What I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me...

I only have one child and she's almost 19 months old. That's not even two years of training. I'm hardly the Jedi Master of motherhood, nor do I protest to be. But if there's one thing I am absolutely sure about when it comes to all things parenting, it's that there's so much no one tells you. Gobs! Mountains! Someone could (and should) write a book on all the myths and legends about what becoming a mom for the first time is really like. Or what it really could be like, since everyone is different. They're hush-hush truths spoken in dark corners and passed on with secret signs. Well, I'm here to shine some light on those illusive truths.

I can thank my amazing friends who, much to everyone's excitement and happiness, is pregnant for the first time, for this idea of sharing the things for which there's no warning. She's had worries about her feelings and thoughts on parenthood - the same thoughts and worries I had - that she's afraid aren't normal. So in reassuring her, and thinking I wish someone had inducted me into the dark secrets club, I decided to help reassure any of you who may be, or might encounter, the same fears, feelings, and inadequacy that I did. You are not alone!! (cue cheesy music)

So let's get started...

#1: Choosing to start a family is not easy, and SCARY!
Choosing to have children, although exciting and fun for obvious reasons, is like signing a restraining order on your social life, your marriage, your showers, your clean clothes, your body, your sleep, your control over bodily functions, and any and all free time. If you're not worried about that, you have something wrong with you.


Before children enter into a relationship, you get to be selfish. You can go anywhere at any time. You can do almost anything you want. You can worry about yourself and your physique. You can spend hours getting ready and blow money on things you don't need. Children add a significant amount of difficulty to that kind of lifestyle. Your world will turn upside down. It is an enormous life change. If that doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.

#2: Being pregnant isn't wonderful
Being pregnant is horrible. Now, there are some people who just grow a tiny little bump and add zero poundage elsewhere, feel a connection with the baby right away, still go to yoga every morning, never experience any symptoms, and are as healthy and happy as ever. And those people suck.

For the rest of us, being pregnant is a miserable, hot, fat, swollen, uncomfortable experience. It's on my list of top 5 worst things ever. But, I felt like I was going to get struck by lightening if I admitted that out loud because it felt like an indirect slam to the little fetus blocking my digestive plumbing and karate chopping every organ it came in contact with. I was supposed to be rubbing my belly in wonder with a blissful smile on my face while drinking a green smoothie, but I wasn't. Saying I hated pregnancy felt like I was saying I hated the baby or the ability to even grow a baby. Women of the world, this is not true. You have every right to complain and hate the experience of being pregnant. Our bodies are destroyed and hammered. We get fat and eat frightening amounts of chocolate and cry a lot. Nothing functions properly and everything moves to new places it wasn't designated for. And we're MEAN! We feel uglier and nastier than we've ever felt before. We look uglier and nastier than we've ever looked before. There is nothing wrong with you if you don't enjoy that and call it magic. You can still love your baby but hate what they're doing to you.

#3: You can't plan your delivery
We never had a "birth plan" except to get an epidural, at some point have a baby present itself, and not die. I feel like that was a pretty level-headed plan. There are so many unknowns and what-ifs that could happen with each pregnancy and delivery that you can't plan everything out. You may have preterm labor. You may need an emergency c-section. You may deliver pretty fast. You may need to be induced. You may have your baby in a car. You may have an easy, painless delivery. It does happen! You really have no idea what will happen. Wherever you are or whatever happens, whether good or bad, just go with the flow and focus on you and baby being healthy and happy.


#4. You may not cry and instantly bond with your baby the second you hold them and wonder how you ever lived without them
This does happen, so if you're reading this thinking I'm the one who's crazy, that's because I had a different experience than you. Every "Your baby this week" thing I read would show a picture of a tad-pole looking fetus with eyes over by the ears and a tail growing out the back during the first few months of pregnancy. And apparently those images remained forever vivid in my mind because that is exactly what my brain told myself what was coming out of me. So when an actual baby was lifted up and moved to get cleaned and weighed, I was utterly and thoroughly confused. I didn't understand who's child that was. But then reality came back to me that, duh, that was mine and they really do come out looking human and I got excited to really look at her.


