Happy ONE Year! Here's Why I Started My Twin Blog
It’s been ONE year of writing. One year ago today, on December 17, 2017, I created my twin blog, @twinsidescoop. That same day, I sat at my dining room table typing my first post with 7-week-old twins sleeping next to me. At the time, I was navigating all of the highs, all of the lows, and all of the question marks in between that come with new motherhood. I was well into my maternity leave and going through some of the most profound changes of my life.
My previous “normal” was completely eliminated. Going to work every day, meeting up with friends, vacations, and simple “down time” were all things of the past. I suddenly had two little humans whose lives primarily depended on me. As a new mother of two, sometimes I had no idea what in the world I was doing. I didn’t know many people with twins and my set certainly didn’t come with an instruction manual!
My entire career up until that point had been dedicated to working in pediatric healthcare as a nurse and nurse practitioner. My background of working as a pediatric provider for almost a decade helped, but even that wasn’t enough preparation for what was happening. Naturally, there were days in our house where it felt like the blind leading the blind.
Even though I didn’t have much experience juggling twin infants yet, there were 4 things I did already have some baseline love for: 1) children, 2) mentoring, 2) writing, and 3) photography.
During that sleepless chaos, navigation of unfamiliar territory, and feelings of needing answers, I decided to mesh my loves together. I wanted to place my pediatric knowledge, real-life twin experiences, writing skills, and photography interest together into a box with a pretty bow tied around it. That pretty little box turned into @twinsidescoop.
My hope was to document what worked, what didn’t work, what went wrong, what didn’t go wrong, what I recommended, what I didn’t recommend, and to neatly package it for others to reference. I no longer wanted other new twin moms to feel lost or clueless like I did at first. I wanted to be a source of answers, hope, and encouragement. I wanted to be a set of listening ears.
While my blog eventually seemed to help others, it turned out to also be cathartic for me. During this time of starting my blog, I was going through the ultimate twin mom question – “Can I balance twins with full-time work?” which led to the even bigger question of “Who in the world am I now?” Writing through my thoughts helped me answer my own questions.
I wrote when the twins were napping during the day, in between pumping sessions, and after bottle feeds, etc. It was (and still is) a very stop-and-go thing. I made time for it during the peak of the chaos because it became my getaway – it was something I actually looked forward to doing. And I still do.
Fast forward to now, one year later. Here I am – feeling so fulfilled by my decision to offer support to other twin moms while helping myself. I have “met” so many amazing moms of multiples on here that have become my friends. This community truly is an amazing one. I hope you have found some comfort in my words over the past year-- just as I have found comfort in yours.
Thank YOU!! <3
-Michelle
