In the summer of 2014, on a night much like every other night, I carried one of my three children up the stairs for bed. It felt like the 100th time that day that I carried someone up or downstairs, and it very well might have been — just a few months earlier, our family of three grew to a family of five when I gave birth to identical twins.

 

Twin pregnancy is a grueling, physically demanding task that left me nearly unable to walk by the end of those nine long months. But giving birth to two healthy baby girls made it all worth it, and what’s more, I gained a newfound appreciation for my body that no other experience could have given me. I realized that my body is miraculous, and capable of a herculean task given to few. I discovered just how powerful I really am.

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But despite this newfound respect, my body was not able to do everything I needed it to as a mother of three young children. I realized this that summer night as I paused at the top of the stairs, panting and out of breath, and had this sobering thought:

 

My babies would keep getting bigger, and I’d still need to keep carrying them up and down the stairs.