I remember vividly calling my friend in Australia and telling her my beautiful fantasy of how my child’s birth would be. And how fucking sexy I’d feel. Oh yes, I’d be all glowy after giving birth, a woman’s beautiful journey, and afterwards I’d look at my husband with my quaffed hair and my red lipstick on, wearing my oversized, but sexy, slip-on as I fluidly breastfeed my newborn child and mouthed “We did this. I love the shit out of you”.
Well… I ended up in a fucking nappy for two weeks. An adult sized gauzed panty nappy. I bet no one tells you THAT do they? My husband had to hypnotise me to get me to fart (at least our hypno birthing classes weren’t a complete rip off, get it?) and I was so beyond exhausted that I couldn’t even fathom squeezing my elephant boobs into a modest sized bra. Go to Target and buy 20 pairs of disposable underwear and a sense of humour and you’ll make it out okay.
Don’t buy your newborn expensive clothes.
So imagine you saved up for a beautiful Dior dress. Perfect and spotless and crisp. Then imagine you go out for the night in your new prized possession and then you get food poisoning and you don’t have time to take it off before all hell breaks loose.
Look I don’t need to go into detail but I’m sure I’m giving you a vivid visual. So… when you have a new baby, the scene I just presented you above happens to your newborn EVERY DAY. Every hour of every SINGLE day. Would you ever wear that Dior dress knowing the body fluids it came in contact with??? Yeah, me neither.
You will never, ever, ever, never, need a wipe warmer.
When your first new baby is born you freak out! And why wouldn’t you?! I did. You buy EVERYTHING that will in some way make coming home with a new tiny infant less terrifying. And one of the items you will buy or consider buying is the dreaded wipe warmer.
In theory, a tepid cloth that warms your infant’s bum sounds like a genius idea right?! And it totally is, when you’re not living on two hours of sleep, your baby has diarrhea running down its leg, it’s screaming, you’re screaming and you’re waiting for the fucking thing to warm itself up. And heaven forbid you forget to close the lid and every cloth has dried together. It’ll cause you more anger than figuring out the mind numbing swaddle.
Watch: The funniest fails from sleep-deprived mums. Post continues after video...
Stop freaking out about the sex part.
Vaginal birth, Caesarian birth, whatever the case, at some point the “vagina guilt” will make you start thinking about sex. Whether it’s three weeks or three months you will have the “getting jiggy with it” conversation. The one MAJOR problem is your vagina may not be ready. Go on give it a go. I’d say the forecast is a 95% chance of RAZOR BLADES.
Guys your vajay is going to be there for the rest of your life. It’s not going anywhere. It’ll hold your hand through the good and bad times so why don’t we give it a little bit of a vacation. I mean we just worked it to the bone. How about paid leave? A nice mojito on the sands of Mexico? What do they say about a nice vacay?! You’ll always work harder when you come back!
You will not be on time again for a very long time.
You’re at the door. In slow motion you go to turn the handle. Could it be?! 45 minutes and you have almost made it out?! That’s a record! You have it all right?! The nappies, the wipes, the burp clothes, the formula, the milk, the teether, the squeak toy, the favorite toy, the giraffe chewy thing toy, the calm down your screaming child toy, change of clothes for the baby, for you, another for the baby- as you leave the house you look like a Sherpa carrying every tourist’s belongings up frickin’ Kilimanjaro. Then fart, fart, fart, plop. Fuck.