11 Things NO ONE Warned Me About with Motherhood Nathania, January 16, 2022April 18, 2023 The fourth trimester took me on a rollercoaster I didn’t even know I was on… Almost every woman has the ability to get pregnant and become a mother, but many of those women have absolutely no idea the type of sacrifice that truly comes with the decision to have a child. When I found out that I was pregnant with my son it was finals week of my undergraduate junior year. I had my son on New Years Eve, two weeks before starting my final semester of college. Thankfully, he was born at a time where the world was pretty much still home. With the patience and support of my partner, family, and mentors I was able to complete my student teaching internship remotely and graduate on time. While I did complete this major milestone, 2021 has been the hardest year of my life. These are some of the things that I have learned thus far on this journey. Photo from Canva LibraryYou do not have as much control as you thinkOne thing I did when I found out that I was pregnant was plan. I planned everything. I planned my pregnancy down to the week. I planned the wedding my then boyfriend and I would have. I planned my delivery down to every aspect of a birth plan. I planned everything. And literally, nothing went as I planned. I thought that if I wrote things down just the way I wanted it to be, it would be. It was my way of taking control over a situation I felt powerless in. And while I do still believe in the power of manifestation, I also believe that everything happens for a reason and the way it is meant to.There will be a time where your child will have to be at the mercy and grace of other people. My labor and delivery for example. I planned everything out about that, but my body and my baby said… nope. A vaginal delivery is not in the cards for you right now. So I had to have an emergency c section which opened up a whole other can of worms that I had no control over.My son is almost a year old now and I am fortunate enough to have a degree in a field where I can have him at work with me. I studied early childhood education and am employed at a childcare center as an infant teacher. Most working mothers have to put their child in daycare as early as 6 weeks old. That is the ultimate forfeit of control. Being unable to see your little one throughout the day or know how someone else is truly caring for them had brought so much anxiety that it kept me from enrolling him in a center I was not employed at myself.I am not saying all of this to scare anyone, but just to give you the space for mental preparation. You don’t have as much control as you think you have.If you thought you never had time before… just waitI remember the good ol days of early college or even high school where I would say things like “I wish I had the time,” and “there’s just not enough time in the day.” To that I say, HA. I had all the time in the world and no idea.I am completely at the mercy of my sons clock. When he is ready to wake up in the morning, I have to be up. When he is ready to sleep at night, I have to accomodate that. Regardless of if I want to work or play the sims or go for a jog, I have to work it around his schedule because he needs me. This goes a little into single mother territory because I know dads can help out sometimes, but let’s be serious. Most men pretty much expect us to figure all this stuff out on our own and still have dinner hot and ready by 6pm.There is this social media trend right now where women are showing off their “4am that girl morning routine.” All I could think while watching these videos is if I was to wake up at 4am every morning, my cosleeping breastfed baby would have a freaking fit. And if you’re side eyeing me right now for cosleeping, let’s try to keep this a judge free zone. Let’s be gentle with each other, the rest of the world is tearing us down enough. We surely don’t need to be doing it to one another.Anyway, children take up all of your time and energy. Then they take some more. Again, this is not to make you nervous if you’re pregnant or planning for a bundle of joy. It’s just a warning. If you work from home or are able to get a lot of career stuff done in advance, do it before birthing your new life! That way you can really take your time getting back into things and just enjoy that precious little soul.Photo from Canva LibraryThe feeling of guilt and shame is unlike anything elseOne thing about becoming a parent is that everyone will have remarks about everything you do. You breastfeed? That baby will end up clingy and spoiled. You formula feed? That baby will end up malnourished and sickly. You’re returning to work? You’re abandoning the baby you chose to have and giving them to strangers to raise. You’re staying home to raise them? You planned that pregnancy to get out of working and have a man support you. Just lazy.Seriously, there is always something negative someone can say about every parenting decision you make. People always talk about postpartum depression and how important it is to look out for warning signs, but fail to acknowledge how their words and actions could be contributing to it. If you are feeling depressed or dealing with mom shame, I implore you to seek support from