Ten Things That Have Surprised Me About Early Motherhood

Photo courtesy of Aspin Photography

I am now nearly eleven weeks into motherhood.

It is exhausting.

It is exhilarating.

It is challenging and emotional and yes, rewarding.

You know what else?  It’s surprising.

Ten Things That Have Surprised Me About Early Motherhood

1. The first few weeks are a unique sort of Heaven and Hell.  “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” is how I will always look back at my baby’s first month of life.  Sure, you hear about how newborns sleep a lot and how blissful it is to gaze at this new life you created.  But no one warns you how completely inadequate you will feel every time your child cries.  No one tells you that you might be secretly afraid to hold your own baby because it feels like their little head is going to bobble off their body.  Or that breastfeeding at first is THE HARDEST THING EVER.  And certainly, no one tells you about the overwhelming fear of SIDS that keeps you up even when your baby is sleeping.
2. “Mommy brain” is real.  I used to think this term was created by some sort of underground mothers coalition to use as an excuse for practically everything.  Forgot to shave?  Mommy brain.  Ran a red light?  Mommy brain.  But the first time someone asked me for my child’s birth date and I gave them my own, I realized the scary truth. My brain really has turned to mush.
3. The amount of things I can accomplish one-handed. The first day I was home alone with G, I didn’t pee from 9am until 4pm.  Now I can practically cook an entire meal with just five fingers.
4. Phantom baby cries. In the shower, in an exercise class, in the car driving solo.  A baby’s cry is now permanently recorded in my brain.
5. You can live in fear of something that weighs seven pounds.  Babies cry.  That was one of the last things my midwife told me before discharging us from the hospital.  Yet somehow when we’re out in public, the thought of my baby crying is incredibly anxiety-inducing.  I am still learning to get out of the house and feel confident that I can meet his needs outside of our comfort zone.
6. How easily you become “that mom.” I swore I would never post my child’s picture all over the internet.  Now he is overexposed on basically all social media platforms, and I regularly text friends and family with updates on his development and growth.  I write status updates complaining about a lack of sleep and stacks of laundry.  I am.  That Mom.
7. You stop caring about what other people think.  Childbirth really does something to a girl’s sense of modesty.  But more than that, I get the whole Mama Bear thing now.  Pre-baby, I like to think I was pretty polite.  Some even said I was overly apologetic.  Nowadays, if you want to hold my baby, here is the hand sanitizer.  And if you’re uncomfortable with breastfeeding, you’d better leave when he is hungry.
8. You develop a whole new appreciation for your own parents.  It sounds selfish, but one of the first thoughts I had when I held my baby for the first time was actually a realization about my own upbringing: If my parents love me even half this much, I have been loved so much more than I ever knew.
9. You’re still the same person. People like to warn you that there is a you BB (Before Baby) and AB (After Baby).  And while my waist may never return to its BB size, I am still a crazy dog lady.  I still worship big hair and country music.  You have a baby, and on one hand, you are the same.  On the other hand…
10. You’ll never be the same again. My sister sent me the link to a blog post when I was about eight months pregnant that I couldn’t fully relate to at the time.  I have returned to it many times since my baby’s birth, because now I understand.  I will quote the author directly, because I cannot better express the sentiment that she has so beautifully written:

This is the thing that women don’t tell each other about motherhood. That you will never be who you were. That you will not see anything the way you used to see it, you will never hear language the way you used to hear it, music, color, photos, friends, family, career path–nothing or no one came through my transition from single woman to mother unexamined. Least of all myself.

…and now if you’ll excuse me, I think I just heard my baby cry.  I think.