What do you wish you had been told about pregnancy/birth ?

[paradise lost]

I agree with what's been said so far. THe pregnancy was okay, but at the end (last 3 weeks or so) i was suddenly SO tired all the time, my body ached and i just felt so heavy. I had felt pretty normal up until then so it was an eye-opener!

Birth for me was very positive, and i don;t think anything happened i wasn;t expecting, though i was suprised that i didn;t seem to have any "stages" of labour - it was all one blurred event which very suddenly resulted in a baby. Maybe this was specific to me but i have a friend who had 3 definite stages and a short transition between 1st and 2nd, and she also registered huge shock when they put the baby on her tummy! LOL!

Sleep deprivation is hard, but things get better SO fast. When she was 3 weeks old i couldn;t wait for her to have a bottle (we decided to establish my milk supply and get her good at feeding by waiting until she was 6 weeks before giving anything but a breast or a finger to suck on) so i could have a good sleep. She's now great at bottle AND breast feeding and i'd far rather use my time to wite letters, email, swim or go out for dinner with friends than sleep!

Someone asked me recently how i felt about the whole deal. I would say it was much harder than i thought it was going to be, but FAR, FAR more rewarding.

HTH and GOOD GOOD LUCK!

Hana