A changing Identity Part 2: The New mom Days.

In my last post I talked about my identity before having kids. Those few years before I became a mother were some of the darkest I have known, and I struggled a great deal.  I thought the solution to finding myself would be to become a mother.  I knew once I became a mother that I would be able to find myself again.

I had no idea how much being a new mom would completely change my life.  Although I was nervous about my new role, I was confident in my abilities. I had been around babies — I knew how to feed, change and soothe a baby, but I had no idea how all consuming motherhood would be.  We were parents and it was our job to raise this little person… no pressure or anything. Yikes!
In the early weeks James had some reversed sleeping patterns.  He was up and alert in the middle of the night.  I was starting to get more and more tired as the days went on. I was constantly covered in stinky formula spit up and my hair was in a ratty pony tail or messy bun (that may still be part of my identity today…try not to judge me too harshly please). I still had plans to return to my teaching career in a year.   I had three high school students that I was tutoring which kept me connected to my education background. I wasn’t really looking forward to going back to work because I loved being at home with my little guy, but I knew it was a part of the plan and I had that in my head as the way it would be. I wasn’t too overwhelmed.  I even may have had some times where I thought, “Hey I’ve got this, we are good.”

But I was about to get some news that would change everything, and practically overnight.  James was 8 weeks old when a nurse practitioner told me that not only was I pregnant, but it was twins. James would be somewhere between 8 and 9 months old. I am not proud of my initial reactions. I FLIPPED OUT!  No joke… the doctors tell their patients my story to make them feel better when they are emotional about news they get.


I would have three babies all within a year of each other.  It changed every plan we thought we had in place. My salary would not even come anywhere near covering the cost of three infant day cares. I would not be returning to work the following year. I was very excited at the idea of being a stay at home mom on a permanent basis, but it meant I had to accept some changes.  That quirky science teacher who loves nerdy things was going to have to take a hiatus or possibly disappear all together.  Oh yeah… and it also meant I would be parenting three infants by myself for about 9 hours a day, 5 days a week.  That was terrifying and made the thought of working out of the home seem not so bad.

My nerdy science teacher may have been coming out a bit. Yes in fact his shirt does say bacteria are our friend.

It was odd that in one day the direction of my life came to a halt and I had no idea where it would go from there.  People would ask me all the time if I would be returning to work.   I received a wide range of reactions to my career status.  The supportive comments were nice, things like it’s the best thing you can do to stay at home and have that time with your kids.  But then there were the not so nice things like I am wasting my education, I won’t ever be satisfied until I go back to work, and believe it or not I was told that at least I was just a teacher instead of a lawyer or doctor or something important… ouch.  The variety of reactions all added to the difficulties of navigating through this new territory.

I don’t think I am alone in this path of acceptance of a new self. I have talked to a lot of moms and so many have trouble with this part of their identity. And it is not just stay at home parents. I think whether you are going into work each day or staying at home, life is different as parents.  From the moment that bump starts showing, or in our case once the home study was finalized, part of who we are changes. The way people see us is different.  No matter what choice we make, there are always going to those who are our champions and cheer us on. Then there will be those who make us doubt our choices with hurtful or insensitive comments.

While I had about 6 months to adjust to the idea of twins being added to our family, the day it actually happened had a huge impact on who I am. Before that day I was a new mom. I was James’ mommy. The change started as I was heading to the OR to deliver my twins. The nurse asked, “Are you the one with the 8 month old? Well god bless you, you will have your hands full.”
I laughed it off and didn’t think much of it, but that day was not only the birth of my twins, it was the start of this new part of me.  This is the same for every mother the day another child is added to the family.  Who we were is never going to be the same.  I was never going to be just James’ mom again.

One week as a family of five.

I  became that mom… you know… the one with all the babies. Not only was I trying to figure out how to live as a mother of three babies, but wherever I went I drew attention. I had to get used to comments being made to me about the number of children I had. I think the one I remember the clearest was a day that I was at the grocery store with my triple stroller, looking like your stereotypical raggedy stay at home mom. I was unshowered, with messy hair, probably some spit up stains on my clothes, huge dark bags under my eyes and carting around three infants.  Besides my disheveled appearance, the kids were being good. We had walked to the store so they were all quiet and asleep.  A man came up to me and said, “I hope you figured out how to turn that baby machine off!  You have more than you can handle now.”

My jaw hit the floor and if I had had more than 6 hours total sleep in the previous week, I may have been able to come up with some witty retort about the state of uterus and vagina being none of his business.  Sadly I just uncomfortably laughed, said yeah and walked off feeling horrible about myself and furious at this bold stranger who had no business even thinking about my baby machine.

Meetings like this would make me upset until I realized that each time I had to defend my family and defend my children, it built me into the mother that I am. Sure I got overwhelmed. Sure there were times when Mr. Train came home to a chaotic messy house with three crying babies and even sometimes a crying wife.  Sure there were some weeks in there that my personal hygiene was questionable, but each moment that I spent with my boys I grew to love my title of the lady with all those babies.  I was James, Joe and Nick’s mom and I was proud of that.  The title became a part of me.  I was able to find humor in those awkward situations when people asked me how old the three boys were and tried to do some math in their heads to figure out if it was even biologically possible.

I was able to eventually love being that lady with all the babies

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I don’t know when the term “new mom” stops counting, but I think I was in that new mom phase until my twins were about 1. That would be a year and nine months of motherhood before I truly felt like I was getting a hold of my new life.  Almost two years before I was able to find comfort in my new role.  Mr. Train once told me, as we were lying in bed getting ready to go to sleep, “It’s nice to have you back.”  It really was nice to have a little bit of me back.  It wasn’t entirely the old me, but pieces of me mixed in with this mother of three self.  I would never be the newlywed science teacher that I was a few years back.  I didn’t want to be that person again.  I was finding my way in my new life and it was a relief.