How did you feel when you had your first DC?

[username40583]

This is inspired by how often people on social media seem to act like they are in some sort of happy baby bliss bubble. I know social media is often a fake idealistic glance in to others lives. But for me I found having my first DC a real shock and a lot harder than I realised it would be. I love my DC more than anything but often wonder if I am alone in how I felt at the start?

No, you're not alone at all. A lot of people get a huge shock at how hard life is with a baby.

I was terrified when my first was born. I was 20, and a single parent. She wouldn't sleep, she cried for hours at a time, it was generally shit for the first week or so. Then it got a little better. Then a bit better again. Then I met some other first time mums and found that they were struggling just as much as I was. My parents helped. My sister helped. Things got better.

Dd 1 is 20 now, and it's hard to even remember how difficult it was back then.

Definitely not alone I felt the exact same! Seeing people on SM seemingly not struggling with their new baby and being in this bubble of bliss really knocked me and made me feel like a failure.

I spent the first few months waiting for a knock at the door to say the hospital had made a huge mistake and that he belonged to someone else and I had a phantom pregnancy (emergency c section so didn’t meet him until he had been cleaned up and wrapped in a towel so I wasn’t convinced he was mine from day 1).

Also felt like I was living in a parallel universe, like everything was the same but shifted a bit. Took months to realise I was suffering with pnd.

But I’m sure I posted loving pictures of us on social media showing how blissful everything was but I wouldn’t say they were faked, we did have blissful moments there was just this undercurrent of awfulness!

I was in stereotypical bliss. I was older and had waited a long time for my baby. The worst thing that happened was mastitis (I thought I was dying 🤣). Baby basically slept through from 6 weeks, hit all milestones. He was born with unilateral talipes which we knew about but it was a minor issue that was resolved with ponsetti treatment.

It was horrible. I felt as if I’d made a horrific, life-wrecking mistake and would be doing night feeds while googling adoption services. He was a planned and wanted baby. That didn’t stop the first few months being pure hell.

You're not alone, it was so hard. I was shell-shocked. Even now when friends have their first baby they can't just be real and admit it. I know the truth and so do they but they still pretend its all magical.

Honestly I was walking on air and have never been happier. I'm very mindful that it's not like that for everyone, I was lucky. But it really was the dream for me.

The childbirth itself was very hard and I was terrified. But once I was tucked up in bed with my baby nearby, it was bliss. I loved it. The weeks went by in an eyeblink. The hardest thing was taking my first DC to full time child care aged 11weeks. That is when I truly felt miserable and questioned whether I should have become a mother. But I had to. I couldn’t afford to not work.

I was in a bubble of absolute bliss. I was establishing breastfeeding which was hard work and I never knew if I was doing it right or if baby was getting enough.
I wasn't getting much sleep but then started to co-sleep and things got better. The only thing that tainted it was my brother was quite ill at the time and I was so worried about him but couldn't take a newborn into ICU

I was terrified of the child. Everybody I spoke to gave me different advice and don't get me started on how inadequate the internet made me feel.

And I was 35 and baby was planned and I had a dh and family support and didn't have any money worries.

Things got better as he grew and slept more and I got more confident and stopped listening to people.

Terrified, and shocked that I was expected to care for a baby. I know I had 9months to get used to the idea, but it was still a shock, that here I was with a REAL baby and the responsibility was overwhelming.

My daughter is my DP's biological daughter, so I didn't have the enormous turbulence of hormones or labour or pregnancy to contend with, and I adore my DD and didn't find the baby side of things harder than I expected (no shit, Sherlock, what with the non-bio side of things). But what I did not expect and wasn't prepared for, was how hard everything outside caring for a baby can be - work, relationships, everything.

After a horrifically painful birth my then husband went home from the hospital at 1am and didn't come back till near 4pm the next day. 😬The he picked me up and took us home. Id not slept for nearly 36 hours at this point. I had no near family or friends as we lived in London and our families didn't. I looked at my little baby son and realised we didn't have a fucking clue. We muddled through badly for 6 weeks. I cried through most of it. Then DH went in tour with his band. International tour he couldn't get out of. I spoke to a friend on the phone about 7 weeks in, bawling my eyes out and she told me about Gina Ford. She urged me to do it. Please bear in mind this was 2002😁. Basically within 4 days I'd got my life back and had a Contented Little Baby. 😊

The first two weeks were absolute hell. I asked my partner what have we done? I mourned my old life. I was anxious, on edge, miserable, scared, shocked, so ridiculously, ridiculously tired. When she screamed for hours on end I felt so overwhelmed and my brain played tricks on me. I was delirious with exhaustion. My hormones were ALL over the place. It got easier but it was definitely not a newborn bubble of bliss.
Ive just had my 2nd DC and this time round it has been so SO much easier and thoroughly enjoyable.

It was hell. Exhausted from blood loss and lots of stitches. Jaundiced baby too sleepy to feed who didn’t quite lose enough weight to trigger extra support. Awful reflux and once the jaundice wore off a baby who screamed herself to sleep. DH at uni full time and working every weekend. No family help until she grew out of the worst of it at 6 months. I can’t believe we did it for a second time. Baby 2 healed the trauma of baby 1. I realised I wasn’t a shit mum after all.

