Things No One Told Me about Pregnancy & Parenthood
The internet is filled with videos, memes, and articles about pregnancy and parenthood, and the moment I found out we were expecting, the algorithm fed me all of it. Despite the massive amount of information available on both topics, I still found myself surprised by some of my experiences!
Before I share, I want to emphasize that these are my experiences. There’s no guarantee you will feel or observe any of the same things during pregnancy, postpartum, or the months and years that follow. If you do share the following experiences, I hope this helps you feel less alone.
Pregnancy
The first trimester was more emotionally challenging, and the third more physically challenging, than expected.
You often hear about people feeling tired and sick during the first trimester, but I was caught off guard by how mentally and emotionally draining it was. I oscillated between the excitement of what’s to come and the paralyzing fear of “what-have-we-done-our-lives-are-changing-forever” for weeks after we found out I was pregnant. The surge of hormones likely exacerbated my reaction to the unknown, but the best way I can describe how I felt was experiencing the stages of grief in rapid succession. Looking back on it, I think I was grieving the life I knew. Since most anxiety medications aren’t recommended during the first trimester, I found journaling and talking about it were the best outlets.
Physically speaking, I was nauseous the first trimester, the second was, dare I say, enjoyable, and the third was downright uncomfortable. I’m 5’2”, so I think my stature contributed to how uncomfortable it was, but no one warns you how tough simple things like bending over or turning over in bed are, how much sleep you lose before baby is even born, or how much of a struggle it is to find comfortable clothes to wear.
Some say they loved being pregnant, and I can confidently say I am not one of those people. And yes, you can not like being pregnant and still be grateful for the process.
Postpartum
Some people cry when their baby is born and others do not.
I had a pretty wild labor and delivery experience. My contractions started around 4:00 p.m. the day before our daughter was born, so I got very little sleep as I endured and timed those contractions. We got to the hospital at 6:00 a.m. the next day, and Brooks wasn’t born until 10:00 p.m. via an unplanned C-section... after two epidurals and two and half hours of pushing. It was a physically and emotionally taxing 48 hours, and when I heard our daughter cry for the first time, I was fighting to keep my eyelids open. I didn’t cry, I didn’t feel an overwhelming, immediate bond with her when she was placed on my chest, and those feelings (or lack thereof) haunted me for a little while.
Unbeknownst to me, my reaction is actually pretty normal, given the type of labor and delivery I had. I didn’t mention anything to Bryan or my immediate family for a while because I felt kind of ashamed of my reaction in the middle of that life altering moment. Months later, when I finally opened up about it, my mom helped me see how normal it is, and I learned some of my friends experienced the same thing! If this happens to you, you aren’t a monster.
Having a baby changes your relationship, but not always in a bad way.
For the first few days following Brooks’s birth, I was a shell of a person. I was exhausted and couldn’t easily get in and out of bed due to the surgery, so Bryan was navigating a lot of new parent things solo like feeding a baby, changing diapers, and soothing. Those three days in the hospital were hard, but I look back on them fondly because I saw every good quality Bryan possesses multiply through the encouragement I received during labor, through the patience he had while taking care of Brooks, and through the excitement he had for all of it after experiencing his own bout of helplessness during my pregnancy.
Yes, we still have hard days and tough conversations while navigating parenthood. I don’t want to paint a picture of perfection, because we’re far from it. We annoy each other and are forced to talk things out often, but our respect and admiration for each other increased and our relationship strengthened through this shared experience.
When the sun goes down, tears come out.
The “baby blues” and postpartum depression are terms I was familiar with before having a child, but I wasn’t totally clear on their symptoms. This probably explains why crying every evening during the first few weeks when the sun set wasn’t something I knew to expect. After talking to my friend, I put the pieces together that the sunset indicated nighttime was near, and my tears were related to the anxiety I had about the inevitable, sleepless night ahead. This is completely normal and is a by-product of the baby blues that most mothers experience.
My doctor explained that it takes roughly 9 months for you to create a baby, but it takes your hormones just 3-6 months to return to their pre-pregnancy levels. That fast hormonal change coupled with sleep deprivation is a recipe for irrationality. Know this DOES end, and your body somehow gets used to running on little sleep. Once it does, that anxiety just kind of melts away. If it doesn’t subside after the first few months, there’s a chance you could be experiencing postpartum anxiety or depression. Your doctor is the perfect person to consult if you feel it’s lasting too long.
Parenting
Your baby is human. Your baby is not an average, and your baby is not your friend’s baby.
I think we’re really lucky to parent in an age with so much available information, but sometimes those resources can make you a little crazy. Understanding general sleep times, wake windows, milestones, or feeding recommendations is helpful to know, but don’t spiral if your child isn’t hitting every benchmark exactly as suggested by the data. Most childhood development data is presented in averages, so it’s perfectly acceptable for your child to develop a little earlier or later than those averages! The comparison game is dangerous and one I recommend you don’t play.
Having friends whose kids are pretty much the exact same age as Brooks made navigating pregnancy, postpartum, and parenthood a better experience than I ever could have imagined. We were in the trenches together experiencing all the same things at exactly the same time, and our group text was (and continues to be) a safe space to vent, ask questions, and share successes.
The same group text that serves as a proverbial safety blanket was also a source of stress in the early days. I started playing that very dangerous game I warned you about just one paragraph ago, as soon as I received the first excited text about great progress with one of their babies. It would make me question everything! Was Brooks sleeping as well as their babies? Does she need more tummy time? Is she eating as much as they are? I think my reaction was natural, especially for a first time parent, but I had to work hard to free myself from that comparison trap, because no amount of comparison or worry was going to further my child’s development. I also had to remind myself that it isn’t always about me or my kid!
Time was the best teacher of this lesson, because after a few months you realize all babies and parents are locked in a dance of “one-step-forward-two-steps-back” — it’s not just you! Among my friends, it went something like this — Baby 1 would sleep long stretches, Baby 2 would start rolling over, and Baby 3 wouldn’t do either. Then Baby 1 would start a sleep regression, Baby 2 would sleep but stop rolling over, and Baby 3 would both roll and sleep. Now all of our babies sleep and roll, and they’re now working on more advanced milestones like trying solid foods and sitting up. Once you have a few months of experience under your belt, you’re able to relax more because you have proof that your baby will figure things out on their own time. The less-than-two-week age difference between our babies in the first year of life means the difference between one crawling and one walking, but a year from now that same age difference will be undetectable. It’s wild!
In short, keep your focus on the big picture of your child’s development, and you will be less stressed and a better friend and parent.