The Shit No One Tells You About Becoming A Mom

Alright, we know that becoming a parent is a wonderful thing. We’re told that we will have this unconditional love that we’ve never felt while at the same time, being the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Where all of that is true, there is a ton of other shit in the middle that people tend to leave out. Things we had no idea were going to happen, things that we were not prepared for. In order to get real and raw into motherhood, we are laying out all the things we wished people had told us, so maybe you can be a little more prepared, or at least get a good laugh at our expense.

Make sure to listen to our podcast episode on this same topic with a little more detail and a whole lotta laughs.

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1. Gestational diabetes & high blood pressure. These can be brought on by just being pregnant, and can go away once the baby is born. Who knew?!
2. Hormones change your mood, your skin, and even the way your hair takes color. Hannah used the say dye she had been using for years, and instead of the darkest brown, she came out a red head.
3. Did you swell during pregnancy? It doesn’t just go away. Actually, it can get much worse!
4. You have to birth the placenta. Yea, as if giving birth to a baby wasn’t enough, keep pushing!
5. Contractions don’t stop after you have the baby. It has to get back to its original size, so it keeps contracting. If that wasn’t uncomfortable enough, a nurse comes in to push on your stomach to make sure everything is “moving along”.
6. You and your baby leave the hospital wearing diapers. Yup, because even after a c-section you can get like a month long period. Why did no one tell me this? I could have brought my own, because what they give you in the hospital are not comfortable. Did they make these pads for elephants?!
7. Even after you have a baby, you still look pregnant. Thats right, you’re not Rachel on Friends who has a baby and looks just like she did before she got pregnant. You leave the hospital looking pretty much the same as you did going in. Ok, maybe a little smaller.
8. You’re feet grow! Not just a little, but some people have gone up a whole size (yup, thats me!)
9. Hair Loss – I had no idea this was a thing! I thought something was wrong with me, that I had some terminal illness that was sure to take me out if this newborn didn’t do it first.
10. When your milk comes in, it can be painful! Milk ducts can get clogged and cause infections.
11. Your nipples feel like they are going to fall off. They get chapped, scab, and bleed.
12. You don’t always have an instant connection with your baby.
13. The love you have for your kids is unconditional, but if you have more than 1, you will love them very differently.
14. It’s ok to feel like you can’t be around your baby (of any age) for 1 more second, but still love them with all you have.
15. Post-Partum Anxiety. I had heard about postpartum depression, but didn’t know that anxiousness I was feeling immediately after I had my daughter was normal. Post-partum OCD is a thing too.

Obviously, every one and every experience is different. Some of these things happened with one pregnancy and not the other. But, I do wish I would have known, or heard someone else talk about these things so I knew I wasn’t alone.

Did we miss anything? Anything you’ve experienced that we didn’t mention? Drop it in the comments, let others know they aren’t alone!