Glow

Birds of a feather flock together... The conventional advice to any new mom of twins or triplets is to join a moms of multiples club. Just the word 'club' sounds so dispassionate, like French club in high school, when the only prerequisite was enrollment in Francais, and the only benefit was a group picture in the yearbook.

My first moms of multiples club meeting felt awkward and unnatural, sitting in plastic chairs set in a huge circle in donated space in a church, scanning the faces around me for vague familiarity or potential friendship. They all seemed so different from me - did they have the same struggles I was having? Did they have other kids? Did they want more? Did they work full time like I did? Or were they happy to stay at home changing diapers and prepping bottles? I had tunnel vision in terms of these women, because I hadn't yet come to terms with being a twin mom, and I needed to feel a kinship of some sort, besides just the fact that we carried more than one baby in our womb at one time.

Looking back, I think what I really needed from these women was commiseration. Was I the only person in this circle of mothers that cried when I discovered I was carrying two babies? Was I the only one that struggled through my pregnancy, trying to feel thankful instead of terrified and anxious? And was I the only one that viewed my newborn daughters through the clear plastic incubators without emotion?

Was I the only one that was depressed and didn't know it?

Three years after abandoning the detached circle of twin and triplet mom faces, I was adopted into a twin mom book club, and seeing them each month swells my heart with companionship and a blissful understanding of what I went through; what we have all been through.

What strikes me now about the women in my book club is how very different we are from each other. And how accepting. There's no judgement when one of us is telling a story, or sharing a feeling. Sometimes I need not even finish a sentence before their silent understanding washes over me.

At our last meeting, when the mulled wine had been devoured, the zucchini soup sat cold on the stove, and our mouths were tired from speaking, we packed up to go home. Christine, my dear friend since junior high, looked at me and commented that I looked good; I was glowing. I looked at her inquisitively. We giggled as she said, "I know you're not pregnant" (no, indeed!) She and I have both struggled with depression, although her path has been much more arduous, fighting it for years longer than I, and to a severity unbeknownst to me.

As I pulled out of her driveway, I knew.

There is nothing more powerful than to be understood. Truly understood.