What to really expect

Bern Morley

September 28, 2011

What to really expect at birth

I remember being given a copy of ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ when I was first pregnant. On the front cover, sat a serene woman in sensible shoes, rocking away in her wooden rocking chair with a fairly skeptical look on her face.

Clearly she’d already read what was going on inside, i.e the very vanilla, straight laced version of what was actually going to happen when she got pregnant, had a child and then raised said child (followed up in the aptly titled ‘What to Expect in your first Year’ and ‘What to Expect in the Toddler Years’. I can save you forty bucks. Just expect your life to change. Massively.

But here are a few more expectations I personally have found to be true:

Expect labour to hurt – a lot

Pinch that soft fleshy bit under your arm. Hard. Harder. Feel that? Hurt? That doesn’t even come close to the absolute agony that is labour. In fact, go outside, put your foot under a 4WD tyre and ask someone will very few scruples to reverse over it a couple of times. Painful? Nope, still not even close. Shit out a watermelon. Yeah, that comes kinda close.

Expect to never sleep in – ever again

Look, just think of those last uncomfortable months of sleeping whilst pregnant as training. Training for the Tired Olympics. Believe me, your training will be so intensive you’ll be almost a dead cert for the Gold medal. Expect to never sleep in past 6am ever again. Oh, wait, I take that back, *just* when your body is used to waking up at that time and can no longer physically break the 7am barrier, your child will start to sleep in. Until midday. This will enrage you.

Expect to be embarrassed in public

“Mum, why is there a snake coming out of your bottom?” I’ll set the scene. Public toilet at some brightly lit Megaplex in the burbs. Me, in sudden need of a toilet and believe me, if it could wait until I was in my own home, it would have. The 3 year old, standing in front of me while I try to efficiently do as nature intends. He, when not trying to escape under the door, is peering into the toilet and in his best big boy voice, alerting my stable mates that I am doing a massive poo.

Expect to never see the bottom of your launry hamper – ever again

You know, if someone was smart, they’d make a laundry hamper with a big picture of your celebrity free pass at the bottom. Give you some incentive to make your way down there. Mine would be Jason Bateman or Mark Ruffalo. If someone was doubly smart, they would make it your husband’s Free Pass. Therefore I would find Natalie Portman at the bottom of ours.

Expect to not have an orgasm during childbirth

I know, I’m totally bursting your bubble right? Oh, but if you do happen to reach the Big O during birth, congratulations, you’ve just won the equivalent of OzLotto. I mean, I don’t think I even orgasmed when I conceived, let alone when my vagina was being ripped apart.

Expect to feel guilt at code red levels

Mothers guilt really needs its own postcode. Are we working too much, feeding them too little, not enough? Allowing them too much screen time? Are they eating enough dirt? Too much? It’s guilt central and we are our own harshest critics.

Expect to become the master of empty threats

You will need to find your currency when it comes to kids and threats. ‘Stop it or you go to your room’ rarely cuts it. 'So freaking what, all my toys are in my room, do better Mum.' So you have to find what they love the most and threaten to take it away from them. More often than not, these are empty threats. I mean you want to go to Dreamworld just as much as they do, but you can’t let them know that.
Expect to lose your train of thought. Which has just happened to me right now.