- Aside from sleepless nights, cluster feeding and the avoidable poonami there are some things nobody told me would happen after I had my baby. It wasn’t in the books, and I wasn’t prepared for some of the surprises!
I’d no longer be a pregnant whale waddling everywhere. Instead, I’d be rocking a jelly belly and dark circles.
Here are 5 of the things I wish I’d known before;
- Stretch marks – I naively thought I’d made it through 9 months of pregnancy unscathed and stretch mark free. It turns out they can appear postpartum. I only had a few but it was more than I’d prepared myself for.
- It’s not like the movies – Guests weren’t banging down our door with home cooked meals and offerings of help. Some came to visit but I still felt I had to scrub the house first and pop the kettle on to be a good host. When in reality I’d have preferred to stay in my PJs and go back to bed.
- Blood clots – The morning after giving birth I thought I’d lost an organ! It turns out passing blood clots, some really flippin’ huge ones, is totally normal. Had I of known this I might have panicked less thinking my liver was in my knickers. Maybe they should tell us about this in advance?
- The first poo – It’s so scary you feel like you’re going to give birth all over again. Try to relax, that means don’t take any children with you if it can be avoided. Take a warm bath first.
- Postpartum hair loss – Post pregnancy hair loss is normal, but nobody told me!
Did you have any postpartum surprises you wish somebody had told you about? We’d love to know, share them in the comments below!