Then, they cleaned her up and handed her to her daddy because I was still being stitched up and we got to really look at her. I cannot explain to you how weird this experience was for me. I didn't cry. I didn't say anything. I didn't even feel anything for her. It was so strange. She did not feel like my baby and I did not bond with her the moment I saw her. They put a hat on her and she looked exactly like my husband. There was no evidence of myself in her whatsoever. At first I was angry that she looked like him and not me. Didn't I just do all the work? Was I really the mother? I don't know what I expected but it really threw me off. I wanted our kids to look like their dad. She actually had every single feature we wanted. But it was still so strange and confusing to me. She didn't feel like mine. And I felt like the worst person ever because I wasn't going gaga over my baby.

Of course we held her and stared at her the rest of the day but it was still so surreal. We sent her away that night to get some shut eye (HIGHLY recommended) and I didn't miss her that much until I started to dream about her. All night I had dreams about a little girl and when I woke up the next day, I missed her! I started to feel more and more love for her as I began to realize that she was mine. So, bonding with your baby may take time. The whole experience is so much all at once that you can't have it perfect all the time. Bonding will come. Don't worry. Soon you won't be able to stand being away from each other.

#5. Hormones are worse than people say and other nasty stuff
Prepare to cry for the first two weeks postpartum. You can't control it, either. You just cry and cry. You either cry because you love your baby or because you're having a hard time. You cry because you're tired, sore, and spent, or because you can't believe what you've done! Your hormones and emotions are completely out of control so prepare to be a nut-case.

You will also sweat. A LOT! You gained water-weight during the pregnancy, now your body is trying to get rid of it. Carry a towel with you everywhere you go.

If you choose to not breastfeed, like myself, when your milk comes in, it will be painful and your boobs will be so big it will scare you. Mine came in during the night and I just laid there not daring to move and flex a peck muscle and make it worse. But, it only lasts a day or two and then you'll spend the next several weeks leaking... it's DISGUSTING!! That's all I'm going to say on the matter because this topic grosses me out. Just prepare for it to be gross and uncomfortable. But it goes away.

#6. Postpartum depression doesn't just mean you're suicidal or constantly depressed
I wish I would have known this. Having battled situational depression in the past, I knew I was experiencing the same feelings and emotional episodes I had before. I knew I was depressed but it wasn't all the time. I'd be fine one day and then I'd have a full on panic attack wondering how in the heck we were going to have TWO kids, if I'd get any sleep that night, if I would be alone all day, etc. I worried about things I couldn't control or that weren't even reality. Not just worried, I flipped out about them! My daughter was a pretty easy baby as well but whenever she would have a hard day I would lose my mind. Looking back, I can see I had postpartum depression but I didn't know it at the time because I didn't have suicidal thoughts or wasn't a danger to myself or others. I thought you had to be a complete loon to qualify. But I wasn't myself or rational at all. I wasn't really that happy. Take time to evaluate your feelings and if you don't feel like yourself after a few weeks, tell your doctor. It will be the best thing ever for you.

#7. Baby weight is HARD to lose
I was naive and thought I could lose the weight easily. It took me a long time! It's a mean battle! Be careful how much extra weight you gain during pregnancy (maybe that should have been it's own warning?) because you will spend months working it off.

#8. The first year is rough
For some people, they naturally fall into motherhood and they love it. I didn't. It took me up until about the time my daughter turned 1 to really feel strong, happy, and confident in motherhood. It didn't come naturally and I didn't like it. Of course I always loved my daughter. That never changed. But the role of being a mom was hard. I can't even count the number of times I told myself or my husband that I hated it. There were times I hated the new life we had chosen for ourselves. I didn't know what we had gotten ourselves into. I didn't think I was cut out for being a mom. I thought something was wrong with me. I thought we had made a huge mistake and I wondered all the time how I was going to raise a daughter the right way when I was struggling so bad. But after talking to many other moms, I started to learn that there wasn't something wrong with me, this was very NORMAL! Do not fear, others experience this as well. It just takes some of us longer to transition into being a mom. I also know had I treated the postpartum depression, I probably would have had an easier time transitioning. It does get better!

