Strollerderby

Thank you for telling the truth!!

my sister is 18 and has a serious BF, i frequently tell her details about my pregnancy and labor, just to scare her a little.

last week i told her what an episiotomy was... she asked me if i would have her babies for her.

Though I can't speak to Pregnancy first hand.

But how about the joy of knowing that once you're a parent, you are blessed with the newly added awareness that if you lose your job your family could wind up homeless and starving and it's all your fault.

I expect some flak for saying this and being a male, but I think all of these are pretty close to true in my and my wife's experience with our baby. I'm not 100% sure about number 2 since my wife would know better, but I do know I overheard a group of pregnant-for-the-second-time moms saying just that last week.

6) Your boobs will go back to normal eventually (btw it doesn't matter if you nurse or not, they NEVER will go back)

I was surprised at how long it took to 'recover' after giving birth. Memories of stitches, blood, squirt bottles, pads...Ooo. Makes me cringe just thinking about it.

No one ever told me how bad it would be...or how LONG it would take to feel comfortable again.  

Worse than the birth even.

Not to brag - but all of those were true for me.  I have passed them on, with the caveat that every person's experience is different.  

yeah, true for me, too, mostly, although breastfeeding doesn't really burn as much fat as you might think

before having a kid, I used to work out 2.5 hours a day, now I  just don't have the time, so could lose 10-15 lbs to reach my old awesome state...now I have to settle for being "alright"...I just want to eat too much being home all day, plus breastfeeding makes you hungry!

regarding the rest of the list, everyone is different, yes, but I think having a natural birth attended by a midwife and preparing my body for the birth went a long way toward my not needing stitches and having a speedy recovery

I was ready to walk to the peditrician's office a few blocks away, baby in sling, the morning after giving birth at 9 pm...husband and I decided against that, though, just to be on the safe side

I'm not even a week past my birth and although I remember having some seriously painful contractions, I can't remember the level of pain all that much.  The memory is VERY short term for me.  I also tore quite a bit, and although the first day post birth I felt pretty crappy, I am in shock how quickly I am recovering.  

I'll just have to wait and see about the rest... though my hubby and I had a rough spat one night, we both can gaze at baby and feel totally overwhelmed with love for our son and each other.  

Um, four out of five of those were completely true for me.

1.  Still working on that, but weight has always been a struggle for me, even prior to having kids.

2.  I have two children and have been in labor for less than five hours of my life.  Both were born naturally, without pain meds, and they are not twins.  My first, I was in labor for 3 hours, 45 minutes.  My second, I was in labor for 1 hour, 9 minutes.  Yes, I understand that this is atypical.  However, birth was not excruciatingly painful for me.  It hurt, but no worse than bad menstrual cramps.  It was a lot of work.  I was tired, but exhilarated, afterward.  

3.  After a rough start with breastfeeding, in which I had doubts about my supply, I went on to nurse my first child for 28 months (I was pregnant for 9 of those with her sister, and I was nursing both of them for 9 months, too).  I breastfed my second child for 21 months.

4.  While I still love to sleep, and can easily sleep from midnight until noon, I have become increasingly more able to wake up and be alert in the middle of the night, and more able to function on fewer hours of sleep than I used to.

5.  I love my husband even more, now that I've seen him as a father.  Sure, we have our petty disagreements over who has done what, as all married couples do, but there is no feeling that compares with seeing your husband holding the tiny miracle of a baby that you've created.

I understand that not all of these things happen for everyone, but when speaking to a pregnant woman, who is already naturally frightened, is it better to give her the horror story, or the hope?  I prefer strongly, after hearing hundreds (literally) of horrible pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding stories, to be the lone voice of hope, saying, "I was terrified, too, and it just honestly was never as bad as I thought it would be, even when I had PPD and was at my worst, I made it through, and you will too.  And if you need me, I'm here to help."

Amy @ prettybabies.blogspot.com aka. Pollyanna

I wouldn't call these lies, though everyone's experience is different. For me #1 was true with my first child, though with my second child the pounds don't seem to be dropping off as quickly.

#2 -- well, you don't really FORGET the pain, though in time the memory of it becomes less, well, vivid.

#3 -- pretty true for me, actually, though again, I know everyone's experience is different.

#4 -- kind of true, or maybe you just get used to being tired all the time.

#5 -- hmmm. My husband and I have a great relationship, but I'd say it's despite, not because of, the babies. :)

As for things no one told me:

I was somehow surprised by the fact that you bleed for WEEKS after giving birth. And no one talks about how breastfeeding dampens your sex drive - at least for awhile. (And again, I realize everyone's experience is different.)

"The new mom community is SO MUCH FUN, you're going to love it!"

Not where I lived at the time.  The mommy-baby group I joined was filled with competitive moms who spent the time trying to one-up each other.  One of them ranted and raved against c-sections and then actually rolled her eyes when I informed her that both my little one and I would both be dead if not for my c-section.  Yeah, great times!

