18 Things No One Told Me About Having A Baby That I Had To Figure Out On My Own
I've always wanted to have kids, but I wouldn't say I was one of those women who felt destined to be a mother.
Just like anything else, I think people fall on a spectrum — some are 100% sure they do not want to have kids, while others can't picture their life without them.
I always wanted kids, but by the time I started trying, I could also picture a life without them. My mantra going into the whole experience was "If it's meant to be, great. If not, that's OK too."
So, perhaps for that reason, when I got pregnant, I was pretty clueless about how everything worked and what to expect.
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I didn't do a ton of research about conception or pregnancy or birth, or even parenting — and even though I'm a little older, most of my friends don't have kids, so I wasn't surrounded by kid talk.
Now I have a 4-month-old baby, but I had to learn a few things the hard way. Here's what I wish I'd known from the start:
NOTE: The processes of conception, pregnancy, birth, and parenting are different for everyone, so it's worth noting that this is just my perspective and my personal story.
I use the words "baby" and "mother" to express my experience, but not everyone who gets pregnant or has a baby identifies as a mother.
1.When you decide to have a baby, you’re signing over your body to someone else for at least a year — and most likely longer.
Before I had a baby, I thought, No biggie, I'll just be pregnant for nine months, then get back to my normal self. Nope, not even close.
I didn't realize that after I gave birth I'd bleed for several weeks, that my digestive system would be out of whack (hello, constipation), or that my boobs would be going through breastfeeding hell. And don't even get me started on the emotions.
I'd say you need to expect for your body not to feel like your own for a good year, and much longer if you breastfeed.
2.In addition to potentially worrying about things like stretch marks, weight, and ever-changing boobs, you may also have to think about hair loss, split abs, and pelvic floor issues.
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I'd argue most women are well aware that their body changes during and after pregnancy, but I had no idea all the little things I'd have to deal with. For example, at this present moment, I could reach back, run my fingers through my hair, and come up with a wad (yes, a WAD) of hair. My hair is falling out like crazy. (Apparently, it's normal, but it's still unsettling.)
Then there are things like split abs (from your abdominals stretching apart to make room for the baby), melasma (brown splotches all over your face), and pelvic floor issues that can make sex painful and peeing your pants the new norm.
3.When you're pregnant, you don't just grow a baby, you also grow an entirely new organ. An organ whose job it is to keep your baby alive.
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The fact that your body can grow bones and eyeballs is mind boggling (and something I truly didn't appreciate until I was the one growing bones and eyeballs). But in addition to growing another human, pregnant people also grow an entirely new organ.
Meet: the placenta.
The placenta, which is the size of a full pie, is in charge of keeping your baby alive. Its job is to fight for the nutrients needed to sustain the fetus and keep it growing. Then, when its job is done and the baby comes out, it releases its grip on your uterus, exits the body, and dies.
(If you want to blow your mind, listen to this Radiolab episode.)
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4.Any self-consciousnesses or modesty you have around your body will go out the window.
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After keeping your vagina hidden from a select few for decades, you'll find yourself not giving a second thought to being poked and prodded by multiple people, multiple times a day.
I remember thinking that being pregnant and giving birth was going to feel like going to the gyno multiple times a year. In reality, no one looked at my vagina until I went into labor, and by then, I didn't care who saw what.
The same goes for your breasts: The longer you breastfeed, the less they feel like a body part that should be hidden. They have a big job to do. You don't hide the fact that your legs can run and jump, so why would you hide the fact that your breasts can sustain another human?
5.In fact, I loved my pregnant body and wanted to show it off.
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This is a strange one.
Yes, I put on 40 pounds and had a giant belly and uncomfortably large boobs, and yes, I felt super, super sexy. It was weird. I felt like my body was doing something awesome, and I was proud of it. I felt hot in bikinis and tummy teasers, and even had a photographer friend take boudoir photos of me a week before I gave birth (not something I would do with my pre- or post-pregnancy body).
6.When people find out you're pregnant, they may share horrible birth stories and tell you how hard your life will be going forward.
This was one of the worst parts about being pregnant, in my experience. Everyone felt like they had the right to unload their issues on you — from marital and parenting problems to the birth experience. It was awful. I can't tell you how many times people told me, "Get ready to not sleep for months and hate your husband," or, "Say goodbye to travel and your pre-pregnancy body."
It was all bullshit.
Turns out everyone was just projecting their own insecurities and problems on me, perhaps in the hope that my experience would validate theirs.
(PS: None of it came true.)
7.The way they determine the baby's due date makes no sense.
This is still SO weird to me. You'd think that they'd base a baby's due date on the date of conception (or estimated date). Or that maybe they'd determine it based on the size of the fetus. Nope.
They estimate your due date by asking for the first day of your last period (do people even track that??). From there, they add 7 days, then count backward 3 months. So, if your last period started on January 7, you would add 7 days to get to January 14, then subtract three months to get a due date of October 14.
Weird, right?
What's even stranger is that, in keeping with the example above, you wouldn't have even actually gotten pregnant until January 17–20 (assuming you have a 28-day ovulation cycle).
