Especially for off_coloratura, teh motherhood post

[tencrush]

Fine, so you're considering having children, dear reader? Here's the deal:

• Pregnancy is just a physical state like any other. If you have terrible trouble with PMS, such as I do, you'll have terrible trouble with pregnancy. I, personally, am a slave to my hormones, especially moodwise, and pregnancy is like 9 month PMS, 11 months if you count the bit after pregnancy. I was in a bad mood, had headaches and was rampantly horny most of the time. The physical changes, to me, were vastly less difficult to deal with than the mental ones. Physically, you just get fat. Everywhere. Fat ankles, fat tits, a fat arse, things hurt and around about month six it gets more and more difficult to move, and your fitness decreases vastly. I had to ask the other half to go up and down the stairs for me if it wasn't strictly necessary for me, personally, to do it, that sort of thing. But at the end of the day, it is quite simply a physical state of being, and the knowledge that IT WILL PASS helps you to deal with it greatly.


• Giving birth is something you can prepare for with all the classes in the world, but in the end it comes down to YOU and YOU ALONE, having to manoeuvre a BABY'S HEAD out of your va-jay-jay. Simple as that. And that hurts. I had an epidural with the first one and trust me, it still hurts like a mofo. There is NOTHING in the world like the pain of childbirth, it is like something from space sent to test you. IT WILL MAKE YOU CRY. You already know how to breathe because you've seen it on the telly, and that really is about all you can learn. You cannot learn how to push a baby out of your fanny, you can only do it when the time comes and you feel that urge. That's all.


• On the note of giving birth, sorry to break it to you, but yes, you will have a shit. I mention it a propos of absolutely nothing, but it's best to demystify these myths as quickly as possible. Yes, you will poo. It's nothing they haven't seen before and will see again on a regular basis, so just deal with it and move on. And yes, your backside will prolapse and if you're very lucky, like I was with the first one, every blood vessel in your face will burst. Lovely. You'll probably tear and you will end up with a big, stretched, bloody mess. This too, will pass, and if you're asking, with me it was three weeks to get everything back to functioning normally, though I still have occasional spotting and, sporadically, a rather iffy smell.


• Breast feeding hurts for the first few days. I'm not talking about your nipples, I'm talking about your actual breasts. They will start to want to make milk right after labour, and they will grow. They will grow fast, they will get hard, and I mean hard, like rocks, and they will hurt. The baby will exacerbate things by trying to regulate the amount of milk they make by feeding a lot, or often or both. Your baby will be in charge of your breasts, make no mistake. He or she will decide how big they are and how much they hurt. That's your baby's job, you are not in charge of them any more. After a few days, the pain will pass and your breasts will adjust. THEN they will start doing that hilarious leaky thing. Your breasts will KNOW when your baby wants food and they will tell you about it by leaking copiously into your bra and hopefully your strategically placed nipple shields, which hopefully won't have dislodged themselves into your armpits. Millie actually skipped a feed the other night and I woke up in a POOL of milk. They will also do the sympathetic leaking thing, whereby when the baby feeds off one breast, milk will start running out of the other one until the baby is done. Your breasts will be constant source of amazement and amusement, and please, don't forget that they will squirt your partner in the face if he tries to touch them. But don't worry, you won't want him to.


• Speaking of squirting, THINGS WILL GET DIRTY. Have a nice sofa? Put it in storage for ten years. The first year it will get covered in breast milk, baby wee, baby poo, snot and sick. After that year, it will get covered in fruit juice, chocolate milk, flattened strawberries, sticky things you cannot and do not wish to identify, snot and sick. You will try to keep things clean and you will fail. You will think that you will change the baby on its changing table, you will not, you will change it on your bed, on the sofa or anywhere it happens to be.


• Speaking of which, the child will TAKE OVER YOUR HOUSE. Deal with it. Make sure you have a place to put its vast amounts of paraphernalia in every room. A box, a basket, anything. If you don't, there will be things belonging to the child on every surface in every single room of your house. Every. Last. Room.


• You will be given many, many gifts, a vast amount of them you either will not like, or will never use. Buy the child enough newborn sized clothes, because every gift of clothing you will get will be for a six-month-old. People like to err on the side of caution. Having said that, don't buy TOO MANY newborn sized clothes. You will be amazed at the newborn's capacity to grow out of clothes WITHIN ONE WEEK. That is, indeed, how fast they grow. It's mind-boggling.


• Taking all that into account, babies are not actually as much hassle as you think (toddlers, on the other hand, are) and when that moment comes a few weeks in when they look at you and you realise they actually know who you are and they're possibly even trying to smile to prove that to you, it's really rather great. Honest.


• What I mean is, I wouldn't sell either of them on ebay or anything. Or 99% of the time I wouldn't, in any case.

Will that do you?

Comments

[off_coloratura]

*gets a hysterectomy*

Seriously, though, thanks for this.

[tencrush]

Oh yeah, and, of course: They will sleep with you. No matter what your intentions, they will end up sleeping with you. If not in your bed, then at least right next to it. For at least three months. Especially the first one, because the first one is the one you will poke every half an hour during the night for at least two months to check that it's still breathing. The first one's funny, because it'll wake you up whenever it makes a noise, but it will also wake up your paranoid brain whenever it doesn't. The second one won't wake you up AT ALL, because you'll know by then how hard they are to actually kill. After a few months you'll put them in their own room and you'll then have about a year and a half to enjoy yourself before it's able to open doors and barge into your bedroom, shouting "Don't do that, daddy!".
Bless them, bless their little hearts.