Marko and my mother just this week. 

If I only had Kate as my child my experience of motherhood would be so totally different to if I only had Adam.  Adam is a lot like Charlie.

If I only had Kate as my child I would think this motherhood thing is a breeze.  In fact my life would hardly change.  I could go out to the shops, to restaurants, to visit people etc.  Kate is such an easy child.  She is fully portable.  She is friendly, smiles all the time, is prepared to sit in her cot and look at her mobile for ages.  She hardly cries, she is hardly demanding.  She is sleeping for long stretches, she hardly gets sick and even when she does she doesn’t complain.  She is so sweet. Being Kate’s mother makes me feel like the best mother in the world.

Adam on the other hand is such a high maintenance child.  He cries all the time, every thing upsets him.  He acts like he is either too hot, too cold, has a sore tummy etc.  He screams when he is hungry, he gets pissed off at the smallest thing.  He gets bored after five minutes and will start screaming.  I can’t put him down for long.  He is exceptionally difficult to feed, even with the Dr Brown’s bottles.  He gulps, takes in air, wont drink more but is hungry, he gets a stuffy nose so can’t breath easily at night and so wont sleep.  He only wants to sleep in my arms.  He seems to wake up with his good mood quota for the day and by 5 pm he is one miserable bugger.  He has had a stuffy nose for 8 weeks now, he has had a gunky eye for 6 weeks.  He is a difficult child.  When he is sweet he is adorable, but oh my goodness he can be a PITA. 

If I only had Adam I would find motherhood extremely trying and unrewarding, at least at this stage.  I am exceptionally lucky in that having Kate has made me realize that it is not me, it is the babes. 

Each individual child strongly affects how you experience these early days of motherhood.  Some children are just more difficult than others, it has nothing to do with you (unless you were doing something grossly wrong, which I know you are not).  Those who say motherhood is a breeze and they love the early days are blessed with a Kate, not an Adam.  As first time mothers we don’t have any experience to balance this out.

I don’t know whether it is a boy thing, or whether it is that both Adam and Charlie had a rough start to their little lives.  Maybe they are still angry?  Maybe they are both just intensely frustrated children.  Who knows. 

Apparently it does get better, they grow out of their frustration and turn into adorable little boys who love their mommies.  I hope so.  I did ask my mom yesterday whether she thought he would always be so difficult, and she said ‘of course not’.

You know, I love my children equally, but there is no denying Kate is a whole lot easier than Adam.

Honestly, I think that your experience as a mother is determined by what type of child you have been blessed with.

So my darling friend, hang in there.  For some or other reason we seem to have been ‘blessed’ with difficult little buggers, special children.  It will get better.  They surely can’t stay like this forever??

Love you

Txx

Comments

[Lioness]

Just chiming in to say I think your relationship is lovely, and I hope you do get to meet in person very very soon. As soon as possible. And then lock Charlie and Adam in the same room together and let's see who wins.

Tert-ulia, rock on!

[RainbowW]

ding ding props to tertia. my own twins were much like adam and kate. benjamin was a pill; samantha was a breeze.

turned out benjamin was in pain, too. he had an inguinal hernia and it compressed every time he screamed. when he had surgery to have it fixed, he got considerably less unhappy.

love to both of you. mine are 20 months old now, and very different children. easier day to day tho. :)

[S]

I've heard before that constant stimulation as babies, in the form of colic or them hearing themselves scream from being a bored baby makes the kid smarter...

[Judy]

Just FYI - my mother-in-law talks of my brother-in-law as the ultimate high-maintenance baby - she had to hold him all the time (literally) and have him sleep on her shoulder because of all of his stomach problems (they didn't even circ him until he was older because the doctor said he couldn't handle it as a newborn - they didn't expect him to live past a year). According to her, he cried 24/7 for a YEAR. My DH, who was 3 at the time, vividly recalls days and nights where all you would hear was the baby crying/screaming. So, for over a year, she was totally sleep-deprived and stressed beyond belief. Her nerves were shot, my FIL worked late (haha) a lot, and she didn't know WHAT she had birthed. She says she doesn't know how either one of them made it through that first year with all the crying, but they did.

Fast forward to now - he is a WONDERFUL man...great father, very involved with his family. He was a GREAT kid, even my DH thinks so...so just because they cry for what seems like all the time doesn't necessarily mean that their personalities will be that way, either. Some babies are criers, for whatever reason - medical, overstimulated, or any number of other things. But, if you give them what they need - love, attention, patience, and tons more love - I think you will find yourself looking into the eyes of a wonderful child in the not-so-distant future.