The good news is they slowly become more independent and fun. They sleep through the night and you start to become yourself and you start to make your new life a norm. You get the hang of everything and learn how to handle changes and unexpected things. You realize that things you once freaked out about really weren't that important. You get it! Once you find your identity as a mother, you start to love being a mother and the love for your child grows more and more! You'll start to agree with people when they say they can't remember life without their kids. You don't care to! They'll make you so happy it'll make every hard day worth it.


So those are some truths that threw me off in my time as a parent. I may have to make this topic into a weekly segment because even now I can think of more, but this post is long enough. Motherhood is extremely difficult but worth every moment. It will make you feel miserable, and make your heart swell with so much joy you swear it's going to burst out of your chest. Just plan on not being able to plan on anything and you'll do wonderfully. 

Here's A Tip...

Here's a helpful tip:

You know how your baby monitor says "do not use with any other power source" right on the unit? Well I'm here to testify, that's not just unnecessary jargon, they really mean that!

Today I was sitting on the couch holding the baby monitor and the power cord for the computer was sitting right next to me. "I wonder if it would fit,"I stupidly and needlessly thought to myself. So I picked it up and cautiously "checked" to see if it would fit by putting them close together but not actually plugging it in. Well, they fit. Too well in fact because it slipped right in and my monitor instantly fried and went dead. It couldn't be revived either. I tried everything, even emergency surgery.

Although I'm sad to go a few days without a monitor and to have to buy a new one already, I'm actually looking forward to the new one. Ours has super crappy reviews and the new one has great ones! Plus our old one beeped every 10 seconds (ok, not really that often) for no good reason like it had PMS and you couldn't go outside with having to strategically place it in the exact right spot so it wouldn't lose its signal. This other one has double the range. I could go across the street! Imagine the freedom!!

Anyway, moral of this post: don't put your stuff in things it shouldn't be in.

R.I.P. moody monitor!

Jumbo Growth Chart Ruler

Two years ago we bought our first home and shortly after had our first child. When she started walking we kept saying we needed to mark her height on the door frame. But we kept forgetting. Then I saw this idea on Pinterest about making a growth chart ruler that shows the children's heights on the ruler (or with pictures) and you can take it anywhere in case you move! What a brilliant idea! Here was the original pin:

http://adventuresindecoratinganddesign.blogspot.com/2012/01/ruler-growth-chart.html

But I decided to make my own version of it.

First, I went to Lowe's a bought one six foot 1x10" board and a can of stain. Then, I brought it home and sanded it down until it was smooth:

 Next, I applied the stain.

 Then I sanded it down again to help give it a distressed look. I forgot to take a picture of this step but sanding is pretty self-explanatory.

Then I measured how far from the floor I wanted the board to be so I knew where to start. I decided on 6 inches from the floor, so I began the bottom of my ruler at 6 inches. Then I measured everything else out and penciled in all the numbers, tick marks, and animals I decided to put on it:

 Can you guess the next step?? Very good! I painted it! This was actually a lot harder than I expected. The original idea used printed numbers. I hand drew and painted everything on the ruler. That's why the lines aren't perfect, but I think I did a pretty good job even though the critters took forever to draw and paint. I'm not an artist.

 This little bee is my favorite part.

 The finished product up on the wall!

 We had our little K test it out and she started crying. Weird. But she got over it. I plan on printing out a little picture of her at 18 months and putting it on the wall next to her height. That will come later. Right now we're out of printer ink. 

It took me a few passes in the hall to really start to love it. I'm unhappy with the numbers looking so ghetto and too uniform. I should have made them stylish. But that's ok. It's still cute. We'll keep it.