All five of these lies were just that...lies!!  

1. Losing the babyweight has been so hard. It's been 2 years and I'm still not where I used to be.  Just no time to work out...

2. Giving birth was a completely traumatic experience for me.  Granted, I had some complications, but to say that I would ever forget that pain is ridiculous.  It was a painful horrible experience.

3. My breasts never made milk.  The La Leche ladies promised me that Everyone makes milk, but not true for me.  This was very difficult to accept b/c I was already knew the breast was best.  It was devastating.  I felt like I failed my baby.

4.  I still miss getting enough sleep.  There is no better gift in the world right not than the gift of sleeping in.  Just like the old days!

5. My marriage has absolutely struggled since having a baby.  Babies bring more stress.  They just do, even though they are wonderful.

Yet--I'd do it all over again.  Having a child was the best thing I've ever done.  

Ugh, this is why I've stopped coming to babble.  There are too many of these articles about how incredibly difficult it is to be pregnant/a parent.  Everyone's experience is different!

All true for me.

But then again, you get out what you put in. Some people are determined to focus on all the negative aspects, end up with lousy outcomes and spend a huge portion of their time whining about how much everything sucks.

Twas always thus.

Oh Knitty! You are so right. I was trying to think of what lies I was told and you hit the nail on the head. I think exactly, dead center on the head. I am still kind of a "new mom" but slowly finding my place with a more supportive circle.

Poo-Poo to you Occasional Reader. This is a site for parent's! Parenting is hard! Full of Joy but hard non the less. So glad your reality is perfect.

I think the worst lies are of the "pregnancy is so nice, you just glow and bond with the life growing inside of you" variety.  I'm sure some women feel that way, but pregnancy is just hard for me.  I have terrible morning sickness, I develop allergies, my joints ache, I'm exhausted, and my moods are constantly shifting.  It's awful for me!  The first time around I felt like a freak for not loving it more, but now I've talked to so many other women who have had the same experiences.  I love my son, and I'm currently pregnant with #2 and very excited about having another little ball of wiggles. However, as exciting as the thought of another baby is,being pregnant sucks!

I would say that most of those were true for me, except for #2... but I've never lied about it.  I know people who had relatively (relatively! I said relatively!) easy labors and births and tell the truth about it, and I know people who had terribly painful birth experiences and tell the truth about it.

Honestly, I'm getting sort of tired of this "nobody tells you the REAL truth about birth/parenting, but I will" meme.  First, there is no one "real truth".  People have different experiences, and not everyone who says that they found it easy to do X (birth without meds, nurse twins, whatever) is lying.  Second, there are so many blogs and columns and books out there that are explicit about laying out the things many people find hard about child-bearing and -rearing that I think the shock value is pretty much gone now.  Yes, many people find birth to be very painful.  Yes, nursing a baby can be really hard at first (or even second).  Yes, being around a little baby isn't a nonstop haze of mothering bliss.  WE KNOW.

Diera, I notice that I seem to frequently agree with your comments!  

I too get tired of the 'no one ever tells you x' bits, because during my pregnancy when I had someone say  'No one tells you this, but..'   I was forced to smile politely while thinking, "Okay: a) everyone tells you this, and b) this is self-evident to anyone who's ever spent more than five minutes in the presence of an infant."    

I read this list to my husband and said that the problem with them as lies is that sometimes they are true.  For some people all of these, or some, are true.  For others, not so much.  I think the reason why they are considered lies is because so many young women seem to believe them.  I'm due in August and in my August online baby group it seems like every week some girl is worried that she is not enjoying her pregnancy.  She feels like a freak because she has bought into the rainbows and teddy bears view of it - which is probably only rarely true.  I think it's important that there is some warnings out there somewhere, to balance all the YES - ITS AMAZING AND EASY! stories, which may be true, but do set people up for disappointment.  It's also true people win the lottery, but not everyone can expect that out of life.

CrunchyMama, not to bitch at you too much, but, please, can the better-than-you attitude. The best thing that anyone ever told me was simply that her own first 6-8 weeks with the baby were hell. Maybe this seems exceedingly negative to you, and an example of some whiny woman who doesn't really even like her kids, but for me, it was the lifeline that got me thru my own first weeks with my first child and helped me have a better attitude (because I knew what to expect) with my second. Everyone is different, and these lists can be annoying, but some of us vastly prefer honesty to sugar-coating when entering the crazy world of child-rearing.

I love my daughter very much and all the pain and loss of sleep and the surgery was all very much worth it.  Even the fact that he decided not to be a dad agian, just four days after she was born, was well worth every minute I get to spend taking care of my little bundle of joy.  I wouldn't have changed anything.  And I know women like to complain, I complain too, just not about anything that has to do with my little girl.