I never realised...

Just how little I knew about pregnancy/birth/babies!! Some things I've realised just by growing up and seeing others go through it, but a great deal comes from BB - thank you all!! Here's a few of my realisations:

- When I was younger, I thought you just decided to have a baby and it just happened. Well I now know there's a LOT of work that goes into it and it's very rarely easy!
- I didn't know about HPT's. I thought the only way to find out was to go to the doctor - that's the way they do it on TV and movies lol. Or there's the one that sticks in my head a lot - on 101 Dalmations (the movie with real people and dogs) the nanny or someone realises the woman is pregnant just from a contented little sigh!
- Based on that, I then thought pregnant women floated around on a blissful little cloud for 9 months. I didn't know about the worrying cramps during early pregnancy, the scary spotting, the morning sickness, tiredness, and threat of miscarriage. I thought it would be so simple, and hey, no AF to worry about!
- I never realised people generally weren't announcing their pregnancies until after three months, so it seemed so fast to me!
- The big one for me - I didn't know what a birth plan was. I had no idea there were options. I thought it was just on your back, on a hospital bed, legs in stirrups. Thanks to BB my eyes are now wide open!
- I thought labour would be so fast. The story from my Mother is that she woke up one night when her water broke, so she jumped in the shower, trotted off to hospital and two hours later had a baby (both times with me and my brother it happened this way). So this lead me to believe the waters breaking was the first sign - I had no idea contractions could go for days first!

I reckon that's about it, but I want to thank everyone for the various realisations I've had just from this site :D

Hehe some of those are very funny!!!! BB is a wealth of knowledge isn't it?!

Haha, gotta love BB!

I don't know how I would have got through the past 6 months without some of the ladies on here!

:

---

I don't know how I would have got through the past 6 months without some of the ladies on here!

---

Lol exactly! I'm actually surprised by how much I didn't know. Just goes to show how little women actually talk about this in reality. I also never realised breast feeding was difficult. I just thought baby goes on, milk comes out. I guess that comes from everyone around who's ever had a baby hasn't been shy about it and I've seen it lots, so I assumed it was that simple!

Haha, yeah I totally hear you on the "what women talk about" thing. I have realised that some of my friends who have babies have really only been talking about the warm and fuzzy stuff. Which is fine, but not really real.

I like to know the real stuff! :D

Agreed re birth plans! Until I went to parenting classes that the hospital ran, I didn't know I had any options.

I always knew the birth process grossed me out though!

I was never prepared for so many different emotions once I had a kid!

I know eveyone says it's hard to walk, move, sleep etc etc in late pregnancy, but didn't realise exactly how annoying it all is until it happened! I didn't have any of those "I love being pregnant" moments.

I had NO idea about pre-eclampsia until I got it, and didn't realise how much it would affect my health.

I had no idea how apparently important cervical mucous is...I never even bothered to think about it before! When I first joined BB I had no idea people actually looked at theirs! My vagina was/is something I have always hated...and before I TTC Palmer, I never even thought about fertility or that my vagina was important in any way, shape or form!

:

---

I had no idea how apparently important cervical mucous is...I never even bothered to think about it before! When I first joined BB I had no idea people actually looked at theirs! My vagina was/is something I have always hated...and before I TTC Palmer, I never even thought about fertility or that my vagina was important in any way, shape or form!

---

Lol Angela, this made me laugh. I got a bit of a CM obsession when I was TTC... I had never paid any attention before, and didn't know it could be so different and mean different things! The things we learn lol

I was only 17 when i first got pregnant but i didnt even know what a cervix was let alone that we had one lol. BB has taught me everything in the 6 years i've been here. And now look at me? 4 kids, 2 homebirths, 1 waterbirth. Cloth nappies and co-sleeping. All of those i didn't even think possible if it wasn't for Belly Belly.

Yes! I used to think co-sleeping was crazy before I really knew anything about it....then I started doing it myself!

Same with the co-sleeping.I thought it was crazy! Ended up doing it myself though.

I never realised that breastfeeding would be hard and would have thought someone breastfeeding a 2.5 year old was disgusting! But, here I am!

I hear you no the breastfeeding - I never realised it would be so hard, or that there could be so many issues that could prevent you from succeeding at it. I never knew that women like me with larger breasts could have issues with getting a baby to latch on, or were more likely to have flat/flatter nipples (sorry if that is TMI, but it's true) and I never knew it would be so hard to express and produce enough milk when we still failed to get my DS to latch on, and I'd never heard of lactation consultants until I found BB. I never knew that humans actually got mastitis (silly me I thought it was only animals lol) so when I got it I had no clue what it was or what to do.

And then when we started to TTC #2, I never knew there were so many things that could go wrong or that maybe there might be something wrong with my ovaries (there wasn't apparently, but I knew something was wrong before having DS when I had 3 MC's over 2 years, and the 2 MC's I had this year only confirmed it and I finally got some tests done by a doctor because I found out here on BB that my doctors using the excuse "You're young, it's just bad luck" wasn't right and I had as much right as an older woman to get some answers).

I'll zip my mouth now lol, before I get carried away any further... basically without BB I wouldn't be where I am today :)

I wish I'd had BB when I was pg with DD1. I was 17 & had no idea what I was in for! I did do loads of reading, but had no computer or internet. It was all magazines & the local library. I'm so lucky things turned out the way they did during her birth. Things would've been very different if it wasn't for my mum & MIL.
Things were alot better with DD2, but I knew so, so much more after I found BB when pg with DS. About everything. DD2 had already showed me that co sleeping was easiest, but BB would've helped my earlier BFing experiences a lot.
My goal with BFing DD1 & DD2 was 6 months. I only made it to a few weeks. Things changed when I had DS & I BFed a toddler! Right up til almost 2. I would've been really put out had someone else told me they did that before I'd done it myself. I also thought it was gross past 12 months. Now I know better & intend on doing it again :)
So thanks BB, from me & my kids :D