experts in postpartum mental health.When I graduated with my degree I faced a major decision for myself and my family. Stay in my parents home with my child and work on building my brand as a motherhood influencer, or go out into the field with my son and put social media on the back burner. The pandemic made my choice a bit easier, and I am lucky to have parents who allowed me to kind of bum around for unlimited access to their grandchild. However, I just was not growing the way that I wanted to on all of my platforms. Granted, I was really struggling to balance motherhood with social media. Throw on top of that major insecurities on my appearance from not “snapping back” within a “reasonable” period, and that turning into excuses for not uploading regularly and eventually at all.There were so many things I felt guilty and ashamed about in regards to motherhood and all that it meant for me. In speaking with other mothers, I’ve found that this is a pretty common part of being a mom. I haven’t heard of this phenomenon amongst fathers, and not to throw shade but, they just don’t feel things the same way we do. If you struggle with shame or guilt as a mom, try to talk to other moms so you can feel less alone with your feelings.The cableguy may see your tata’sWhen I first started breastfeeding, I was pretty shy about having my milk makers out for others to see. I would try to cover myself and avoid nursing in public when I could. That quickly faded as I realized it was unrealistic. First of all, my son would always fight me whenever I tried to cover him. For whatever reason, he needs to be aware of his surroundings at all times, including when he is glued to my boobs. Seriously, it’s the funniest thing when he latches for a few seconds then looks around the room and continues this until he gets lost in the milk coma. My son has also gotten pretty bold as he’s gotten bigger. I’ve been at restaurants and experienced him pulling my shirt completely down to get some milk. He does not care where we are. The tantrums will come on full force if I keep him from his boobie time. I learned pretty early on to just bite the bullet and take out my boob. More times than not, people will look away when they notice what is going on. Sometimes people stare, but I usually stare back until they either get uncomfortable enough to look away or bold enough to say something. I can honestly say I have never experienced someone being brave enough to tell me not to nurse in public. Being a stay at home mom IS A JOBI have heard so many people saying that being a stay at home mom is just for lazy women who don’t want to go out and get a real job. It is honestly so insulting because a lot of folk do not acknowledge what it really takes to be a stay at home parent. Babies are hard enough to keep up with, but the additional expectations of keeping the house clean, laundry done, meals cooked, and so much more is exhausting. The idea of being a stay at home mom was never out of the cards for me. Sure, I would never leave myself at the grace of a man in regards of money. Having my own would always be a priority. Hence, my social media journey and this blog. However, the idea of raising my children at home the way I wanted, upkeeping my home, and having dinner ready when my man came back from work was not something I frowned upon. I will say I did not think of it much as a job, at the time. I mean, how could it be a job if it brought in no money? To that, I say being a stay at home mother is what you make of it. You can bring income in from home if you make it a mission.If being a stay at home mom is not your thing, more power to ya. I am proud of you for going back out into the world after having a baby. It takes strength to surrender your power and give someone else authority over your baby all day. I, personally do not have that much strength. I want my baby with me all the time! I often have to remind myself of rule #1 if you can’t tell.Photo from Canva LibrarySome of your friendships may fadeBecoming a parent is a major lifestyle change. If most of your friends do not have children yet and are still living their youthful carefree lives, you may feel as if you don’t have as much in common anymore. When I announced my pregnancy there was an overflow of congratulations and folks offering support. As time went on, the check ins came in less and less frequently. Then I had my baby and again it started out with an overwhelming amount of congratulations and people reaching out to offer support. There were a few people who reached out for the first month or so asking if I was experiencing any post partum depression, and of course that was appreciated. However, that stopped as well.I have not spoken with a single mother who said none of her friendships changed drastically after giving birth for the first time. This is not to say that your friends don’t love you or they don’t want to support you. But, if all you want to talk about is feeding habits and teething, while they’re trying to pick out an outfit for $2 shots at the club things can get a little out of sorts pretty fast. Being at a different point in life can just cause people to drift apart and that is okay. I was fortunate enough that one of my closest friends got pregnant pretty