I knew from the time I was a child that I wanted to have a baby. I couldn’t wait to feel that tiny body growing inside me. I couldn’t wait to touch its soft skin and smell its sweet baby smell. Like everything else in my life, I fantasize about all the positives and choose to ignore what might be viewed as a challenge. Being pregnant, giving birth, and raising children are truly beautiful experiences but peppered with difficulties and uncertainties. Here are a few things I wish I’d known before getting pregnant:
- Crying babies will give you such a sense of helplessness – like you’ve never experienced.
- Babies don’t smile for the first few weeks, but when they do, you’ll think you’ve never seen such a beautiful sight.
- The Terrible Twos are nothing compared to the Threes and Fours!
- Pregnancy is uncomfortable, and childbirth is excruciating, but 5 minutes after it’s over you know you’d do it all again (and probably will) for that miraculous little being.
- Your relationship with your husband will never be the same. Not that it will be worse, it will just be different.
- You will look at your parents in a completely different way. You will see them now more as experienced equals.
- Shopping with children can be like an obstacle course. Rare moments when you get to shop alone will be like a treasure hunt.
- You will eat lukewarm food for about 5 years.
- The sight of your child being rejected by other children or scolded by an adult will teach you what it means to have a broken heart.
- You will wish you could apologize to every mother you’ve ever met on whom you’ve passed judgment believing that you would handle a situation differently (better).
Leave a comment with what you wish you’d known before getting pregnant or adopting for a chance to win a Baby ePlanner from ListPlanIt.com.
View Comments (8)
Oh wow, I LOVE this blog! And I love this list.
I wish I would have known my history and my husband's health history. But, then again, I love my children, so I'll leave their health in God's hands.
Using Random.org to randomly choose a winner for the Baby ePlanner from ListPlanIt.com, the winner is. . .
Melissa!
OHMYGOD. This is the best list ever!!! You nailed it! Everything from how you view your own parents to your relationship with your hubby post birth to wanting to pound anyone that dares to hurt your kid. Ben just started saying GO away. Just in baby babble and he doesn't even know what it means, but it made me think....are the older kids telling him to go away in daycare? Do I need to go down there and kick some booty? hehe.
Happy weekend to you!!
wow. thanks for the advice! my husband and i are trying to conceive our first child. i look forward to it, but i am a little scared at the same time.
#9 is so true! I wish I had known that my body was never going to be the same. Maybe I would have appreciated my pre-pregnancy body a little more!
Love your blog! I am a huge listmaker myself! Saying hi from Mom Blogger's Club.
Melissa
mjenningsdesigns.blogspot.com
I love my little baby so much! He is 8 months old so everythimg is rather fresh in my mind. I wish I had known how impossible it is to keep my house clean! I just don't have time unless he is asleep, and when he is up he is pulling everything out, dragging toilet paper all over the house, and learning and having fun. Who knew having a clean house would be a rarity? I thought that mothers who said they sometimes didn't get a shower, and it was hard to do the laundry just weren't doing it right... hahaha. I learned my lesson.