What I Never Expected When I Was Expecting

Right when you think you've got a hold on this parenting business, something new happens that reminds you, "Oh no novice mama, you don't know anything.  Nothing at all."   It's especially poignant when it's something that you had figured out, but then, BAM, not so much.  For example, after weeks and weeks of tweaking Asher's breakfast to find the right taste and consistency, we finally got it:  about a third cup of cereal, half a scoop of formula, a sprinkle of cinnamon, a dash of vanilla, and enough warm water to make it as thick as applesauce.  And he loved it!  For two days.  Until he decided he didn't want to be fed cereal anymore.  He wants to have teeny tiny pieces of breakfast food placed in front of him in his highchair so that he can feed himself.  Slowly.  Arduously.  Have you ever watched a turtle eat lettuce?  This is what watching an 8 month old try to feed himself looks like.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO6fqunLD4Y .  The act of pinching has not been perfected, so there's a clumsy clawing at the food, the slow working of the niblet between his thumb and pointer finger, the drawn out raising of the hand to the mouth, the labored opening of his jaws as wide as they can go, putting his whole fist into his mouth, and then 9 times out of 10 the piece of food falls out the side into the abyss that is his highchair seat.  And then we start over.

I'm not saying I don't love this.  Watching Asher eat is a highlight of my day.  And I love that he is learning and becoming independent.  The point is that when we took our childbirth and parenting classes last January, no one said, "As soon as you've got the hang of something, the game will change." I know that parenting is different for everyone- what one parent sees as a struggle could be a walk in the park to another, and what one parent sees as a triumph could be met with a yawn by the next.  The list that follows are the things I wish I'd known, the things that have surprised me the most about being a mom.

1.  Breastfeeding.  Grrr.
When I thought about potential trouble with breastfeeding, it involved a very brief time frame.  My understanding of 'trouble with breastfeeding' was that in the first 24-48 hours the baby might struggle to latch, in which case a lactation consultant holds your hand while you get it figured out and then everyone leaves the hospital happy.  This was not the case.  I didn't expect breastfeeding challenges to lead to daily doctor and lactation consultant visits/calls for the first 2-3 weeks of Asher's life.  And I didn't expect these problems to rear their ugly head again at 3-4 months.  I remember going through it and thinking, "I'm doing it, I'm exclusively breastfeeding even if it means I feed him, then pump, then supplement him, then pump, then feed him what I pumped, then rest for five minutes, then start the whole process over again."  At the time I thought someone should give me a trophy, now I think someone should have given me a timeout.  The pressure to exclusively breastfeed is enormous, and I felt every day like I was failing, because either I was trying to nurse and wasn't doing it well or I was thinking about quitting.  Fail fail fail.  How awful to go through that as a new mom?  When Ben and I decide to have more kids I can tell you this: I will not exclusively breastfeed for the first 6 months.  And I double dare anyone out there to give me grief about it.  I will also be finding a breastfeeding support group, and encourage all new moms to do the same.  I know you're thinking, A support group? Seriously?  That seems a bit extreme.  Just trust me on this.  If you are one of the moms who breezes through nursing like it ain't no thang, kudos.  But in the event that it is harder than you thought it was going to be, you will benefit from being surrounded by women who understand.

2.  Since when is a fever of 99.4 not a fever?
Asher recently had his first cold and is still trudging through teething.  For the past month, I'll notice that his forehead is really hot and upon taking his temp find that it is 99.4, 99.2, 99.6.  To me, as a new mom, this is a problem.  When I call our pediatrician the nurse explains to me that unless it's above 100.4, it's technically not a fever.  SEMANTICS PEOPLE!  Something is wrong!  Help us!  As someone who understands 'rules' in medicine it surprised me that all of a sudden this would bother me.  To hell with the rules!  Someone call an ambulance my baby has a fever of 99.2!   Dramatic?  Yes.  If I'm being completely honest, accurate?  Yes.

3.  Looks like we'll have to default on our car payment to cover the JellyCat budget.
When you are preparing for the arrival of your little bundle of joy, you budget for everything.  Including a lot of things you don't need:  baby sling, newborn sized diapers (guess what, when you have an 8 pound 8 ounce baby they will not once wear a newborn sized diaper... oops), boppy pillow, etc.  What you don't plan for is the army of JellyCat stuffed animals that your husband will amass.  That's right. I said husband.  It's not our baby who loves these fluffy, adorable muffins.  It is Ben.  And if he sees one, he buys it.  The last one he bought was at the airport gift shop, of all places.  Our JellyCat army is now worth more than our stroller, than our crib, heck it is actually more than a car payment.  We should probably up our home owners insurance to cover them in the event of a robbery.  Although let's be honest, only one person we know would be the JellyCat Caper, and he lives here.

