Advice: June 2005 Archives

Growing up all I ever wanted to be was a mother. In high school I went through all the career goal stuff and picked journalism and law as directions I might someday seek. My love of history came much later. Deep down I just wanted to be a momma. Secretly I had this dream. A most perfect and rose colored image of what my life would be. I would marry a great guy with a simple yet beautiful wedding. He would work and I would stay home and raise my babies. We would get through life together and in the end we would find a away to be financially stable. Our children would grow up to be intelligent people who traveled and saw all the things in the world to see and would come home to tell me about their lives. I would sit on the front porch and rock my grandbabies. Life would be perfect in an imperfect world. I was 18, young and dumb. I had this image of motherhood that was live and in technicolor. I would be a most loving and gentle earth mother. I would grow vegetables and herbs. I would tend my flock of children, teaching them all the things I knew. We would do homework at the family table. We would take summer vacations. Life would be grand. Then I got pregnant at age 20. I still had the ideals and dreams of this life that was to come. Dear heaven, someone should have told me in advance what was to come. I might not have believed them but someone should have bellied up to the bar and shed some light on real life! Being pregnant was not easy. I was so god awful sick. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. ALL. DAY. LONG. No one warns you about being sick! I was so sick I could hardly hold my head up. It took most of the day to motivate myself to do anything. Laundry piled up. Dishes didn't get washed everyday. I was drowning. The least little thing would set off my gag reflex. I dreaded brushing my teeth. I knew it would make me physically sick. I had to brace myself and plan for teeth brushing. I had to prepare myself for the sickness to come after and then brush my teeth again. It was a grueling ordeal to wade through. Then one day I wasn't sick anymore and everything was almost normal again. The morning and all day long sickness is a filthy trick Mother Nature plays on a woman. The next six months was spent making baby clothes and blankets, pulling together a nursery and planning for this beautiful little creature that was coming into my life. People were generous with showers and gifts. It was indeed a lovely time. I read all the books. I understood exactly what was happening to my body and the complete development of my baby. The earth mother thing kicked in again and I was determined to do it the old fashioned way - no drugs. Just learning to breathe to control the pain. Natural childbirth was my choice and I was determined to carry it through to the end. Did I tell you I was young and dumb? The night I went into labor I realized what a big damn mistake I had made. Natural childbirth is not pleasant. Holy hell I would have killed someone for drugs to make the pain stop. At one point I remember begging for just a little something because I knew I was going to die and I didn't want to die screaming and writhing in pain. I did not scream. Not one time. I clench my teeth together to the point I broke one and later ended up having a crown put on it. Mother Nature might be a bitch but there is a God in heaven. He saw my misery and delivered me from the pit of hell that childbirth pain is. In no less than two hours and fifteen minutes what had started had come to a full end. I held my new baby in my arms and then AND THEN the doctor gave me something for pain! He also explained to me that at a certain point there is no turning back and pain medication shouldn't be given. I think they tried to tell me while I was begging but it did not register at the time. Within hours I had lost my mind again. I went home 36 hours after Colby's birth with all of these glorious plans of the perfection of motherhood I would carry out. Somebody should have taken my rose colored glasses and stomped on those damn things until they were nothing but crushed metal and shards of glass. Hours after going home I was in a rocking chair crying my eyes out while this red faced baby screamed and nursed. The image in my mind is likened to huddling in a corner with red eyes and rocking back and forth mumbling mindless babble. I kid you not! No one told me about stitches. No one told me about constipation. No one told me about blisters from letting a baby nurse at will. What was I supposed to do? A baby that is nursing is a baby that is not screaming. To top it off I was scared to death! I was scared I would break her! I was scared I would do something so wrong she would be scarred for life. No one tells you anything! Babies do not come with instructions! How is a young woman to know what to do? Thank God for my mother who came to my rescue. Every evening after work she came to my house. She did chores. She helped me take care of Colby. She taught me how to bathe her and burp her and she brought me cream for the blistered nipples that were an ungodly sight. Now there is more to this than just telling you a story. I have been following a couple of blogs written by soon-to-be first time mothers. God save these young women. They know NOTHING! They think they know what to expect. Oh no, they don't know jack and are in for a rude awakening. I actually feel sorry for them. There is no class that will ever prepare them for motherhood. There is no book that will tell them that lettuce and broccoli and onions will give their breastfed babies so much gas that they will screaming for hours. There is nothing that gives them an acurate picture of things to come. No one has told them that $300 diaper bags are a waste of money. No one told them that a $700 stroller is throwing money at foolishness. No one has told them they would be better off using that money to hire help to come in for at least a couple weeks to wash dishes and clothes and floors. I see the obsession with skinny bodies and fear of stretch marks. No one has told them that in a few months they will be more concerned with using a tucks pad and A&D ointment. No one has told them the fear of peeing for the first time knowing there is a string of stitches in the area. No one has told them about cramping until you think you will go blind. No one has told them about the weeks after when there is bleeding like no period they have known before. Some have been warned about a babies need to breast feed every two hours. They have no idea how extremely tired they will be trying to recover from birth and then getting no sleep because a baby needs to feed. They don't seem to understand you better catch some sleep while the baby is sleeping. Even more so they don't realize how assinine they look dressing their pets up in baby clothes pretending how it might be. Every birth story is unique. We women share them like battles fought. The basics are all the same, no matter who you are. Childbirth is hard on your body, mentally and physically. You do not go back to work after a week. You don't pick up where you left off. Everything changes. Unless maybe you are independently wealthy. You know what the saddest part of it all is? You can tell them EVERYTHING and they think you are kidding or exaggerating. Some even reply with "Ewwww." Even sadder are the ones who are giving advice about birthing and motherhood. How can you give advice about something you don't know anything about? Thank God we do not stay young and dumb forever. One more thing. To all the soon-to-be mother's who might read this. No one wants to see photos of shit covered babies. No one wants to read about the shit and the puke. Stop now before it starts. You will suffer a major loss of respect. Plastering the internet with those types of things makes you look like ghetto trash. It is not pretty and it is not funny. It is the MOST disrespectful thing you can do to your new little family. Thank you in advance for not doing this.

Yesterday's post was in response to questions asked from this post. Thank you all for the lovely comments. This is not an advice column but today I am going to give some advice. I firmly believe life is what you make. I built the life I want to live. 1. If you don't like your life: Change it. 2. Stop giving other people permission to take away your joy. No one can take anything away from you unless you give them the power to control you. Those who choose to live life depressed, sharing sadsack tales with the 'oh woe is me' attitude, blaming everything and everyone for what they think is wrong with themselves has given permission to another person to take their joy. No one can take anything from you unless you let them. 3. For those who are married: You owe it yourself and your spouse to get your shit together. No one wants to carry your load all the time. Marriage is a shared relationship of responsibility. Sometimes it is your turn to carry the burden. Don't wait to be asked. Get in there and do your part and don't gripe and complain about it. Good marriages do not just happen and are not pulled out of thin air. They are built day by day. You have to work to have a good marriage. It does not come naturally. A marriage and each person in that marriage needs to be nurtured and cared for daily. 4. For those who have children: You owe it to your children to break the cycle. So you didn't have the perfect childhood. Get off your ass and give your children the idylic childhood you missed out on. 5. If you can't get your act together on your own, seek help. If you need therapy - get it. If you need medical intervention - get it. A nervous breakdown is not a pretty sight. Get help. Stick with the treatment and work through it to accomplish a happy healthy outcome. Thank you.