The First Few Weeks- When Expectation Meets Reality

What You May Not Want To Hear

When you hear about motherhood, you are usually provided with two images.  The first is the glowing, happy feeling.  The mom looking down on her newborn baby and smiling, so overcome with love and happiness.  Luckily media has also started portraying a different image.  The mom whose hair is a wreck, she's covered in poo and hasn't slept for weeks.  But seeing the latter image doesn't stop each pregnant woman from hoping, "that won't be me, I'm going to love my baby so much."  Then after you have your baby, you watch the mandatory shaking baby video and think to yourself, "there's no way i am ever going to be that frustrated."  But this blog entry is here to tell you, you're a fool.  And part of the reason that so many moms are getting Post-Partum Depression is because moms start motherhood off with pre-conceived notions of how it is going to be, and then end up disappointed.

Pre-conceived notions are your enemy.

Think about when you go into a situation expecting something.  Doesn't it make you so much more disappointed when it doesn't turn out the way you expected it?  I know I am incredibly guilty of this, and I know there are millions of women out there that do the same. Motherhood is the same.  You go into it thinking that you are going to have it all figured out.  Maybe you've done all the reading.  Maybe you've watched all your friends have babies.  Maybe you've always wanted to be a mom and feel like you're going to be a natural.

But then....

Your husband/significant other/baby daddy doesn't turn out to be as supportive as you thought he would be at 4am.
You end up getting incredible sore nipples during that 3am feeding and find yourself sobbing in the dark.
You can't remember the last time you put on deodorant.
You read your friends status on facebook about them going to a party and cry because you can't remember the last time you had a conversation with an adult.
You end up trying to rationalize with your baby "If you just went to sleep you wouldn't be so tired now would you?"

You might find yourself angry at your baby.  And then you are overridden with guilt because this is your baby, that you've wanted for as long as you can remember, and here you are mad at this beautiful little creature, who can't help it that they can't fall asleep unless you are holding them.

But I'm here to tell you, to stop feeling guilty.  Okay, okay, I'm not telling you to yell at your baby, or to shake your baby.  But I am telling you that you are not a terrible person for feeling discouraged or defeated. This happens to tons of mommies in the beginning, but we are taught that this feeling is taboo because having a baby is a blessing that not all get to experience so we should be grateful.

Yes, you should be grateful.  You should look at that beautiful baby's face as least once a day and thank your lucky stars that they are in your life.  All I'm saying is that it's okay to be crying in frustration when you're rocking your baby to sleep at 4am when all you want is to sleep for a consecutive 3 hours.  I'm saying it's okay to whine to someone about how hard breastfeeding is for you, or how upset you are that you're covered in baby pee and spit up and you don't know if you're going to get to shower today.  Because most likely, if your confidante is another mom, she will know exactly how you're feeling.

The issue here is that your expectations are meeting reality.  You are expecting to get a very specific diamond necklace that you've had your eye on for Christmas, and then you occasionally get a little disappointed when you look at the tiny silver bracelet you got instead.  You're still grateful for the gift, you think it's beautiful and you actually love it, but you get slightly upset because it isn't exactly what you thought you were going to get.  A baby is hard.  We go into pregnancy and labor with all these expectations of what it is going to be like, and when we hear the horror stories we dismiss them, assuming either they won't happen to us, or that once the baby comes we will forget all the bad and be overwhelmed with the good.  But that doesn't always happen.  Sleep deprivation and loneliness, and all sorts of other things result in frustration and disappointment.  So, I guess my purpose of this entry is for those moms-to-be to recognize that as much as you think you may know what you're getting yourself into....you have NO idea.  And the best thing you can do for yourself is not to develop all these expectations because it will be even more disappointing if things don't turn out that way.

Sure...you can imagine what it's going to be like to hold your baby for the first time.
And you can imagine what he or she is going to look like, and what songs you are going to sing to them, and all of that wonderful stuff.
Just don't be disappointed if the first time you hold your baby, he pees on you (that's what Lucas did to me).  Don't be disappointed if he gets your nose (and that was the one thing you absolutely did not want him to have of yours), and don't be disappointed if he screams every time you sing the one song you really wanted him to enjoy as a lullaby.  Because those are the little things you'll remember when he gets older, and you'll laugh at all the new moms who had so many expectations as well.  Don't waste your time with too many expectations, but more importantly, don't be so hard on yourself when YOU don't live up to your own expectations as a mom.  Because your little one is not going to remember you crying at 3am when he or she was 3 weeks old.  All mommies have those moments where they break down and wonder if they can handle the pressure.  But then your little one looks at you with his or her first gummy smile, or coos, or just squeezes your finger and then that supernatural mommy strength returns.

Don't let your expectations make you miss out on the beauty of reality.