When my girls first came home from the hospital my husband and I set up to live in the “man cave” (family room). I’m not kidding. For a solid week those Virginia Tech striped walls served as a special tower to hold our beautiful newborns. We used the ottoman as a changing station, mixed formula right there on the spot using the hallway bathroom as a bottle sanitation room. We slept on couches, twisting myself uncomfortably to mold the clumpy secondhand love seat. We got pizza delivered. Multiple times. My top knot was becoming a “thing “and an over-sized Planet Fitness T-shirt and maternity yoga pants were worn for days on end. We watched old movies and I pumped every two hours, trying to get my supply up. This room was what we deemed safe. Eventually, we knew we had to kick ourselves out. Realistically we couldn’t stay there forever, plus I really missed my bed. I loved those four walls for giving us comfort during a hectic time, but I knew we couldn’t raise our children in a college sports themed room over the garage forever.

A few days later – something horrible, yet completely expected happened: my husband went back to work. I had been dreading this day for a while. But I didn’t cry. I didn’t beg him to stay. I didn’t call my mom 17 hours away in complete panic mode. Instead, I put on my big girl – mom panties (which BTW are way more comfortable than my old panties) and just did it. I don’t know how, but somehow we survived. Myself, two dogs, three cats, and two precious premature babies made it through the day. I can’t guarantee that dinner was ready – or that we even left upstairs… but we were all alive when Matt came home that night.

Fast-forward to five months later. I’m still no pro at this stay-at-home-motherhood thing but we are still surviving. Every day has some sort of challenge (no naps? Endless laundry?) but with each day it seems to be getting easier too. I have accepted full responsibility that for the next 10+ hours after my husband leaves I am in charge of the well-being of two little humans. While this is partly terrifying, partially a miracle, it is also an honor. I won’t lie to you and pretend I’ve got it all figured out – because I don’t.

This new role is the hardest job I’ve ever had. And I’ll tell you something: it’s very difficult to have your employer angry at you. It is incredibly difficult to concentrate and try to decipher what they want from you while they are screaming their heads off.. This can be especially scarring if you’ve succeeded in every aspect of the job description: clean diapers, well fed, cuddled, etc. Just when you think you’re not cut out for the job;  you know they’ve caught on and you are about to be fired… their eyes light up and they give you the biggest smile and you know you’re doing all right. You may even be in line for that raise – but let’s be honest, never a promotion.

New moms: please listen. Every day will be different. Some days your partner will come home and the house will be spotless, “Look I even organize the pantry, vacuumed every floor, and have been painting that broken chair with chalk paint I made myself!” There will be a healthy meal ready to serve in the oven, you’ve already walked 3+ miles with the babies, and they are perfectly asleep in harmony. Their outfits will match from wrinkle free dresses to sweet bows on heads… looking like Baby Gap billboards. You will have had time to shower, dry your hair, and put on real jeans  (let’s be real: maybe a clean pair of yoga pants). The look of accomplishment will be brushed ever so slightly across your cheek bones.

Then there will be days when you don’t leave your 12 x 14 living room. Days where your Fitbit has stayed on the 1st dot the entire time; the only exercise being the mad dash to the bathroom because you realize you haven’t gone pee in five hours, of course taking the fussy baby with you because peeing alone is a thing of the past. The house will be an absolute shit show. Mostly junk scattered, but quite realistically, maybe actual shit. You don’t know – you’re hoping the dogs would sniff it out for you. Your children will be screaming because that’s what an entire day trying “tummy time” and “nap” time has been like.  The only quiet parts about your day are when there is a nipple in their mouth, or as they are ferociously rocked back and forth in your arms. They certainly won’t be billboard babies. Hell, your partner will be happy to come home and see them in the same worn out pajamas or maybe just a fresh diaper… because you got too sick to care about the spit up, and the pee, and the pee again. And dinner? If they dare ask… your eyeballs might explode into a million pieces that will tear them to shreds. The probability of coming home to you with the take-out menu loaded on your phone with your finger hovering the call now button is very likely. The probability that the wine bottle is opened, no glass in sight- is very high.

New moms listen up: it may seem like you have more of the latter days than those dream days. But you need to know that it’s OK. Do you hear me? It’s OKAY. Because you know what? You still did it. You may have had a day where you hosted a breakfast party/ playgroup with the girls, went food shopping, made ornaments with tiny hands for the molds, and cleaned all the gutters before 2 pm… or you may have spent the day locked in your bedroom: binge watching Parenthood, having consumed only a tub of Pringles because the kitchen is too far and it’s hard to make a salad while rocking an overly tired child. Where the only sane option is to hysterically laugh at yourself just so you didn’t join in on their screaming.  It can go either way. You may have had all the odds against you, or felt like Superwoman finally conquering the bathrooms that hadn’t been cleaned in 4 months. It may have been wonderful, or absolutely horrible but it doesn’t matter:  at the end of the day the outcome was still the same: you did it- you survived. And tomorrow you get to try again.

New moms: listen up: you’re doing okay great.