I agree wholeheartedly with Bath and the others about gauging someone's receptivity and putting things in perspective.

I had my first baby at 38 and TBH, I was sick to death of reading/hearing horror stories. I honestly thought that babies cried all day and I wouldn't get ANY sleep. I certainly didn't have a rosy view of motherhood and expected life with a newborn to be hell.

It wasn't but I think I went too far the other way and gave the impression to everyone that life was fantastic. Which it wasn't either - it was just much, much better than the very low expectations I had.

I didn't talk about the things I found hard because I thought I was doing brilliantly. I struggled on whilst being in a lot of physical pain and without much help - no family and partner who was a shiftworker.

Of course, I fell in a bit of a heap later and all my friends could not believe it when I started ranting and raving about how crap I felt because they thought my life was rosy (because I hadn't told them any different).

It would have been much better for my sanity and my relationship(s) if I had just honestly explained my feelings more from the start. But the starting point is understanding those feelings myself. I don't think I allowed myself to feel certain things which meant that I couldn't explain them.

So what I'm trying to get at is a bit of balance is good. If there's a next time for me, I'll definitely try to smell the roses a lot like last time but not to the exclusion of seeing the warts, if that makes sense.