Is it different?

I have been asked countless times over the last six months if having a singleton is different than having twins.  Without hesitation, my answer is always yes.  Obviously, it is easier to care for one baby instead of two, but that's not the only reason I answer yes.  I love my children with the same intensity, yet the way I bonded with each of them is surprisingly different. When the older girls were born, it was many hours before I got to see them and days before I held them.  Our immediate family members and closest friends even met the girls before I did.  At the time, those circumstances seemed normal.

When Mate finally wheeled me over to the NICU and I touched my girls for the first time, I remember feeling overwhelming love for them.  Looking back, we had a lot to be worried about, but the feeling I remember most is love.  I cried almost ever time I held them for the first few days.  I'm sure my natural instinct to protect my fragile children had something to do with my strong emotional response.  Throughout their hospital stay, I was constantly by their side- doing as much as I could to take care of them, willing them to get bigger and stronger. Once we got home, I spent as much time as possible with them both in my arms.  When Mate got home from work I'd hand one of the girls off and we'd parent side-by-side.  We'd never known anything different or anything better.

Only after having Eliana placed on my chest minutes after her birth, did I realize how different this experience was going to be.  They say the time together immediately after birth is good for the baby.  I'd simply say it is the moment I fell head over heals in love.   The same amount of love I felt when looking at my teeny tiny, intubated babies, yet somehow different.  When I tried to pass Eliana off to Mate, the nurse insisted she needed to stay with me longer.  I remember feeling slightly offended for my husband.  He deserved the snuggles that come during the first moments of life, too.  However, you all know I follow directions, so I held that baby as long as they told me to.  From that moment to this one, Eliana has been attached to me in a way that she isn't with anyone else.   She loves her daddy, but she needs me.  It makes me feel special, but it also makes me incredibly thankful for Mia and Ava.  To this day, they are daddy's girls.  I think they know that Mate spent the first months of their lives holding them for hours, checking their medications, making educated decisions about their care, bathing them, feeding them, and providing for them.  While he's done many of the same things for Eliana, I am her comfort.

It's difficult to understand how the experiences can be so similar, yet so different.  All I know for sure is that we feel incredibly lucky to be able to parent twins and a singleton.