Like many people, transitioning to parenthood was a roller coaster. Despite having spent so much time thinking about becoming parents during our three year infertility journey, I still struggled to adjust to the new responsibilities, challenges and routines that came with my role. The exhaustion, relentlessness, and identity crisis were unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

With twins, there isn’t a whole lot of time to indulge in warm newborn snuggles. Someone always needed something, and so it was a pick one up, put one down sort of life for a long time!

When my husband gave me my first injection for our one lucky round of IVF. I remember crying because I couldn’t believe it had come to this: What "should" have been such an “easy” thing to do was so incredibly difficult for us. However, it also felt empowering to do something that had much better odds of working to give us children.

I left my job before my twins were born. I was pretty sure that, like many twins, they would come early and might be born with delays due to prematurity. I was glad to not have to return to a full time job after giving birth at 29 weeks.

Being at home full time was harder than I ever gave it credit for. I look back on the first year-and-a-half of my children’s lives as a total blur. I fantasized about going back to work that first year but then slowly became surprised by how much I grew to love the role of a SAHM. I look back at my kids’ third year of life as one of the best years of my own.

When I left my job I told a colleague I was taking a “career break” to transition into my new role as a mom. She said, “I have a 10 year old and I’m still transitioning.” It was a good reminder to me that this job is ever-changing and is challenging us all the time.

Nothing about our experience was “normal” - we needed IVF to get pregnant, and while we were lucky to have our untested embryos “stick”, they were born 10 weeks early and each barely weighed three pounds.

Our 39 days in the NICU were relatively uneventful as far as NICU experiences go, which we were grateful for. But when we were discharged from the hospital our children were on oxygen and weighed five pounds each. I didn’t get the opportunity to traditionally breastfeed and so I pumped for nine months. Each of those experiences were different than the original visions I had had.

I imagine The Den as a place where we all come together to support one another, troubleshoot our problems without judgement, and celebrate all the amazing and complicated things that these journeys have brought to our lives.

The first few years of parenting can be especially demanding and often isolating. I would have loved the opportunity to have gone to The Den regularly to get out of the house and have some adult conversations! I can't wait to meet, listen to, and support others who are in the earlier stages of parenting.