Caring for Myself and My Twins: Nicole Prom Of The Way It Really Is Twin Mom Blog On Emotional and Physical Recovery After Giving Birth To Twins

An Interview With Lucinda Koza

Therapy. Though not everyone ends up with postpartum depression like I did, carrying twins in and of itself can be anxiety provoking and even just a few therapy sessions could help work through those feelings. I didn’t realize how much I was blaming myself for, unjustly so, until I started therapy and said these things out loud. The mom guilt, overwhelm, and not having enough hands to do all the things you need to with twins, adds up!

Giving birth to twins presents unique challenges and demands a significant emotional and physical recovery process. The journey to regaining well-being while caring for newborn twins is complex and deeply personal. Balancing self-care with the needs of two newborns can be overwhelming, but it is crucial for the health of both the mother and her babies. By sharing these experiences, we hope to provide valuable insights, support, and practical advice to others facing similar challenges.

As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicole Prom, M.S.Ed., Ed.S.

Nicole Prom, M.S.Ed., Ed.S., the founder of The Way it Really Is twin mom blog, is a dedicated blogger and former school psychologist who is passionate about empowering twin moms to navigate the joys and challenges of parenthood while finding time for themselves. With her genuine and relatable approach, Nicole shares her own experiences, offering valuable insights, practical tips, and heartfelt encouragement to her readers.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you tell us a bit about you and your backstory?

My whole life I’ve wanted to help people, from helping my friends with their problems as a teen to becoming a school psychologist to starting my blog to help moms of twins.

I went to college to become a clinical psychologist but my junior year I decided to switch paths and become a school psychologist instead. I attained my Master’s Degree and Education Specialist degree in School Psychology and was a school psychologist for seven years.

Though I loved my career, and went all in on it including spending three years on the MN School Psychologists Association board, motherhood changed me. I left my career when my oldest child was 1 year old because he was always getting sick at daycare and I wanted to be home with him, plus I was already burnt-out as a school psychologist. Within a year of leaving my career, I found out I was pregnant with twins and the decision to stay a stay-at-home mom was cemented as having three kids under three in daycare was more than I’d ever make in the schools.

I believe everything happens for a reason and though times were tough throughout my twin pregnancy and beyond, my twins have helped make me who I am today and I wouldn’t change that for the world.

Can you share a little about your childbirth experience with us?

My twins are MoDi Twins which means in utero they shared a placenta but had their own amniotic sacs. They are more high risk than other types of twins because of the shared placenta so it’s recommended MoDi twins are born no later than 37 weeks gestation. Since my first child was born via C-Section after 27 hours of induced labor and my twins had to come out early, I figured I’d end up with a repeat C-Section.

I had a C-Section scheduled for 37 weeks but my body had different plans.

At 36 weeks exactly I developed a severe form of preeclampsia called H.E.L.L.P. Syndrome. My blood pressure was consistently above 140/90, I was having vision changes, and my liver was shutting down. Luckily, I listened to my body and had my husband drive me to the hospital at 10pm one night while we called a neighbor to come stay with our son.

Had we not gotten to the hospital when we did, the twins and I wouldn’t be alive today.

The twins were born via emergency c-section while I was under general anesthesia mere hours later. One twin had difficulty breathing so he was hooked up to a CPAP and rushed to the NICU. He spent 6 days between the NICU and Special Care Nursery for breathing and other medical concerns. The other twin never needed NICU time which was great but made it so we couldn’t see the NICU twin as often since they were technically in separate hospitals and I couldn’t bring the one to meet the other. I also was recovering from a C-Section so couldn’t walk far and had to be wheeled around for the first several days.

I’ve written about my Twin Birth Story in more detail on my blog if you want to read more about it.

Twin pregnancies can often be high-risk and include premature deliveries. If you had difficulties with your twin pregnancy, how did that inform the early days after their arrival? How did it inform the bonding process?

Though my MoDi Twin Pregnancy was high-risk, I was lucky that overall it was uneventful. Due to having MoDi Twins, I had biweekly ultrasound appointments starting at 14 weeks gestation. My twins also had three echocardiograms while they were in utero due to an abnormality on the second echocardiogram. Luckily, that abnormality resolved on it’s own by the 3rd trimester.

With my twins being born early at 36 weeks and one being in the NICU but not the other, the first week of their lives was very difficult. My dear husband was going between the adjoining hospital with the NICU twin and my hospital where I was recovering from the C-Section and was on a magnesium sulfate drip for the first 24 hours following their births to prevent seizures, which are common with preeclampsia. The magnesium drip made it hard for me to stay awake, remember anything for longer than 5 minutes, nurse the twin in the room with me, or even hold him. It was really rough for all of us.

Not being able to be with my NICU twin more than a quick visit a few times that first week was extremely difficult on me as a mother and I worried that we would never have a close bond. I tried to breastfeed both of them but both had difficulty latching so I ended up having to exclusively pump for them. While I was just glad I was getting them milk, I felt that we didn’t have that close bond that I had with my singleton child whom I was able to nurse.