You both have beautiful boys...and someday (hopefully soon), they will smile a little more and fuss a little less. Give it time.

[LeeLee]

Um, I have to confess that I was blessed with a low-maintenance, great sleeping, happily breastfeeding baby and I still managed to find myself in the grips of PPD. To this day I wonder what would have happened if my baby had higher needs. I think the bottom line is that everyone reacts to parenthood differently.

A friend of mine had two colicky babies and still manages to look dreamily at me and tell me how much she loves motherhood (of course, she also sent out Christmas photos with her kids wearing Bush/Cheney outfits).

[Jaime]

I so agree with you about the type of baby determining so much!

[Bridgette]

My son is a handful. He is grumpy, demanding, and has a terrible temper. My mom once said "I don't think he's very happy you brought him into this world". He wanted to nurse constantly, wouldn't sleep in his bed, wanted to be held, but not cuddled, all the time. Now that he is almost 2, things are easier most of the time. He still HATES shopping of ANY kind, and doesn't always allow me to have a meal, but he's not so unhappy to be here.

My daughter was exactly the opposite. She was described as "angelic" when she was a baby. Slept great, was content to do pretty much anything (except ride in the car. She hated that). She was an easy child.

So many times I have been tempted to say something to Julie about Charlie. He sounds SO much like my son. But I don't know her, and felt a little weird commenting. I hope she reads this and realizes that others are dealing with difficult children as well. I can't tell you how many nights I have spent worrying that I was doing something terribly wrong to make him behave this way.

[Moxie]

Tertia, you're a good friend.

About Adam's eye gunk thing. I don't know if you've been talking with your pediatrician about it, but it could be that his tear duct isn't open on that stide. My son had this, and had a gunky eye for months. Our ped said the majority of them opened by around 6 months, so we were just supposed to gently massage the tear duct with a ring finger a few times a day (he also said if we wanted to put a drop or two of weak plain black tea in the eye the tannin in the tea would help open the duct).

My son's didn't open by then, so when he was a year old he ended up havign surgery to open it. General anesthesia, but over in 20 minutes (my husband went downstairs to get coffee while we waited and by the time he came back up our son was in recovery--we never did get to drink the coffee), about 3 hours of recovery at home, and now his eye is perfect.

Just so you know, it's probably not a cold but a plugged tear duct. And it will probably open up on its own, but even if it doesn't it's no big deal.

[Krissy]

T,

I think you're a great friend. I think you're absolutely right in that the personality of the baby will shape motherhood rather than the value of the love of the mother.

I hear you when you say that maybe infertility was a cosmic clue, but I want to say as someone outside, that all it seems to me is a physical difficulty that you overcame, and that Adams ease or difficulty is Adam, not Tertia or her ability as a mother. Just like Julie's Charlie and Julie would be having the same problems if she got pregnant on the first boink.

Being a baby is hard. Being twins is harder. Being a premie is incredibly hard.

Being the parent of any baby who is pissed off about being any of the above can be outrageously difficult.

We got a Charlie who is happy, who is healthy and cheery and slept through the night at three months. Who is a dream and a blessing and who we crave being around every moment of the day.

And we're going to have more kids and I have NO DOUBT that at some point I'm going to have my arms full of screaming #2 or #3 and be convinced that there's something wrong with me or something wrong with the baby and aching for someone to take the baby, at least until he or she is old enough to stop screaming, and give me my life back.

It's a cosmic crapshoot, and I feel for the mamas and babies that got the short end of the stick.

You're a good friend.

K

[maia]

So true. My first born son was a nightmare, the first year hellish. Twin girls a relative breeze in comparison. Was it me? I don't think so... (Mind you the first taught me a lot I think.)

[Tessy]

The boy/girl thing is interesting. My son was a "high maintenance" baby. My daughter (now almost 4 months) is much easier.

Maybe you should do a poll on this?

[Rachel]

My contribution to the poll: so far, two easy boys in a row here ... hoping for a third (due in May). Both were nearly 10 pounds at birth though, and my theory is that babies aren't very nice to be around until about that weight.

Even so, I don't really remember my first three months with #1. I know they were really hard. Sleep deprivation is a bad, bad thing. I was more organized with #2 -- not nearly as bad.

