What I know now
Here's what I've learned in the past year:
That all the should we/shouldn't we questions about whether to try to have a baby seem so far away. It has turned out even better than all the items in the "pro" column and most of the "cons" turned out not to matter much. If I had known how fun it would be I wouldn't have struggled over it so much.
That for some reason people want to make being a parent sound awful. During my pregnancy I was regaled with so many warnings and negative stories. Yeah, it's tough work but more than that, it's really really fun. We laugh far more than we're annoyed. (I'm talking about right now, so save your "just you wait" warnings about toddlerhood).
That "ha ha, you'll be up all night" period is really a "up several times a night" period and it's just a month or
two. Followed by 1-2 times a night, followed by 0-1.
Yes, we lucked out with a very fairly chill baby and no colic. He's a "good" baby but he's still a baby. They cry and you don't know why. But every bad period is relatively short. Things change quickly.
Sleep training works.
Childbirth is not as easy to bounce back from as TV makes it look. At least not at my age. Certain parts snap back quickly. But it's a fundamental blow to your body. Though I worked out regularly until the day before I checked into the hospital, that first walk I took 2 weeks after the birth felt like I hadn't exercised in 6 months. I was short of breath, sweaty, my hips were sore. I don't think everything settled back until maybe 9 months later.
It is not true for everyone that "the weight just falls off when you're breastfeeding." If you were skinny before, you'll probably be skinny after. Some of us actually gain weight when we sit around breast feeding every 45 minutes instead of our usual active routine of working and exercising. Plus breast feeding is hungry work. I talked to way too many skinny people when I was pregnant and did not have a realistic view of how hard losing the weight would be.
People sure are comfortable asking you personal questions about breastfeeding and your boobs and your vagina.
Being pregnant and giving birth are way more...medical...than I realized. If you eschew the more hippy dippy route (at my age, I wasn't taking any chances) you get very very tired of being poked and prodded and weighed and monitored. And when it's 2 in the morning and you're exhausted and just want to rest and hold your baby, nurses will still come in and bug you and give you a 20-minute start-of-the-shift orientation thoughyou're clearly not listening. And when you're in labor they'll keep telling you to get your rest but then come do something to you every 15 minutes making that impossible. But hey, in the end: thanks for the safe birth and healthy baby!
Childbirth is a terrifying idea and you have no idea how you'll do it. But you do. The nurses do a lot of the work, really.
I think the door to post-partum depressing lies in imagining a mystical experience where the baby flows into the world to a CD of whale sounds and candlelight. Making a plan of how it *should* go will only disappoint you.
I think I imagined that the baby would look exactly like me or exactly like Brandon. Instead he's kind of his own thing with resemblance to
both. I think I also thought I'd look at him and think "that's a part of me." But again, he's his own independent unique and separate being and I just happen to be very very close to him.
That just singing a song to your baby, if you really think for a second about what you're doing, will make you cry.
That I am a crier now. When the baby gets a shot...when I say I love you to my husband...when I put baby to bed...at the drop of a hat. It's annoying.
That I really really miss acting. But that time away from my baby to rehearse makes me feel stressed if it's not the
right project. The right role in the right show, with a reasonable schedule, OK. But I can't do a show just to do a show.
That the differences between working mothers and stay-at-home-mothers will be thrown into sharp relief by their posts on Facebook.
That the vast amount of free time that child-free people have on their hands compared to those with a baby will be thrown into sharp relief by their posts on Facebook.
That during my maternity leave, and my current exile from acting, I am very thankful for Facebook keeping me connected. I wouldn't have any idea what people were up to otherwise. iPhones are a maternal lifesaver.
Parenthood is isolating. Just because you're hyper-focused on the new human in your home doesn't mean everyone will be curious about him or interested in meeting him. Some folks assume you're too busy for them, and some folks are too busy for you. Life goes on even if yours has been turned upside down.
That you really do lose some vanity. I haven't worn nail polish in a year (can't pick up a baby with wet nails), rarely wear earrings (reason
obvious), tolerate more root grow-out than I could have fathomed before, and whether my outfit is "cute" isn't that important a question anymore.
But it still stings when someone, say, does a double-take upon seeing me, or a "oh, I didn't recognize you." Or the coded "you look...happy!" People: knock that off. I'm onto you. I'm working on it, believe me, a photo of myself can bring me to tears. But I've had bigger fish to fry this year than worrying about that extra chin or two.
Daycare is not evil. In fact, it has a great number of positives.
That someone will read part of this like, "sleep training works" and feel angry that I am judging them somehow and think "yeah for you." Yeah, for me. This note is about me, not you.
That I don't like changing diapers.
That I'm not one of those people who want their baby to stay a baby. I love his milestones, I love when he graduates to a new size, I love watching him grow up and learn.
I'm also not someone who thinks "can you believe it's been a year? doesn't the time fly?" I felt every minute of that year, gave each day the attention it was due. It felt like a year. A fun and strange and exciting year.
That parenthood will mess with your identity big time. When you've been acocktailing girl-about-town and suddenly you find yourself walking down the street pushing a stroller, it's a bit of an out-of-body experience. You see yourself as you imagine other girls-about-town see you: settled, boring, comfortably dressed. You think "I used to be cool like you! Sort of." But then you look at the little nut-nut in the stroller, doing
something cute or weird, and you shake it off and accept it.
That I'm not a particularly nervous or overprotective new parent. I have reserves of patience and calm and confidence I didn't know I had.
Seriously, you wouldn't recognize me.
That if you're very lucky you make a happy little family and your partner will still treat you with love and respect no matter how bad you look and how shrewish and naggy you are sometimes now because you are tired and stressed, and you can still make each other laugh until you cry and they will change diapers more than you because you don't like to.
That some cliches are true: Mama bear instincts, snot-smeared clothing, exhaustion, missing your old life, loving your new life, poop and more poop, not wanting to read that one book one more g-d time, going to bed at 10pm on a Friday night.
And that I love my son so much that I cannot kiss and hug him enough, and I get a moony look on my face watching him play, and he makes me laugh so hard I cry, and I gaze at his photo all the time, and getting to see him after a work day makes me feel giddy and fluttery like a new crush, and I hate to tell him no but do it anyway for his own good, and sometimes he bugs the holy crap out of me, and I love him, I love him, I love him, and I'm totally crying a little bit as I type this.