Sometimes the best days are the boring ones. The ones where nothing monumental happens, no scary phone calls or children whacking themselves on the head, nothing that sends your cortisol level spiking. As much as motherhood can feel overwhelmingly monotonous, we cherish the days that are routine. Just another Tuesday. Because we’ve learned that this simplicity doesn’t last long. Surely, there is another hard day around the corner. Anyone who has been through trauma (all of us?) knows that the body doesn’t forget. It’s always preparing and waiting for that other shoe to drop. So when a labor story is inconsequential and the most exciting event of our day is the UPS driver dropping off a package, we say hallelujah. We’ll revel in the ordinary.
P.S.: Happy birthday to Merit Martin, who turned 1 this week and fills the ordinary days with joy. We made it.
All I Wanted Was a Boring Birth Story
What happens when the happiest day of your life is also one of the scariest?
By Michelle Bar
About a year and a half after having our identical twin boys, my husband and I started talking about expanding our family. I knew I really wanted a third child to, as they say, “round out our family.” What I wasn’t so sure about was whether I could go through another delivery.
My boys were born at 35 weeks, after I had developed preeclampsia. Until that point, my pregnancy overall had been okay, considering carrying twins made me high-risk. After we hit 23 weeks’ gestation, my OB and maternal-fetal medicine doctors closely monitored me with weekly scans, which is typical when you have mono-di twins—meaning the babies share one placenta but are in separate amniotic sacs. They had planned for me to have a C-section at 36.5 weeks, but my doctors decided to admit me at 35 weeks after a few days of high blood pressure and extremely swollen feet and hands.
What was supposed to be a relatively routine Cesarean turned into a medical emergency. I was bleeding internally, and I fell in and out of consciousness as my blood pressure continued to drop. I needed six blood transfusions and spent the first 48 hours of my sons’ lives recovering, unable to see or hold them.
It wasn’t until much later, reading through my medical records on MyChart, that I learned I had had uterine atony and a postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), and went into hypovolemic shock due to losing half my blood supply. All of that was likely caused by an overdistended uterus from carrying twins.
Not exactly the birth story I’d imagined.
After my sons spent eight days in the NICU, and I spent five in the hospital, we all eventually came home. Settling into life with newborn twins left me very little time to fully process anything beyond whose turn it was to sleep. And for a while, I didn’t think too much about what had happened—until we started talking about having another baby. I wasn’t afraid of being pregnant; I was afraid of giving birth.
What wound up in our Amazon cart this month
Every month, we’ll take a look back at our Amazon orders and let you know what random shit ended up in our cart. Maybe it will help you solve your own set of life problems, or at the very least give you a voyeuristic glimpse into ours. —Lauren Bell Martin and Jess Mayhugh
Without a doubt, my favorite night cream. Olay is a classic for a reason.
These silicone feeders are clutch. Way easier to clean than mesh!
I will forever swear by this $16 bra.
I love puzzles, lists, color coding, and this solo murder mystery.
A reliable beanie that comes in every color.
We recently became a Magna-Tiles house, so I had to get my Halloween-obsessed toddler this spooky addition.
Just a few swipes of this peptide stick under my makeup has my skin feeling glowy—not cakey—all day long.
We just upgraded our bathroom speaker situation. I can’t be the only one who rocks out in the shower?
Weightlifting without the male gaze? Hell yeah.
This podcast is a fascinating oral history of The Strokes and the indie sleaze era.
Witchcraft, murder, dating apps, and courtroom shenanigans—Swipe Right on the Devil was quite the ride.
My algorithm serves me broth bowls. I serve myself broth bowls.
Giggly Squad being the first female podcast to play Madison Square Garden—and they sold out four shows. Meanwhile, Craig Conover announced his new “scripted microdrama,” Charmed by a Southern Monster. Ouch.
“I recently learned that, when my husband was 10 years old, he dropped a baby on their head. Glad I didn’t discover this fact before we decided to procreate.”
—JM
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