I Wish I Would Have Known

With a lot of my friends having babies soon and thinking back to how in the dark I was about the whole giving birth and taking care of a baby thing here is the list of what I wish I would have known.....

Labor and Delivery

• If you think you're in labor just go to the hospital, the worse they can do is send you home. That's the advice my doctor gave me and although I wasn't in labor when I got to the hospital it probably saved Addie's life
• If you're in labor and going to the hospital EAT something before you go. I hadn't eaten all day and kept feeling like I was going to pass out but they wouldn't let me eat anything once I got there, thank goodness the whole labor thing only lasted a couple hours for me.
• If you're planning on getting an epidural the IV at the beginning is the worst part of the whole birthing experience, the shot they give you for the epidural feels like a bee sting and that's it. I used to be deathly afraid of the epidural but one of my friends put it in perspective, "It's like getting bit by a mosquito while you're getting hit by a train" train=labor. Funny huh!
• Advice from my sister-in-law: check your modesty at the front door because once you get in the hospital lots of other things will be getting checked. I finally got over it and realized the nurses there do this stuff all day every day, they don't care.
• The last time I had someone accompany me to the bathroom I was probably 3 years old. Don't worry you get to re-live that all over after the baby. They don't want you falling over or anything so someone comes with you when you gotta go.
• This is your one chance in life to yell and completely boss your husband with no guilt, sorry for being so mean Trev :)
• Things don't go as you always expect them to, trust the doctors because they're doing everything that's best for you and the baby.

Baby

• Prepare a little. Trev and I read a pregnancy book but once we got to the labor part in the book we figured we were done and read nothing on what to do with a little child once you have her.
• Expect the worst and everything else seems great! I always thought we would have an angel child from birth that would sleep all night and be good all day, it was a hard adjustment
• If someone offers help like a meal or to watch your baby while you take a nap, ACCEPT.
• It gets better! The hardest part for me was not knowing when it would get better, when I would get some sleep or go pee without a baby screaming because I had to put her down.
• Hold, hug, and cuddle because eventually they wont want to and will be too big and heavy to do that all the time.
• Tough love. I don't know what the right age is, we did it at 3 months but the best thing we did for ourselves and Addie was to let her cry to go to sleep. She has been an angel ever since then.

Good luck to all my friends soon to be mothers. It's pretty crazy stuff but I love it!