A week after they were born, once we were all able to be home together, we did as much skin to skin time with them as we could and I kept trying to nurse them in hopes that we’d still be able to have that close bond. Sadly, they had undiagnosed tongue and lip ties for the first two months of life so breastfeeding wasn’t successful and I resorted to pumping.

With there being two babies at once plus our two year old, life was so chaotic that there wasn’t much time to just sit and snuggle the twins, which I still regret to this day even as they’re now 6 years old.

Though I was afraid we’d never have a close bond, and my experience with postpartum depression surely didn’t help that, my non-NICU twin has always been a big cuddler. Though I felt closer to him for a few years, within the past year the NICU twin and I have gotten a lot closer and he’s more attached to me these days than my other two kids!

It goes to show that even when things don’t all turn out the way one expects throughout delivery and thereafter, it doesn’t mean your kids won’t develop a close bond with you, as long as you keep trying.

A twin pregnancy makes demands of your body that are almost impossible to imagine. How does this change, or not change, once they are born?

I’m a petite woman from a long line of petite women. I’m just 5’1” and I started measuring full term when I was just 26 weeks pregnant with my twins. The only way for my twins to grow was directly out front so my stomach looked akin to a torpedo toward the end of pregnancy.

Though I was able to bounce back to my pre-baby weight and physique after my first child, the same could not be said after having twins.

There will always be extra skin on my stomach that won’t go away unless I get surgery, which I don’t plan on doing. Though the majority of the baby weight left rather quickly, I’ve had a hard time losing the last 25 pounds to get me back to a more comfortable, confident weight. This past year I was finally able to lose 10 pounds which took a lot of hard work but I’m still about 15 pounds more than I’d like.

Thankfully, soon after delivering my twins the immense pelvic pressure I felt, as though my pelvis was going to crumble and fall out of my body, was gone. This was a huge relief as it was so painful for months. The carpel tunnel that I developed while pregnant also subsided within a few weeks of delivery.

Even 6 years later, I still have diastasis recti, meaning my abdominal muscles have separated and will either need surgery or specific exercises to fix. I’m working on the exercises and have lessened the separation over time though I still have a long way to go. Diastasis Recti causes a host of problems including still appearing pregnant, back pain, and a weak core.

If you cannot, like most people, accomplish the physical act of holding both of your twins at the same time, how does this affect you as a mother? Is there ever a sense of lack of control, or fear, or guilt?

There were very few times I was able to hold both of my twin babies at once, and when I did, it didn’t feel safe. I was extremely sad to not be able to comfort both of my babies when they needed me at the same time. This is something that gave me huge feelings of mom guilt and feeling like I wasn’t in control, because I couldn’t be.

When the twins were about 6 months old I even wrote a blog post about how I felt so bad I had to leave one behind, while crying, as I brought his twin upstairs for a nap. It was heartbreaking to not be able to help them both at the same time, not to mention, my then 2-year-old who also needed me.

I came to adapt things so that even though I couldn’t hold them both at the same time and be close to them, I could still be with them.

I had their cribs next to each other with a space to walk between so that I could feed them both at the same time for overnight feeds and while putting them down for nap for the first few months before they went into separate rooms because they kept waking each other up. I set up their bouncers next to each other so I could bottle feed them at the same time while I was plugged into the wall pumping their next meal.

From time to time, I would hold and feed them both at the same time but I never felt safe doing it.

As I mentioned earlier, it was really hard having two babies who needed me at the same time, life was complete chaos, especially the first year of their lives with doctors appointments, constant feedings, their naps, and raising our 2-year-old. I’m sad that I didn’t get to snuggle them as much as I would have liked, especially since they’re my last babies, but we were in pure survival mode.

The good news is, we made it through and we’re all very close now.

How have you been able to manage or overcome these feelings?

Therapy. Honestly, I started weekly therapy when the twins were about 6 months old and we had just moved into a bigger home. I thought that moving into a bigger home would solve all my problems somehow and when it didn’t, my mental health took a huge hit. I finally got to the point I had to get out of denial about having postpartum depression and actually ask for help.

You’d think with my background in psychology I would have done so sooner but I think that’s actually what led me to wait for so long.

I was in weekly therapy for postpartum depression for about a year and after just 6 months I also started taking an antidepressant. A year or so after I ‘graduated’ from weekly therapy I started a trauma specific therapy called EMDR. This helped me work through my birth traumas, motherhood guilt, and other traumas I endured earlier in my life. I highly recommend it.

In a perfect world, what do you think moms of twins need to ensure this transition into motherhood is a healthy one?

All moms, especially moms of twins, need to know that no matter what you do or how hard you try, you aren’t going to be a perfect parent. None of us are, I surely am not!

What your kids need is your love and for you to try your best. Everything else is icing on the cake. Once you don’t have so much pressure on yourself you’ll be able to parent more effectively and calmly.

New twin moms also need support. Even if a new twin mom says she doesn’t need help, like I would always say, I assure you — she does. Even just being there to hold one of the babies and not judge the messy house or needing to pump or breastfeed in front of you is a huge thing that can help a mom of twins.

Being able to hear from other moms of twins who have gone through the high-risk pregnancy, the often complicated delivery and NICU time, and the hectic first year of their lives is really helpful as well.

