Do you ever get the feeling that your friends with kids want you to become a parent--ASAP? Maybe your pal with a baby goes on and on about how wonderful motherhood is, how easy her baby is, how pain-free her labor was. Well, it's time to call BS! Check out this list of lies women sometimes tell each other about pregnancy and motherhood...
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The lies, according to Sarah Vine and Tania Kindersley, authors of the new book Backwards in High Heels, as reported by The Times:
1. It doesn't matter if you get fat, the weight will drop off afterward, especially if you breastfeed.
2. The birth itself isn't that bad, and anyway your body is biologically programmed to forget the pain.
3. Breastfeeding can be a little tricky to start with, but in the end you'll get the hang of it.
4. You get used to not having as much sleep as you used to.
5. The experience of looking after a newborn can really bring two people together.
Read up on the insanity of pregnancy from the husband's perspective.
The truths, they say (and as a woman who has been there, I vouch for every single one!):
1. Her stomach will never be the same again, not even if she goes to the gym every day (which she won't be able to because she won't have the time), breastfeeds until her child goes to university and observes a strict vegan diet. (Would you try Alicia Silverstone's new "kind" diet?)
2. The birth is quite terrifying, gas and air doesn't work like they say it does, having stitches is horrible, midwives don't always get it right, there will be more blood and bodily fluids than an episode of "CSI Miami," and having half the world staring at your most intimate parts while you make noises like a demented pig is not, in any sense of the word, empowering.
3. Breastfeeding can be very hard indeed, you feel like a useless failure if you can't do it, you will almost certainly get mastitis (which is like the worst toothache you can imagine, only in your breast), old ladies will give you horrid stares if you try to do it in public, breastfed babies do get colic, you may have curious and uncomfortable anxieties about being a prize heifer, you will leak in public, your nipples will feel like they've been sandpapered and your breasts, like your stomach, will never really recover. (Does your guy think these 10 things when you're naked?)
4. You will go insane with sleep deprivation. You really will. Even the hardiest of military men were reduced to wrecks after three days of no sleep in Japanese prisoner of war camps, and you were not trained for this. There will be days when the very act of putting clothes on your shattered body will feel like a major achievement. (Have you ever heard of prenatal depression?)
5. Once the initial euphoria has subsided, you and your partner will effectively become shift workers: when he's awake you will be dropping off to sleep, and vice versa. You will become resentful of his ability to leave the house in the morning, bound for the comparatively stressless world of work. In the back of your mind will be the sneaking suspicion that he is spending longer and longer in the office because he would almost rather be anywhere than at home sterilizing bottles and dealing with a frazzled you and a wailing babe. Sex will be implausible, not so much because of the physical changes wrought by giving birth, but because you will both be spectacularly exhausted, and no one feels like having much sex when they're tired. And smelling slightly of sick.
Do any of these "lies" ring true for you? I can tell you that I heard them from soooo many women before I had my babies.
Related: 11 Things Guys Don't Understand About Women
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