"I'm not even supposed to be here today!"*

Also known as the "What No One Told Me" thread/post, as suggested in the comments thread of this post. The discussion is about both pregnancy and parenting.

[Commenting Guidelines: Please note that this thread is for sharing one's own personal experiences, and participants are asked to use "I/me/my" language (e.g. "my pregnancy was like this" as opposed to "pregnancy is like this"), and to refrain from judging or commenting on the veracity of other people's comments. (Although noting you shared the same experience is, of course, welcome.) Participants are also asked to refrain from using marginalizing or dehumanizing language: Words like "litters" used to refer to multiple children or "breeders" to refer to parents are not allowed, along with any other slang terms that necessarily imply that all parents are biological parents, that exclude parents who adopt or assume guardianship, or that suggest all parents are straight and/or cis.]

Now, for myself...

Pregnancy

There are a couple that stand out about pregnancy. First was my surprise at how different each pregnancy could be, even with all of them being very nearly "textbook" and typical. My first two pregnancies had little to no sickness yet my third ended up with sickness so bad, I ended up passed out on my bathroom floor one morning. (I had no sickness with my fourth pregnancy, either) My labor with one of my children was incredibly, horribly painful. I was like the stereotype of the "screaming woman in labor" you might find on television. My other three labors (& deliveries)? Uncomfortable, trending on painful towards the upper dilation, but absolutely nothing like the other one in terms of sheer, unbearable pain.

One "no one told me" aspect that is related to pregnancy was after birth--the cramps. They hurt like whoa, for me. And they got worse with every delivery. I have a moderate pill phobia and after our third child was born, I was requesting pain medication that came in pills (liquid wasn't as readily available and I wanted relief asap). Thankfully the cramping didn't last more than a couple days for me with any of my children but I can recall thinking after the first experience: "why didn't anyone ever tell me that there would be more pain after going through all that?"

Parenting

I was always skeptical of the idea that a parent could love every child the same, esp. after my first child was born. The intensity and depth of love that I had (still have!) for my first child was just so overwhelming because it just is--it's something that is simply an organic part of my being--that it didn't seem possible that it could be replicated. Oh, not that I didn't think I'd love any more children, I just wasn't sure, as I said, how that huge feeling could be multiplied in myself. But it did. Like, you know, with the Grinch and his heart growing? Not, ah, that I'm the Grinch but roll with me here... How they have his heart not just filling up but growing? It was kinda like that only something that is felt to the very core of one's self. That's the best way I can describe it.

One aspect of parenting that I found was one of those "things no one talks about" is the "not always liking certain aspects of your children's personality/ies and may find it really hard to relate or empathize". I find this hard to deal with on a couple levels. First, there's the superficial level of whatever it is that's making me grind my teeth because it's so freaking annoying and/or think "I just.don't.get.it.Why?". Then there's the guilt. I mean, I'm supposed to cherish and love and be Happy Shiny™, right? Sure, rationally, I can know that: (1) all people are different and sometimes there are things we don't relate to about people we love; (2) it may very well be an age/development related situation; (3) it's normal to be irritated by people, even those you love, when you're with them all.the.time. Knowing all that doesn't stop the nagging guilt of feeling like "I shouldn't feel like I don't like _(insert personality trait)_ because it's coming from my kid, who I love more than anything".

Last, was something that took me several years into the parenting gig for me to figure out. Why it took me so long, I think, was in part buying into a societal narrative, part was from personal circumstances. For a long time I thought that being a parent meant I had to sacrifice a lot of myself because now I was a parent and that defined me. It seemed like the Right Thing To Do™. For my family and myself, it just wasn't. Being a parent, as I view it now, yes, is a huge responsibility that sometimes requires trading off or modifying one goal because of choosing another goal to work towards. However, for me, it doesn't mean giving up of "Me". I don't have to do that! I can still be "Me", being a parent is simply a part of the whole me--not the whole of me. That realization was very freeing for me, which was interesting because I didn't feel trapped and in need of freeing--but it still felt that way none the less.


*From Clerks, which would be much cooler if I could have written it in Gaelic, LOL. Also accurately reflects how I felt some days when I had a newborn, one year old, two year old, and five year old. ;-)