The day after my first ever positive pregnancy test I went into town and bought myself a copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting. Over the course of my pregnancy I also stocked up on baby magazines and hypnobirthing CDs, attended antenatal classes, breastfeeding classes, massage in labour classes, and generally felt that I was the most prepared person ever to have a baby. I was totally 100% ready.
Somehow, in all this preparation, I missed out the fact that after you have 'had the baby' you actually then have a baby – a real tiny human, to take home and look after and feed and try to stop from screaming.
In the end, my labour was more bloodbath than hypnotic birthing pool. When it was all over, instead of being able to sleep off some of the trauma I spent the night awake mopping up lots of black stringy baby sick. Black stringy baby sick was definitely not in any of my pregnancy literature.
In fact there were quite a few things that my books and teachers failed to mention. That my boobs would morph into blocks of concrete, for example. Swelling I expected. Tenderness? Sure. But Jesus Christ! What are these things? And since when did my underarms count as boobs too?
I also seem to have skipped the chapter on the insane inconsolable crying (from me, not the baby - although she was making a pretty good effort too). Around day three post-partum, a temporary personality transplant took hold. The real me disappeared for a few days, replaced by a sobbing, shouting, super-dramatic version of myself who would think nothing of crying because I'd "run out of BREAST PAAAAADS WAAAARGH AAAAAAAAARGH RAAAAAARGH!!" I had no idea if the crying was normal, whether it should really feel this bad and – most importantly – when it was going to end.
No one gave me a heads up that in addition to the gifts of babygrows and cuddly toys, I'd also be presented with a brand new vagina. Well, new in the way a patchwork quilt is new - made out of lots of little cut-up bits of a previous item, sewn together in a decorative way. My midwife made me look at it a few days after delivery so I would know where all the tears and grazes were. It kind of looked like a steak that had been caught in a sewing machine. Peeing through it was another good reason to cry.
I didn't quite clock that breastfeeding might be more complicated than it looks in those follow-on milk ads – and I didn't realise that 'complicated' would mean that the first few weeks of it were quite literally the hardest and most painful thing I have ever done in my life. Although breastfeeding should not hurt if your baby is latched on well, I struggled and got confused about the correct latch. I developed nasty cracks on my nipples which were then reopened with each feed. In the early hours of the morning, faffing about with pumps and nipple shields and with my little baby screaming, I just felt so desperate and alone. Eventually we got the hang of it, and the internet – along with Lansinoh cream – was my saviour.
I could go on about each little thing that I found hard but my main point is this: no book is going to tell you the truth. No one wants to scare a pregnant woman. No one wants to tell you about how you might dread each bloody feed and cry on the toilet alone and want to tell all of your well-meaning guests to just fucking well fuck off. You will not find that in a baby book.
I have met plenty of mums who described their post-partum experience as 'floating on cloud nine' or 'the easiest thing in the world'. I am genuinely pleased for mums who enjoyed those first few weeks, but those who didn't need to know that feeling like shit is okay too. Struggling does not equate to ungratefulness, and feeling awful because your body is a wreck is not something that takes away from the love of your child or something we need to feel guilty about or lie about.
I felt like shit after I'd had a baby. There, I said it. If you didn't, I am pleased for you – but if you did, you should know that you're not alone.
If you want to go beyond the books and find out what happens 'after the apocalypse', join us at Bumpfest, Mumsnet's one-day event dedicated to all things birth and baby-related.