Twenty things they don't tell you.

When you're expecting twins, you're expecting chaos. I can't tell you how many times I heard, both throughout pregnancy and for these first four months of my babies' lives, "oh my gosh, you've got your hands full" and "wow! You must be busy!" and even the occasional "ha... better you than me". After the... oh... TEN-THOUSANDTH TIME you hear these things, they start to get old. Just once, when someone comments on how hubbz and I have our hands full, I would love to have to gonads to respond with, "why yes. How about instead of pointing that out to me, you offer to come babysit? Or make me dinner?"

But to those that pity mothers of multiples, allow me to broadcast a big F*** YOU. Because my boys are the most beautiful babies in the world... strong, healthy, happy and fortunately very easy babies. Nevermind that I spent the first three weeks of their lives crying hysterically. And refusing to eat. And fighting infections. And... well, I'll stop there. It was worth it.

Looking back, I saw a few things online and in parenting magazines where writers and bloggers would list "things I was never told about pregnancy" or "things I was never told about having a baby". Allow me to provide you my own, 100% true, disturbing list of facts about twin pregnancies and babies in general:

1. After you deliver your baby(ies), you will bleed like you are DYING. I'm not talking the standard period. I'm talking giant thunderpad diapers full of nasty.
2. You will feel blissful and unaware of reality while you stay in the hospital postpartum. ENJOY. EVERY. SECOND. Take advantage of the nurses and staff. Reap all the supplies you can from your hospital room: diapers (both adult and baby), the stretchy mesh underwear (especially if you have a C-section and can't fit into your own drawers due to the massive gut you have acquired), wipes, vaseline, everything. You will feel like you could ride a jet ski to the top of a f***ing mountain during those few wonderful days (thank you, Eastbound and Down). This is 99% due to beastly pain meds, 1% due to nurses (who are amazing, seriously. Thank them before you leave, or send them a card once you're home).
3. I stress number two as vehemently as possible for this one simple reason: when you get home, you will suddenly feel like you don't know anything.
4. If you are unlucky enough to experience Postpartum Depression and/or baby blues, God bless and keep you. This leads to constant, uncontrollable, hysterical, breathless sobbing for literally no reason. About two weeks after my twins were born, I found myself sitting on the floor with a baby on a blanket in front of me and sobbing so hard I couldn't breathe because I couldn't get his carseat buckle to open.
5. While pregnant with multiples, or even just a REALLY HUGE singleton baby, your pelvis will feel like it will actually shatter and fall out from under you.
6. Bed rest is SWEET for about a week. After that, you may want to warn your hubby to sleep on the couch. Not because he's done something wrong... yet. Because you will hate anyone and everything so much after being bedbound and crippled for so long that you will invent things that he's supposedly done.
7. At some point in late pregnancy, you may not be able to breathe. I took Benadryl nightly and slept with a nose strip, and still had frequent nuclear meltdowns because I couldn't sleep.
8. You will itch. Everywhere. And nothing will help except birthing that baby.
9. HEAAAAARTBURRRRRRN. INDIGESTION. DIARRHEA.
10. Hemorrhoids. Oh. My. God.
11. The older your baby gets, the grosser their crap is. My twins are four months old and their dirty poopy diapers smell like a 90 year-old man ate a dead skunk, died and expelled the contents of his bowels, and then a sick dog came by and ate the skunk excrement and then liquid-fire-shat it out and then died next to it. Then someone set it all on fire.
12. If breastfeeding hurts, ur doin it wrong.
13. Babies fart. Loudly. And they stink. Don't ask me why this never occurred to me before I had babies.
14. If you choose to circumsize a boy, do not panic. His little winkie is not angry and on fire, as I believed for a long time. It just LOOKS scary. Supposedly, they don't even really notice it.
15. Boys pee. A lot. On a lot of things. Keep a washcloth handy to cover them with during diaper changes.
16. Just when you think you've mastered the quick diaper change or diapering after a bath, your baby will crap IN YOUR HAND while you're powdering his butt. Then he will look at you, smile a big, drooly, gummy smile, and coo in triumph. This happened to me, word for word.
17. Your baby is not having a seizure. The weird limb-flailing and head wobbling is normal. It took me a while to grasp this.
18. Most of the people that assured you over and over during pregnancy that they would come babysit, cook, clean, etc. after your baby is born will disappear entirely. This generally does not include family, so be eternally grateful and take advantage of any help they offer.
19. Do not ever allow yourself to fall asleep holding your baby. PLEASE trust me on this. Bad things happen when you are so sleep deprived you're hallucinating. I'm too ashamed to say what, specifically, but bad things happen, and they can and will happen to you.
20. Newborn babies are not wearing lip liner, no matter how chic they may appear.

No matter how disturbing, depressing, or negative this may sound, when your end result is this:

... trust me, it is truly, completely, 100% well worth it.