1. You will cry with every emotion. You could be mad enough to spit nails and you will cry. Then you will cry because you have been stripped of your assertiveness and eye-of-the-hurricane calm you have been cultivating your whole life.
2. You will look at your husband, at least once, and hate him.
3. You will look around your living quarters, at least once, and hate them. (Let's be honest here. You will hate them a lot.)
4. You will get gas that could kill a small child. At work, you will avoid bending over to pick something up for fear of letting one rip, it will be that bad. I have had a Cheerio sitting on the floor under my desk for a week because of this.
5. The midwife will find something wrong, at least once, and you will simultaneously become terrified and devastated because there is something wrong with your baby. Then you will find out you are fine, the baby's fine, and you will hate your midwife, just a little.
6. The midwife will think your belly is measuring too big and so she will check for two heartbeats, which she will find. You and your husband will take off work the next day for an ultrasound only to find there is just one, incredibly long baby in there. You will love your ultrasound tech more than you have loved anything on this Earth. You are too full of love for the ultrasound tech to feel any hate for anyone at this time.
7. You will ache at night. You will ache at work. You will ache in the shower, and no one can help you stop aching. You will hate your own body for just a minute or two.
8. Everyone has a terrible labor and delivery story. Women who have lost legs from labor, women who have labored for 13 solid days, women who have delivered 15 children at once. It's okay to hate these witches.
9. You still may not find yourself bonding with the baby. This is normal and you don't need to hate yourself for it as long as you are taking care of yourself and the baby.
What they will tell you.
It's A Boy!
Our baby boy now weighs 1.4lbs and is tall like his daddy. We have a hockey star in the making!
Very exciting . . . even with all the "stuff they don't tell you". Congrats!!
Posted by: Karen | April 13, 2007 at 09:08 AM
Congrats! Welcome to the rollercoaster ride of pregnancy and parenthood.
Posted by: Asa | April 16, 2007 at 04:30 PM
Congratations! And yay for not having twins (oops, I'm probably not supposed to say that, but, uh, as if ONE isn't hard enough to keep up with?) You could be like my mother-in-law, who didn't get ultrasounds and for her first baby, at 19... had two. SURPRISE!
I'm sorry about all the crappy things. I have a happy labor story: my mother went into labor, got the the hospital, and I was born, all before my grandmother had time to get back from her shopping across town.
Posted by: BigAlice | April 17, 2007 at 02:07 PM
Just to add to your list:
Some people who epidurals only have it work on one side of the body. They say it's far worse to feel numb on one side and contractions on the other than to feel the whole thing.
I've had really good births. That does happen, you know? They tend to be a little slow to get going (even on my third), but I never felt like I'd rather just die right there than finish the thing.
The good thing about the human brain is its capacity to very quickly forget all the pain when all the joyous stuff starts.
But, why don't they tell you about the gas??? I've been doubled-over in pain from gas while pregnant.
Congrats on the boy!
Posted by: Krista | April 26, 2007 at 11:44 PM