much immediately after I did. While our situations are a bit different, there were major similarities in everything we were going through. We were able to look to each other for support and not feel so alone being pregnant during a pandemic. Many of my other friends though, do not understand that I can’t pick up and go to the nightclub on a Friday night and leave my breastfed cosleeping baby to fend for himself. I find myself saying “I would love to, but I just don’t know how that would work with my little mister.” pretty often. And this isn’t even about single motherhood because my sons father would be willing to take him for a night. My son just isn’t willing to take his daddy for a night! You NEED other mom friends, for sanity purposesLike we said in the previous part, a lot of the friendships you have from before pregnancy will fade away after you announce your pregnancy. Even with that, you will still need other women to confide in and be your full unapologetic self with. Other women who know exactly what you’re going through can definitely turn a hard thing into something bareable. You ladies can hold each other up and motivate one another to be your best selves. There are many places you can go to meet other moms. If you live in an area where the weather is warm, you can always take your little one to the park and that is a great way to build a social circle. If you are more interested in starting off with remote friendships you can always join a facebook group for mothers. There are groups for single mothers, stay at home mothers, working mothers, married mothers, black mothers, latina mothers, you name it! There is also a networking app for mothers called peanut that I absolutely love, but that is for another blog post.I’m telling you, having other moms in your circle is a great idea not only for your sanity, but so your little ones can always have someone at the functions! Always have mamas in your group who have kids the same age as you. You can ask each other for advice and compare crazy stories. Stay away from comparing your children though, because comparision is the killer of joy and we don’t need that type of energy in our lives!The constant feeling of worry doesn’t ever fade I remember being pregnant and constantly overwhelmed with anxiety. Will my baby suffer if i miss a day of prenatals? Will he be born with any abnormalities? Will I be able to afford everything he needs? What if he doesn’t survive delivery? What if I don’t survive, what’ll happen to me? What about if he does survive, then what? Will he die young or an old man? What if he becomes a serial killer or something crazy like that? It was literally an endless spiral of endless anxiety and stress over things I had absolutely no control over. Number one really just keeps coming back, doesn’t it? I remember asking an older woman about this overwhelming feeling of worry. “When did it start to die down for you?” I asked when we exchanged labor and delivery stories. “Chile, my eldest son is 35 years old and I still worry about him the same as when he was 5. He will never stop being my baby.” Those words stuck to my core, and I hope you feel them as deeply as I did. Image from Canva Photo LibraryIf you think it’s easy, you’re probably doing it wrong As you’re reading this, there are thousands of published articles, ebooks, and manuals on how to be a good parent. Even if you read all of them, I can guarantee there are still going to be moments where you feel overwhelmed or ask yourself, “am I making the right choices?” There is no one size fits all for being a good parent. The one thing that every parent I have ever met – except the completely irresponsible ones that truly don’t even deserve their little ones – seem to agree on is, parenting is frigging hard. If you think it’s all a piece of cake, chances are, your kiddo is not thriving the way that they should. The pride of seeing milestones is epic I feel as though I’ve focused on a lot of negativity so far, but I wanted to leave you with something positive. Even with all the things I’ve said, I still absolutely adore motherhood and wouldn’t give my little one up for anything. He is the light of my life, and my constant motivation to be better. I remember all of the major milestones my son experienced like I experienced them myself. The first time he rolled over, stood up on his own, took his first steps, all of it is filed in my memory cabinet under the proudest moments of my life. I look at him and am so amazed by how far he has come and it makes me feel confident as his mother. It isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. Being a parent is hard. It’s exhausting, but the sweet smiles and proud moments are powerful enough to convince you having another one wouldn’t be so bad… If you’ve made it this far, thank you for being so invested in learning all that you possibly can about motherhood. I hope this fed your soul in some way. If you can relate to any of these I have listed, or have some of your own please leave a comment below!If you’re nursing and looking for insight on that, check out these 10 tips for breastfeeding mamas. If you’re not a nursing mama, but need a pick me up check out these daily affirmations for moms. pexels-william-fortunato Motherhood