[LizM]

Believe me it depends SOOOOO much on the baby!! I had a hellishly difficult 10.5 lbs boy and my sister had a angelic 9 lbs boy born 5 months before mine. It is no fun to hear how easy someone else has and wonder why your child hates you. I was convinced that Riley was like that baby on Family Guy and thought constantly about how to kill me. I think he settled on death by screaming! It's even worse when your sister says to you "god, your kid cries all the time. I hope my next kid is just as easy as the first and not like yours!".
It wasn't my fault and it isn't anyone else's. Babies have their own personalities and some are higher maintenence than others. But my difficult high maintenence babe is finally calming down and I am actually wishing I could stay at home with him. 5 months ago I would NEVER have said that!!!

[Mollie]

There but for the grace of God go I.

Someone said to me, after hearing my "scary" (I didn't find it so) birth story and seeing the fabulousness of my infant daughter's always-smiling personality, "Well, you never get all three: easy pregnancy, easy birth, easy baby."

BUT YOU SHOULD AT LEAST GET ONE. I mean, fuck. Come ON.

[Upnorth or Not]

You're a gaping, flaring asshole...

[Julie M]

Very sweet of you to encourage Julie and very insightful.

[Lisa]

Well, I'm the mother who had four Kates ... and then an Adam, actually she wasn't an Adam until she started walking at about 9mths ... and hasn't stopped being full on since. But after thinking that parenthood was a breeze, and what was everyone going on about? ... and THEN getting an Adam ... was a reall eye-opener! LOL ... BUT I also look at her and admire her spunk, and know she is going to do something amazing with her life, and it's my role to guide her and channel that "spunk" appropriately.

Not worse, just different :)

[Ellen]

Tertia/Julie,

I too have a Charlie/Adam. My next door neighbor has refered to Anna as a "sensitive" child, as opposed to "pissed off" child. She seems to reach her happy quota by noon, and then is only content if she is being held. The swing seems to suffice at times, so it has been my lifesaver. I can't really go anywhere because when she isn't sleeping, she's crying. I am a little crazy with cabin fever right now, and actually secretly looking forward to returning to work in four weeks.

I wrote a blog entry similiar to Julie's about a week ago. It took me eight weeks to admit that I wasn't haven't any fun. I'm not miserable or depressed, per se, just tired and worn out. It was really hard to admit, considering this motherhood thing was what I wanted so badly. Most of my friends have Kates, so they can't really relate.

A friend, also a mother of a "sensitive" child, told me that the difficult ones often turn out to be the most fun ones, the ones with the most personality--so I am trying to remember that right now.

[Ellen]

Oh, I also agree with Mollie above. I was blessed to have a easy pregnancy, easy birth. Not so much with the breastfeeding/colicky baby thing. But it does seem slightly unfair that Julie would get the short end of the stick on all three. Bleh.

[Janonymous]

You are so right about the perspective it gives. When expecting #2, I would physically cringe thinking ahead to the newborn days, remembering my high-maintenance #1, but resolved to just get through it since I knew it WOULD end someday.

Imagine my surprise to get an easy, happy content #2! I have commented many times that if he'd been my first kid, I would be seriously misled about what is involved in parenting, and wondering what everyone complains about.

Jan

[katie e.]

my mother would say you're lucky to have the troublemaker and the angel at the same time, so you don't have a chance to get any wrong, fixed ideas about how babies operate. i'm the oldest and apparently slept through the night after one week (?!), was quiet and happy, and liked to play by myself. my brother, who came not-quite-two years later was a disaster. he wouldn't sleep through the night until maybe six months, and needed constant attention, and was a disaster about eating, and on and on. while having a troublesome baby is no doubt awful & stressful for any mom - i imagine it has to be dreadfully shocking when you think you've got the whole newborn thing figured out.

[marianne]

I had two colicky twin girls. Just had to get my vote in. They are three now, alot better, but still demanding. My family was reminiscing at their 3rd birthday how everyone was stuck holding one when they came over to our house.

It is the kind of kid you get (not what kind of mother you are although others like to make you feel that way) and it was tough with friends who had fantastic happy kids that slept great and liked to sit in their car seats for hours.

