Becoming a mother is the most joyous and perhaps most frustrating thing you will ever encounter. Forget the struggles with breastfeeding, the sleepless nights, the poopy diapers. I'm going further than that. I'm talking about the psychology of parenthood. From the moment you get that positive result on the Pee Stick, you want to shout it from the rooftops that you are entering this new, hallowed phase of life. You want to tell everyone you know that you are expecting your first bundle of joy. And as a FTM, you probably do immediately start announcing it. I did. Hell, I took the test at 6:00am on a Saturday morning and by 7:30am, I had already spilled the beans to a coworker. I was only 5.5 weeks along at the time - I wound up being pregnant for 41 weeks. Do the math - That's 35.5 weeks of unsolicited advice, ladies.
Obviously, as a FTM, you are a noob; fresh meat, so to speak. You might have tons of questions, that's normal. You know what else is "normal"? Having a perfect stranger walk up to you in the baby section at Target, look from your belly to the registry scanner you're holding, and then to the item that you're scanning and say,
"Oh honey, is this your first? I didn't get anything like that with my babies, you don't need that."
Oh yeah! And it only gets worse. People say,
"You know your life is going to change drastically. Be prepared to never sleep again."
Oh thank you so much, person who's opinion I did not ask for. Thanks for being such a ray of freakin' sunshine. Thank you for telling me something I couldn't have concluded on my own. The thing is, they don't mean it. They can't help it in fact. How do I know this? I have a few friends who are pregnant with their first babies and I have to actually tell myself to mind my own business when they post a status about being pregnant. Try to be patient while the solicitor blabs on about how their babies "blah blah blah".
Then there are the solicitors who know it alllllllll. They've done it all, they've seen it all, and they are obviously the super mom you can only aspire to be. They had the babies that slept through the night the day they were born, the babies that never cried, the babies came walking out of their mother's vagina with a PhD...I digress. I'm going to let you in on a secret - all babies are individuals. *Gasp* That means they will all do things differently! So if yours is say...8 months old and still waking up 839475834958349 times a night (I might be referring to my own here) or 7.5 months old and not pulling themselves up on the furniture or 6 months old and not quite sitting up on their own without weebling and wobbling, that's okay! They'll get there. It's not about the destination as much as the journey. Let them be babies, they really do grow up so fast.
Being a mother should be downright delightful time of your life. Don't let someone take that away from you by making you feel inferior. There is a little thing called instinct, ya know. Before baby books, before Facebook, before you could Google things until you were convinced you were dying, there was a mother's instinct. Don't read the books and take them as gospel. Don't let your mama friends advice be the end all, be all. Take in as much information as you can during your pregnancy, filter through it, sprinkle in a touch of instinct, and be the best damn mama you can. I promise if you just trust yourself, you child will be happy, healthy, and know love.
And by the way, congratulations, dear. This truly will be the most exciting time of your life.
Peace and Blessings,
Smart Mouthed Mama
Hear hear! This post is spot on!
ReplyDelete