Honestly I was walking on air and have never been happier. I'm very mindful that it's not like that for everyone, I was lucky. But it really was the dream for me.

I felt the same way. I never really thought of myself as maternal before my daughter. I thought I was selfish and enjoyed my freedom too much, that things would be really, really hard and that you basically had to just survive the first 6 months or so and then things might get better so I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I am maternal, actively enjoy being a mum and that the things iI thought were important, weren't all that important at all.

It didn’t feel real, or like I’d had a baby but he was on special care. I thought at one point I could just get up and go home to be honest and leave him there in SCBU.
I’d had an emergency c-section, DS wasn’t breathing and they took him away after basically flashing me a look at him. I didn’t see him until about 8 hours later (I was out of it). When I came round and asked for him they fetched him and he had to go back again after 5 minutes as his oxygen dipped (and mine at the same time - which was weird; like we were both holding our breath to size each other up!). I think everything just felt out of my control.
I was desperate to go home but had to stay a while and in the end I didn’t feel like he belonged to me until I’d been at home for a couple of days. We’d also weren’t getting on with breastfeeding, prem breech baby with a severe tongue tie. The whole experience was completely overwhelming and relentless.

Luckily a friend had said to me don’t worry if you don’t get that immediate rush of love when you have the baby. I was pregnant when she said that and I thought “yeah right” but the reality was more like this.
I passed this advice onto another new mum recently and she told me it had really helped her too.
It’s something that should be talked about more because the whole you’ll get this huge rush of oxytocin and will fall in love with your baby expectation isn’t always the reality.

BigusBumus I tried Gina Ford. Made it 100x worse. Ditto Baby Whisperer. Those books are great if your baby falls in to the routine. Another stick to beat yourself with if they don’t.

Like I'd been hit by a truck, in a state of shock, wondering why it wasn't like a fairytale, waiting for a proper adult to come and rescue us

After several weeks had passed though, I felt the highs as well as the lows and went on to have two more DCs with confidence (mainly!).

Hideous. I cried Pretty much solidly for 8 weeks because my baby wouldn’t breastfeed. I’d sit and express in the middle of the night while she slept, incase she decided to latch.
I felt lonely, isolated and like I’d ruined my life.
She was wanted and planned but she turned up life upside down in a way I could never have imagined.

I had horrendous antenatal depression and felt suicidal for much of my pregnancy. I had a lovely ELCS and the depression along with the gestational diabetes just lifted once he was in my arms (a good hour after birth as I was terrified to touch him until the midwife unceremoniously plonked him in my arms for the transfer back up to the ward). It was amazing. But I'd spent the past nine months in the awful dark fog of depression, I think I was just so relieved it was over.

I waited years to have my first DC due to infertility and was really looking forward to this magical rush of love I’d heard about and the newborn bubble of bliss I’d heard so much about. 4 days in labour and an emergency section later they showed me my baby and the first words I uttered were “I don’t recognise him” He looked so different to what I’d expected (not that I knew what to expect)
Tbh the first few weeks felt like I didn’t know him at all or what he wanted and although I went through the motions and cared for him, he didn’t feel like mine and I felt in shock at the reality of a newborn and that it wasn’t living up to what I’d dreamed about. I did end up with PND which was also a shock as I’d longed for a baby for so long.

My 2nd dc was born nearly 10 years later and I went into it with much lower expectations and much higher confidence in my abilities as a mother so was more relaxed. I remember when I saw her I thought she was absolutely beautiful but again not what I expected. I still didn’t get that rush of instant love that takes your breath away but I knew straight away I loved her and I found caring for her much easier and instinctive even though she was a much higher needs baby.

I was terrified and anxious and struggled with feeding. I remember so clearly realising that it would be many years before I could please myself when I went to bed when I got up etc. I knew it was coming but nothing prepares you for that first few weeks.
I’ve never been able to nap either so all the nap when baby does advice didn’t help.
However it was a walk in the park compared to when I had DD2 and a 3 year old running around. Never had that blissful bubble moment.

Pure bliss.

I was physically broken, traumatic birth, very little sleep for several days before the birth (long, early-labour, specifically between 11pm and 5am each night for four nights), allergic reaction during the birth, EMCS, blood loss, milk didn't come in.

I'm very 'stiff upper lip' so I insisted on getting home the first second the hospital would discharge us (26 hours post birth, the moment my bloods normalised).

Overbearing parents, insisting they visit immediately.

So although she was a great baby - I was utterly destroyed.

It took a good few weeks to feel anywhere near 'normal' (not c-CS related, healing was quite straight forward, I just felt shell shocked) - on Day 10 post birth I remember wondering whether I'd actually have to die to send DD to an orphanage.

I felt like everyone expects to be exhausted when they have a newborn, and it seemed such an injustice that I was virtually hallucinating with tiredness before she was even born.