Take care,
Marianne

[Pepper]

Yours and Julie's posts couldn't have come at a better time for me. I am a (forced-through-circumstances) stay-at-home mother of a 10.5 month old boy who, it must be said, is thankfully more like Kate than Charlie or Adam. But it is still hard - very hard some days (as my husband will attest to from my meltdown yesterday). It is lonely, thankless and relentless work. Yes, I love our son so much it hurts, but I so want more for me. Husband has suggested I put him (son, not husband) in daycare one day a week...but I am having trouble reconciling guilt about that..hey, I am at home, why should someone else look after my son. But then I read this morning that a day a week in daycare may well make me a better mother.

I am sure there is a conspiracy of silence out there about how hard motherhood is..and I am glad you and Julie aren't ashamed to admit that it really sucks sometimes :)

That said, the emjoyment really does outweigh the suckiness and it does get better - our son is so much fun to hang around (when he is in a good mood!!)..

And, you know, compared to what both you and Julie went through to get your babies...I have had a dream run..

[katie]

You know, my first was a beautiful, healthy baby with little maintenance. I had the worst time of it ever! I obsessed about the preeclamsia and the edema and the inducement and the subsequent c section. I cried and cried while she slept happily in her crib. I didn't know that I had a thyroid condition known as Grave's disease. I was misdiagnosed with severe ppd twice! I paid huge bills to pyschiatrists and for meds that did no good. I love the line in Love Actually where Emma Thompson's character says "It was always going to be a shit time." That pretty much sums it up for me during that time and for Julie. Now, she has external factors with Charlie that cause her shit time. Mine were internal, literally. I've run on here because maybe someone else will recognize that ppd isn't the most common thing after pregnancy. THYROID DISORDERS ARE! Sometimes, they are just temporary manifestations of the fluctuations in hormones. Sometimes, they are permanent conditions that go into "storm" mode after pregnancy. It's worth a twenty dollar blood test. Most women (and men) with hyperthyroid issues never get diagnosed and it is SO treatable.

End crazy, off the subject rant.

[Lisa S (& Riley, Bella, & Adelyn)]

Warm wishes for you AND Julie.

I can't believe that you've hit the SAHM-WOHM debate, spanking, and germs all in one week. It's been a bad blog reading/responding week for me, and now I cannot begin to catch up.

Slow down! ACK! Things MUST be getting better at home, or you're decided to hit the stimulants or something. Yeesh.

[Andrea]

Too true! Now that I have two babies, it's becoming more and more clear to me that how they turn out has only a little bit to do with how you are as a mother. My first, a girl, wasn't awful but wasn't the easiest baby, and I always thought maybe some of her problems (not sleeping, some fussiness, clinging to mommy, a tendency towards Drama Queen status even as an infant, etc.) were because of rookie mistakes I and her father made.

Enter baby #2 last fall.... a boy, and he makes her look like trouble. Sure, he had a little reflux at first; sure, he cries a little; sure, I wish he slept better...but goodness, he is easier to live with!

I also have to say, as everyone else has, that it does get better with time, or at least different. Toddlers are tough, too, but not in the same way as newborns. And you develop ways of understanding your child's quirks over time and find ways of dealing with them.

[Mollie]

Pepper:

Yes. Putting your kid in daycare one day a week (or two) WILL make you a better mother. I did the same thing, and though I felt guilty at first for the reasons you mention, it was a gift I gave my son and myself. I desperately needed that time off, and he learned so much from his new friends and scenery.

I swore I would be my son's sole caregiver until he was three years old, kind of as a reaction to my own mother's nearly complete delegation of my care from birth on. Well, 'twas not to be, even though I wasn't working outside the home. Mothers these days are far, far, far more socially isolated than in the days when nearly all mothers were at home and kids wandered from yard to yard.

So yes. Do it. You'll be SO. GLAD.

[Simone]

Oh Tertia ....what a perfectly wonderful post.
This just makes so much sense. I was so down for Julie after reaing her last post, it just sounds so awful....like a cruel twist. But you are so right, each baby is different & clearly each mother gets a different experience....just like "Paul vs Marko" we are all individuals & apparently this is the case from conception!
Thanks for being real. For not flossing the facts & for being so honest with yourself & us.

[Julie]

I love you, you asshole. I needed to read this. Thank you.

[pepper]

Thanks Mollie. You are right, of course...

[Nancy]

My first was a colicky, crabby, crying boy that I used to actually almost throw at my husband the minute he walked in the door from work. Numbers 2 and 3 were a totally laid-back boy and a baby we always used to call "happygirl". I am positive it is all in the way they are wired up - best you can do is get through the bad stage, it does end (!) and then you will start to enjoy your baby....