Becoming a new mom is the most rewarding, overwhelming, exciting, and the scariest thing I have ever done. The moment you find out you are expecting your first baby, your life is forever changed. In the moment, you know this, but personally, it didn’t hit me until my daughter was actually here.
People love to give you advice during pregnancy. They love to make the “get some sleep while you can!” jokes, they try to prepare you for how little time you will have to yourself, and they try to explain how much your heart will grow when you meet your baby. Some things about motherhood you can prepare for, but most of them you cannot truly understand until you are experiencing it.
There are so many things about becoming a mom that surprised me.
One thing that surprised me about being a mom is the overwhelming emotions associated with it. Sure, you anticipate that you will love your child, be excited for them, be upset when they are sick or sad, and all of the things associated with caring about someone. But honestly, it is so much more than that. You are overwhelmed with pride and happiness over the strangest things – like a few weeks ago when I found a whole black bean in my daughter’s diaper. Weird? Yes. But that meant she actually consumed some food! We have been trying baby led weaning and up until that point, she hadn’t actually consumed any food! Or how you cry of happiness the first time your baby smiles on purpose…and then ten minutes later you cry of sadness because your baby is growing too fast. See – motherhood is weird.
One of the biggest surprises for me personally was breastfeeding. I’ll be honest, before I was a mom I was slightly off put by the thought of breastfeeding. I actually thought I would hate it. I knew I would try my best, because it’s good for the baby (and free!), but I told myself if I made it to three months I would be okay with stopping. Now, we are eight months in, and our breastfeeding relationship is something that I cherish more than anything. Breastfeeding was hard in the beginning, as it always is when you don’t know what you’re doing, but now it is a bond that I love having with her and plan to continue as long as I can.
Being a mom comes with sacrifice. Some of this is expected – you know you won’t get any sleep, you know that it may not be as easy to go out with your friends, you know that you won’t be able to enjoy a margarita for nine months (the important things!). But there are some things that I never thought I would have to give up. Let me just say, I love food. Like, a lot, and 99% of what I consume is dairy. Pizza, ice cream, macaroni and cheese – am I making you hungry yet? Anyway, at around 8 weeks, we found out my daughter had a pretty severe dairy allergy. Not only was I trying to learn how to keep my new baby alive, trying to figure out breastfeeding, getting no sleep, and all of those fun new mom things, but now I had to completely change my diet and cut out so many things! It was a major adjustment alongside all of the others, but that’s part of being a mom, right?
The last thing that was completely unexpected to me was how little some of the research I had done during my pregnancy actually meant. I spent hours looking into the best bassinet and swaddles for my daughter. Did that help her sleep? Nope! I went back and fourth over which baby monitor to add to our registry. I bought a fancy monitor that I thought had all of the perks. Two months in, I ditched it for an easier, more convenient and practical model. I scoured the mom groups trying to figure out which bottles would be best for a breastfed baby. Did she like the ones I bought? Sure didn’t! Every baby is so different, and it is so hard to know what will work best for them. I have learned my lesson, and next time won’t go so crazy with all of the things until we know what our baby likes, and I wont worry about which accessories are the fanciest, most high tech – because with a newborn you really just need what is going to make your life the easiest.
My daughter is only eight months old and there have been so many surprises; I am sure there are so many more to come!