8.You can’t have sex or exercise for six weeks after giving birth.
I guess this makes sense, but I had no clue there was an actual timeline. Turns out, no matter how you ended up giving birth, you shouldn't do anything strenuous until you're a month and a half out.
9.When it comes down to it, your birth plan doesn’t matter.
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Like most women, I had a vision for my birth, but, like most women, things didn't go the way I envisioned. In my case, the birth plan didn't even somewhat resemble reality, so when the nurse asked for my birth plan several hours into the whole ordeal, I had to laugh.
I think having a vision for your birth is great, but just remember what's important and be ready to do what you need to do to meet your end goal (aka a healthy you and a healthy baby).
10.No matter how equally you try to disperse parenting duties, if you're a breastfeeding mother, things will inevitably fall more on you.
My husband and I are lucky in that we are able to equally share the parenting load. He works part time and is in grad school, and I'm self-employed, so I can adjust my workload and work when I want.
Because of that, I had big plans to disperse the parenting duties equally between us. I'm all about fairness. But, it turns out, only one of us has boobs, so that wasn't really possible.
Even during my designated "working hours," when I'm baby free, I still have to nurse. And even if I relied on a breast pump, I'd still have to take a break from work to pump.
In the early days, for example, a baby is supposed to eat every two to three hours, and if they spend 20 minutes on each breast, a nursing mother could end up spending between five and eight hours every day nursing. Yeowch.
11.Having your partner change diapers and get the baby in and out of bed will make nights feel way more doable.
I assumed that since I was already awake to night feed, I might as well also get her in and out of her bassinet or crib and change her diaper. I was doing it all (and losing my mind) until a friend suggested I have my husband bring her to me and take care of diaper changes.
It was a game changer. Not only for my mental health, but my husband said it made him feel more useful and part of the process at night.
12.You can nurse lying down.
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Again, maybe this is a no-brainer for some, but for the first couple months, I would get out of bed, get my baby, and go into the living room to nurse on the couch. Turns out, all I had to do was roll over, grab the baby, put her on her side, and nurse her in bed. A friend shared the intel, and it was a game changer.
13.The pump-and-dump method is B.S.
I always thought that you could drink as much as you want, pump the tainted milk out, and be good to go. Turns out, that's not the case.
Time is the only thing that will rid your breastmilk of alcohol (or any other substance you don't want to pass to your baby). The CDC says that for every drink you have, you should wait two hours before feeding. That means, if you have a martini at 6 p.m., you shouldn't feed your baby until 8 p.m.–10 p.m. if you had two martinis. No amount of pumping within that time frame can rid your milk of alcohol.
14.If it's been awhile since you fed your baby, your boobs will get chunky and leak.
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Ugh, even writing the word "chunky" feels gross. But it's true. In addition to getting super engorged, your boobs can form pockets of milk that feel like chunks (it goes away when you feed).
In addition, they will leak milk whenever they please. YAY.
15.You're supposed to "nibble off" your baby's fingernails when they're brand new. ??
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This was a weird one. When a baby is super new, their fingernails are like bendy plastic, and it's recommended that a parent trim the nails with their teeth. Truly.
I tried it and can confirm that it works. (That being said, I switched to nail clippers as soon as her nails hardened up a bit.)
16.You’re supposed to count your baby's age in weeks, then switch to months. And I'm pretty sure you don't use years — aka normal human speak — until they turn 2.
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It is a personal pet peeve of mine when I ask how old someone's kids are and they say something like, "He's 15 weeks and she's 18 months," rather than just talking like a normal human and saying, "He's almost 4 months and she's a year and a half."
| mean, COME ON.
But as a new parent, I kind of get it. A lot can happen and change in just a week, so to round up to 4 months when your baby is actually 15 weeks old might just not feel accurate.
I personally try to save people from doing the math and use normal human speak — so, yes, while technically, my daughter is 15 weeks and 2 days old, I've been saying she's "almost 4 months" for a while now.
17.Just when you think you have your baby figured out, they'll throw you for a loop. Your job is to roll with it.
I am admittedly, horrible at this. Case in point: My daughter is a great sleeper, but anytime she has an off night, I freak out, assuming this is the start of her new normal. I'll spend the next day stressing out, texting my mom friends, and reading parenting books to come up with a plan of attack.
So far, all that stress and effort has been unnecessary. She just bounces back to her old way — until, of course, she throws me for another loop a week later.
There's actually an app that tracks when you can expect the bigger loops — more commonly called "regressions" or "leaps." It's called The Wonder Weeks, and it provides a little insight into what's going on inside your baby's head.
18.You don’t need near as much stuff as companies (and other parents) tell you you'll need. And you can get almost everything you do need for free.
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People have been having babies since the beginning of time, and they didn't need a living room full of Baby Einstein gear to do it successfully. You can honestly get by with very little — even now, I don't use half of the clothes I have for my daughter.
Also, if you don't want to spend a cent, you don't have to. The turnover for baby stuff is super fast (they grow out of clothes and toys in a matter of months), and people are always trying to offload old gear and clothes. The key is to connect with someone who has a kid that's 3-plus months older than your baby, or join a Facebook group of other parents.