Author: whatyoudontexpectwhenyoureexpecting

The dark nights are nights that will make you question your ability as a mother. They are the nights your baby won’t sleep and will scream for no other reason than to let you know they are not sleeping. They will probably make you weep and, if your like me, will make you wonder if this was all a good idea in the first place.

The first few nights of life you (hopefully) still have enough sleep stored up from before birth to get through them relatively easily. Each time they stir is a new chance to cuddle them and dare I say it, there quite enjoyable. My first ‘dark night’ happened when N was around 3 days old. The novelty of him being new had died down and now the night feeds weren’t as cute as they were. I was absolutely exhausted plus my milk had came in leaving me an agonising, weeping mess. N was stirring roughly every hour and he would not settle. I had fed him, burped him, changed him, cuddled him, left him, took his blanket off, put it back on. NOTHING was making him happy and I broke down. I was sat on the edge of my bed holding a child I had spent 9 months and 14 excruciating hours bringing into this world. I have created him. I am his source of survival at this point yet I could not comfort him. I silently cried while he screamed. I questioned absolutely everything I was doing. I questioned why I had thought I could do this. I questioned if i was cut out for this whole adventure.

But eventually he stopped. They always will and morning will always come and you’ll always have another day to get better. I laughed about the whole thing. Babies cry, that’s what they do. You get asked ‘are you ready for the sleepless nights?’ about a billion times when you are pregnant, so when they happen, don’t feel disheartened. it’s normal, your doing great, keep doing what your doing.

And if it gets really bad, wake someone else up, hand them over and get some sleep – you did just give birth after all.

I’m not going to preach on this Blog or pretend at all that I know what’s right and wrong when raising a baby. I’m going to write about the truths of being a mum. The good stuff, the bad stuff, the gross stuff,  and the embarrassing stuff you really want to ask when your pregnant but never do. I won’t hold any punches and no topic is off limits. Every baby book I read when pregnant was written by a much older mum, usually middle class who knew a lot more than me. I’m not a writer or anything close so this is just my words, my experiences and my baby stories.

As a mum I Google everything my baby does to check if its normal. Every weird symptom, every funny poop,baby balding; I search it all. If someone else online has dealt with it, I consider it normal and stop worrying so much. Hopefully this blog will do that for a few people out there. It’s great to know that others are going through what you are and if they can deal with it, so can you.

Plus it’s a lot easier going online than out to a baby group *winces*.

Being pregnant is a huge deal. It’s like an open invitation for strangers to talk to you ( the horror!). When your pregnant, everyone seems to think you know exactly what’s happening, what your doing and what’s going to happen. I can’t tell you how many times people asked me ‘are you ready for the birth?’, ‘have you bought everything yet?’ and other ridiculous worrying questions to be asked when your facing the hugest life change you’ll ever go through. If your a good pregnant person you probably attended all of your midwife appointments with lots of questions, booked into antenatal classes and drew up a birthing plan with weeks to go. I did none of the above. The truth is, no. I had no idea what I was doing, what to buy or how to give birth. I was dealing with everything as it hit me and blagged my way through all the questions like I had a clue.
Of course I attended all of my appointments but I had no idea what they were doing. They test your pee, feel your belly, ask if your OK and book in the next one. Towards the end they’ll want to know that you’ve been going to antenatal classes and are fully prepared to bring a baby into the world. If your like me you’ll immediately panic at 38 weeks and attempt to book into everything possible; of course you can’t as it’s full of great mums who were prepared from day 1. I thought about the birth but my approach was very much ‘i’ll deal with it when it comes’. I even downloaded Cast Away onto my iPad. Don’t get me wrong, it all worked out. I breathed in labour and eventually a baby was born ( with not a second of Cast Away watched *sigh*) and looking back I think I would of hated antenatal classes. Sitting in a circle with other soon-to-be mums pretending a human is coming out of us and panting. What a nightmare.

I found out I was pregnant in March 2016 after 2 weeks of refusing to do a test. I then did 30.
I had been to the doctors previously and received the news I had Polycystic Ovary syndrome. I had been complaining about painful sex, periods about 3 times a year and just in general, I knew something was wrong with me. My doctor explained it would be extremely hard for me to conceive and lots of other boring medical stuff which completely went over my head after hearing that. I walked out of my appointment and immediately burst into tears in the waiting room. It took a good half an hour before I could tell my partner J the diagnosis but he couldn’t of been more supportive. We dealt with it and life went on.

I had been moaning about sore boobs, period pain with no period and tiredness for a while and was due to go on a big girls night out. J begged me to do a pregnancy test before my night out ‘just incase’. I put it off for ages. To be completely honest, I didn’t want the disappointment; I knew I couldn’t be pregnant and didn’t need reminding. But I agreed too just to shut him up and whilst he was working one evening, I stopped in at Morrisons on my way home and grabbed some. (Obviously they were the cheapy 99p tests, I’m not made of money). Does anyone ever buy the expensive tests first of all? I wonder.. Anyway; I got home, did the test and nearly fell off the loo when I saw the line. I did the other one and got the same result. After pouring over the instructions to figure out what I’d done wrong I text J. I actually sent him a picture of the tests next to the picture in the instructions to get a second opinion. He told me I was pregnant. I demanded he went and got some of the expensive tests on his way back from work (you know the digital ones on the adverts). £30 later, again, these confirmed it but I refused to believe it. It wasn’t until a trip to A and E for an emergency first scan that I actually acknowledged I was pregnant.