4.  The most unattractive I've ever felt is 12-36 hours after giving birth.
What?  I would have thought the most unattractive you would have felt would have been in the 9th month of your pregnancy when you were huge and had a big dark line going down the middle of your belly and were eating whole sheet cakes like it was your job?  WRONG.  During your pregnancy your body is all whackadoozled but you have a person living in there, so there is a purpose to the madness.  But what no one prepares you for is what happens to your body right after birth.  Men, feel free to skip to list item 5, it's about to get ugly.  Let's start with the obvious, however it happened, chances are the birth of your child has left you sewn together somewhere.  It's hard to feel pretty when you feel a little bit like Frankenstein.  Thing two, you have no idea what pale looks like until you look in the mirror a few hours after giving birth.  When the bath towel you're holding is actually whiter than you because you are now so pale you are translucent, that's pale.  Third, the 'where'd my baby go?' pouch.  I had no idea that after Asher was born my belly would turn into a doughy, goofy, floppy pouch until my uterus shrunk back down to size.  This was a really emotional moment for me, as I was getting into the bath in the hospital and looked in the mirror (sidebar: WHY would you put mirrors in the bathrooms of postpartum suites? For the love of labor and delivery, let us just pretend we look really cute after childbirth!), and saw my empty pouch.  Fourth, who knows what you did in the delivery room.  Beyond feeling physically unattractive, you take an emotional hit when you recount your labor and delivery experience.  Even in the most open, loving of relationships, you have to come to terms with the fact that you may have done some unspeakable things while bringing your baby into this world.  Did you poop while pushing?  Puke right after delivery?  Threaten to murder your husband right there in cold blood?  Try to murder your husband right there in cold blood?  Pee your pants before they could catheterize you?  Cuss out a nurse?  Attack the anesthetist you thought was taking their sweet time getting your epidural started?  Instruct the doctor telling you to push to go F themselves?  While you just accomplished an amazing thing, giving birth to a baby has it's not so attractive moments.  The good news is, while all of these things can be a little unpleasant and hard to swallow, the truth is, at the time the negative thoughts are fleeting.  All the not-so-pretty parts are washed away by the most beautiful thing you've ever seen sleeping in your arms.

5.  What 'sleep deprivation' really means.
I want to go back to college Blair who said "Ugh I haven't slept in like three days" while studying for finals and smash her.  Because if I remember right, she used to say those things while smiling, drinking a diet coke, and otherwise functioning just fine despite feeling a little sleepy.  Baby-derived sleep deprivation is it's own beast.  It's not even worth describing because if you're a parent, you know.  If you aren't a parent yet, someday you'll know.  There's nothing you can do to prepare, no advice that will help.  Just relish the ability to nap and the sleeping in while you can.

6.  Where's my village?
We've all heard the term: 'it takes a village to raise a child'.  An adaptation of the phrase that is more relevant to me is: 'it takes a village to make sure moms can raise their children'.  My friend Michelle sent me a link to an article that talked about the importance of ones village during parenthood and man, is it ever true.  When Ben and I were expecting and knew we would be moving to a new state, I thought, No biggie, Ben is my best friend, we are both capable people, we can do this on our own just fine.   And when we moved here and things were hard, my thoughts those first few months were that it was a weakness in me to not be able to cut it, not that I needed to ask for more help.  I turned inward instead of doing what I needed to do, find my village.  But that's changing.   I am so thankful for the visitors we've had (both in Iowa City and now here), for the moms I've met in my mommy group, for our friends and family who have provided companionship and support from afar.  And of course most of all to Ben for being a super post-doc, super dad, and super husband all at the same time.  Since I was little I've much preferred independence to team work, but being a parent is not a one man show, we all need a village.

7.  Adios Criminal Minds
The first time Ben and I turned on Criminal Minds after Asher was born, the episode was about the kidnapping and murder of a young child.  We both made it about two minutes before looking at each other with this panicked look of "Turn it off!  Turn it off! Can we 'unsee' that?!".  It used to be one of my favorite shows, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to watch it again.  Bummer. 

8.  What was this 'huge boobs' talk all about?
Oh man, she's talking about boobs again.  I'm just taking a moment to voice a brief annoyance.  This morning I put on a t-shirt, looked in the mirror, and thought Hello, 13-year-old Blair.   I know that your boobs don't stay big forever after having a baby, especially when you stop nursing, but it's like the boob fairy snuck in one night and said, "Obviously you don't need these for anything anymore!" and disappeared.  I'm not overly attached to boobs, but I do feel like leaving me with less than I started with is a jerk move.   

9.  That my kind and gentle husband would be an even kinder, gentler dad.
I am married to the most gentle person I have ever met.  Don't misunderstand me, Ben is a dude.  He brews beer, farts, hates shopping, has a burly beard, lumbers instead of walks- he's a dude.  But there isn't a part of Ben that knows how to not love me, and the kindness with which he approaches our marriage and our life together is incredible.  I knew he would be a great dad, but I had no idea how sweet he would be with our son.  When we sleep trained Asher, it wasn't me who struggled with hearing him cry, it was Ben.  And just last night while he and Ash were playing on the floor, Ben caught him before he toppled over and I said "You have to let him fall sometimes", and he just looked at me in such a way that I knew, he will never let him fall.  Not ever.  Every child should be loved so ferociously and treated so sweetly.  

10.  What the greatest invention used to be: cell phones, penicillin, the internet.  What the greatest invention actually is: baby wipes.
Ending on a lighter note- why don't we know about baby wipes before we become parents?  You can use them to remove make-up, wipe of your dashboard, clean counter tops-- the list goes on and on.  Never again will I leave home without them.  If you want to get someone a great shower gift, get them a bajillion baby wipes.  At the time they may think it's boring, but eventually they'll see that you knew exactly what you were doing.