That’s exactly why I started my blog.

Can you please share “5 Things You Need to Recover Emotionally and Physically After Giving Birth to Twins”?

1 . A Supportive Partner. Without my husband, I couldn’t have gotten through having twins. He is the most supportive partner in parenthood and life that I could ever ask for. During the first year of the twins’ life, though he was working full time and I was a stay-at-home mom, he would get up with the twins for their feedings. He knew that especially while I was dealing with undiagnosed postpartum depression and rage that I needed my sleep, plus, I had to get up at 1am to pump for the twins anyway. I don’t know how he did it and kept his job but my gosh I am so thankful for him. Beyond that, he’s an amazing father to our three boys and always makes sure I get the support and time to myself that I need to recharge as an introvert. Having someone on your side who truly gets you is essential.

2 . Therapy. Though not everyone ends up with postpartum depression like I did, carrying twins in and of itself can be anxiety provoking and even just a few therapy sessions could help work through those feelings. I didn’t realize how much I was blaming myself for, unjustly so, until I started therapy and said these things out loud. The mom guilt, overwhelm, and not having enough hands to do all the things you need to with twins, adds up!

3 . Patience. Your body goes through a lot during pregnancy, especially twin pregnancy. It’s going to take time for it to ‘bounce back’, if it ever does. It also likely will take more work and different tactics to lose weight than it did prior to having kids. Give yourself grace and patience as you mentally and physically heal from pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding/pumping, and beyond!

4 . A Way to Tell Your Twins Apart. Our twins are identical and the first several weeks of life we couldn’t tell them apart. The only thing that helped was I painted the nonNICU twin’s big toe blue with kid-safe nail polish. If we couldn’t see that toe, we weren’t sure who was who. Before too long, he got a mole by his knee and we rejoiced because now we’d always know who was who!! This was especially important since one twin had a few different medical concerns that lasted through his first year of life so it was very important to tell them apart! A way that we tell our twins apart in pictures, since that mole isn’t always showing, is to have one twin wearing mainly reds and the other in blues. We started this when they were babies and even as Kindergarteners they still prefer ‘their colors’. It’s pretty cute.

5 . Give Yourself Grace. As I mentioned in the section prior to this one, no one is perfect and we need to let go of the mom guilt, especially as twin moms. Not everyone is able to tandem breastfeed twins like we all wish we could, not everyone is able to safely hold two babies at once to soothe them or feed them, and we surely can’t physically be in more than one place at a time. It’s not easy, I still struggle with this, but try and give yourself grace. Realize that you’re human and you can only do so much. Most of all, your kids look up to you, love you with all of their hearts, and wouldn’t want anyone else to be their mom other than you. You got this, mama!!

Has your sense of self shifted, or morphed, with the birth of your twins?

Yes, greatly. As I mentioned earlier, my sense of self had already shifted somewhat after I became a mom the first time as I decided to leave the career I had worked so hard to attain. Once I had twins that shifted again and I realized that I had to find something that made me feel ‘more than just a mom’.

Therapy nights helped me realize I needed, and deserved, time out of the house on my own. Whether that was just going to therapy and the 20 minute drive each way before and after where I could have uninterrupted thoughts or going to a coffee shop to read on Sundays for a few hours. These things helped me regain a sense of self and define the new chapter of my life. I also started new hobbies such as acrylic painting on canvas, watercolor painting, I got a Cricut cutting machine and started crafting with that, and I started my blog.

All of those things help me feel more of a whole person than I did previously and that helps me be a better mom, a better wife, and a better person overall.

Wonderful. We are nearly done. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)?

If I could have a private meal with anyone it would be Dr. Izabella Wentz. I’ve been reading her work since I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis in 2015 and she’s been instrumental in me being able to regain my health so I could have children, and then regain it again years after having children.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Having more robust support for mothers, especially mothers of multiples, in the months following delivery. Had I been diagnosed with postpartum depression earlier it would have been easier to recover from. Had my twins been properly diagnosed with tongue and lip ties earlier, I could have actually breastfed my twins as I had hoped. Moms, especially those of multiples, need more support than just the 6-week postpartum visit that is covered by insurance.

How can our readers follow your work online?

You can find my 250+ blog posts at TheWayitReallyIs.com and I can be found on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook @thewayitreallyismomblog

In addition to my blog, I also have created over 100 helpful printables from activity books to planners and more, that can be found at Shop.TheWayitReallyIs.com.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

About the Interviewer: After becoming her father’s sole caregiver at a young age, Lucinda Koza founded I-Ally, a community-based app that provides access to services and support for millennial family caregivers. Mrs. Koza has had essays published in Thought Catalog, Medium Women, Caregiving.com and Hackernoon.com. She was featured in ‘Founded by Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Female Founders’ by Sydney Horton. A filmmaker, Mrs. Koza premiered short film ‘Laura Point’ at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and recently co-directed ‘Caregivers: A Story About Them’ with Egyptian filmmaker Roshdy Ahmed. Her most notable achievement, however, has been becoming a mother to fraternal twins in 2023. Reach out to Lucinda via social media or directly by email: lucinda@i-ally.com.