Harder than raising twins

I recently read an article that was titled "Twins are not hard". The woman, a mom of twins, went on to say that one of her friends who very much wanted children ended up dying of cancer before that ever could happen, which put her own challenges of raising twins into perspective.

As I read this article, I couldn't help but think of our journey. It's a poor comparison, but it made me think of the fact that infertility is definitely harder than raising twins.

Infertility is not life threatening, but there are days when the pain feels like it could smother you. It's a dark road with an unknown end. It leaves you emotionally and mentally drained, stealing sleep and replacing it with tears, stealing happiness and leaving depression in it's wake. Allowing for moments of hope only to be dashed with the words "not pregnant".

Raising twins is certainly not easy, especially in the early months. It's physically and mentally exhausting, but the exhaustion is different than that of infertility. It comes with a great amount of joy and happiness that far outweigh the frustration and exhaustion even on the toughest of days. You can be completely drained and think that you have nothing left to give and then your baby smiles at you or giggles when you kiss his belly.

Eventually I was able to find joy, even in the midst of infertility, but the pain was always lying right below the surface, waiting to rear it's ugly head when reading the next pregnancy announcement on Facebook. I still lived in a perpetual state of waiting for the day that it would be our turn and struggling to be content in the present just being the two of us, something that I now see was a true gift.

Now, my heart feels full. I am content and for the past 6 months, I haven't felt like there was a hole in our family. My tears of sorrow have been replaced with tears of joy as I raise our sweet baby boys. I haven't thought of us as being infertile in the last 6 months, now we are just parents. Would I love to sleep through the night every once and awhile? Of course, but really, it's a small price to pay to be "mommy".

Raising twins comes with challenges, but when put into perspective it is not hard, it is a true blessing.