* Disclaimer: I am not going to hold back here… This is a brutally honest post from someone who had one child and stopped because she was so freaked out by the process of birth and the ickiness that followed…
We had only one child for many reasons: we started a bit later in life with having kids, we got a reeeeally good one (and know no two children are the same, so we safely assumed the next one would be a terror), and after pushing him out of me I vowed, like so many mothers with feet still in the stirrups, that I would never do that again! The thing was, I really meant it.
My girlfriends are the best. We talk about everything, and I mean, everything. But for some reason, they really didn’t prepare me for the nitty grittiness of birth. Here are 4 things my besties didn’t tell me about childbirth…
– It’s really gross. When I looked around the birthing suite immediately following my son’s birth, I thought of the war scenes in M.A.S.H., with the metal bowls and bloody rags. There was a lot of cleanup going on. I mean, yes, I was distracted by this beautiful new little life I was holding in my arms, but the carnage around me… holy sh*t!
– It’s even grosser in the first three days afterwards. I mean, I get my monthly visits from Aunt Flo, and they can be pretty intense, but nothing prepared me for what ensued in those days after birth. Let’s put it this way: I called the nurse in numerous times to check that what was coming out was normal and wasn’t any vital organs or anything. And I wore diapers – screw the pads. There… I said it.
– You will show your nakedness to more strangers and people then you ever imagined. Nurses and other staff in maternity wards are completely immune to vagina and breasts. They will come in and out of rooms while you’re completely exposed without so much as a flinch. That took some getting used to.
– Pooping the first time after childbirth is the scariest thing I’ve ever gone through. I was given a stool softener to help things along, but when I felt the urge come on for that first time after having my son, I was petrified. I felt like if I pushed in any way, my insides would fall out into the toilet. They didn’t. I pooped fine. But I was truly terrified.
A full-time work-from-home mom, Jennifer Cox (our “Supermom in Training”) loves dabbling in healthy cooking, craft projects, family outings, and more, sharing with readers everything she knows about being an (almost) superhero mommy.
