My husband said, "You wanted to be a mother, so act like one," then left me alone with our six-month-old twins while he went on vacation — when he came back, he stopped dead in the doorway.
Carter and I had wanted children for years. So when we found out we were having twins, we thought we'd finally gotten everything we'd been hoping for.
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Then the girls were born.
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Wren and Sadie were six months old, and I was exhausted in a way I genuinely didn't know was possible before I had them. My days were feedings, diapers, laundry, crying, bottles, and trying to soothe two babies at once on almost no sleep, night after night, week after week.
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I handled most of it without complaining, because I understood becoming parents was an enormous adjustment for both of us, and I kept telling myself Carter's own exhaustion mattered just as much as mine.
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Then one night, while I was struggling to get both girls to sleep at the same time, I asked Carter for one small favor.
Could he wash the baby bottles?
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He sighed. Then he looked around our cluttered living room and said he was tired of coming home to crying babies, dirty bottles, and a wife who always looked stressed.
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A few minutes later, he told me he'd already planned a four-day fishing trip with his friends.
He "needed a break."
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I honestly thought he was joking. I asked how he expected me to manage two infants completely alone when I hadn't slept properly in months.
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Carter kept packing.
Then he shrugged.
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"You wanted to be a mother, so act like one."
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