To me, newborns look like potatoes. Or aliens. Or weird creatures.

I have definitely seen cute newborns, but it’s been the minority for sure.

Obviously, “cute” is subjective, but this also goes along the lines of thinking the same thing about ultrasounds. Like, no, I did not think my black blobs were cute and no, I do not think your black blob is cute either. Is it precious? Yes. A miracle? Yes. Cute? Meh.

The reason I bring this up is because some women are fueled by their “cute” newborns in a way where the difficulties in motherhood do not seem as terrible. Well, I was not over the moon when the twins were born, and I most definitely did not think they were super cute, so everything was mostly miserable and terrible for at least the first six months.

I remember the first day home from the hospital being extremely anxiety-ridden. I was so overwhelmed with figuring out how to feed 2 babies around the clock while squeezing in eating, sleeping, and recovering for myself.

After one day of no schedule and just going with the flow of the twins’ own eat-wake-sleep cycles, I realized I needed to put a schedule in place for some predictability in my new life of chaos.

Thankfully, the twins basically put themselves on the same schedule and we were able to feed them every 3 hours on the dot – 3am, 6am, 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm, 9pm, 12am. At this point, I was breastfeeding and pumping at these same times. The idea was that if I pumped, then someone else would be able to feed the twins at night so I could get some more rest.

Think about this schedule for a second:

–  It took 30-45 minutes, sometimes an hour, to breastfeed both twins. (Tandem breastfeeding was not working out for me.)

– Once I finished breastfeeding, I pumped for an additional 20-30 minutes. (If my milk ducts were clogged, which happened quite often, this would be another additional 30-45 minutes, trying to work out the clog.)

– This gave me about 1-2 hours to shower, eat, and/or sleep before I had to do the above all over again.

Talk about sleep deprivation to the max.

We kept this schedule for several months until the twins were able to go 4-hour stretches before eating. I actually began pumping exclusively and gave up breastfeeding after 2 weeks because it was stressing me out and I was barely getting any rest.

Baby girl started sleeping through the night at 4 months and baby boy at 7 months, but that didn’t change my pumping schedule because I would still get up in the middle of the night to pump in order to keep up my milk supply.

This new life of mine seriously sucked. This life of literally being being stuck to a machine 8 times a day, not being able to go anywhere because I’d have to work everything around my pumping schedule. If I went anywhere, I’d have to lug my breast pump around; I ended up pumping on planes, in airports, in random people’s homes, in public restrooms while sitting on the toilet, in the car while parked and while driving, etc.

Breastfeeding moms are basically cows – dairy cows. And I mean this in the most respectful way possible. Breastfeeding is definitely not the easy route. You go, mamas.

Not only did life with newborns include the above schedules of feeding, pumping, eating, and sleeping, but this life also simultaneously included my recovery from having had a C-section as well as postpartum preeclampsia:

1. I had to take medication for high blood pressure and measure my own blood pressure several times a day until it went down a few weeks later.
2. With my C-section wound, I had to make sure to keep it clean and dry, and also peel off the surgical tape that they used to hold the incision in place. (I was so scared that I would tear open the incision or that it would get infected.)
3. It took several weeks for me to be able to bend over and sit on a toilet comfortably and independently.
4. Walking and standing were incredibly challenging, and I had difficulty holding the twins while walking or standing; I was really only able to hold them while sitting.

All in all, however, recovery from my C-section actually turned out to be pretty smooth and swift; it’s the recovery from having had two babies in my tiny body that I’m still recovering from to this day.

Many people have told me that life with newborns goes by in the blink of an eye, and to cherish it because one day I’ll miss it. Well, when I look back at all of the details of my life with 2 newborns, all I can think about is how I would never ever want to go through all that again. I do not miss any of it one bit.