Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me?!

In the last year and a half, life has changed a great deal for Sean and I. From the second you see that little pink line on the pregnancy test, I knew this would be the case, I did. Its just, I thought I could intellectualize my way through these changes. I though I could prepare for them. We would read books and have discussions, google weirder things than we'd ever googled before, that kind of thing. This would lead to success, I told myself. I would do my due diligence and as a result I could, at the very least, anticipate what changes might lay ahead.

Despite all my efforts though, I find myself almost daily asking: why didn't anybody tell us this??

For example: My hair. All I have heard about babies and hair is that pregnancy makes your nail and your hair grow longer, faster, and thicker. Perfect, I thought and readied myself for my beautiful, well-earned mane. Yet as my belly grew and grew my hair seemed to get worse and worse. By the time Lola was out in the world, the top section of my hair had almost completely broken off, leaving me with a jagged, mushroom-cut/mullet combination in the front. Less than ideal.

But she was out, she was out and it was breastfeeding time - that also does fantastic things to your hair and nails I heard. Here is where the hair rehabbing would begin! But oh wait, nope, things just got worse! Only recently when I started noticing thick baby hairs growing all over my head did I realize what had been happening - my hair had been falling out at the root.

Upon complaining about this to anybody who would listen, a peculiar thing started to happen. Other mothers would nod their heads in sympathy and tell me all about how that had happened to them too. Once again I found myself asking, WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THIS??

And then I came across this video and quite suddenly I understood. People do tell you. They tell you everything - the good, the bad, the weird, the unusual - but we don't listen. Because thats the funny thing about parenthood, you can read and study and prepare and discuss as much as your brain can handle but it will never be enough. Because you'll never know what anybody is talking about until you're there, in the moment, experiencing it.

I mean, if somebody had told me that I'd not only cry like a baby every time I watch this video but that I'd cry even when I'm just thinking about this video, I would have never believed you. But alas, its happened.

I'm still adjusting to life as a cryer. Its quite different than what I'm used to, that's for sure. But while it can make things uncomfortable from time to time (i.e. I've had to hold back tears at work a few times when discussing cases and in difficult sessions), I can totally see its benefits. "All the love," as they say in the video, is what keeps me going day to day. Its what makes it possible for me, the most un-morning person ever, to wake up early 7 days a week with a smile on my face.  After a completely terrible, exhausting, awful day, its what makes me look forward with excitement to the next day. Those beyond-my-control, overwhelming, all-consuming emotions are what make me feel, for the first time in my life, relaxed and positive, like no challenge is too big to take on.

I have to say, never in my life would I have believed you if you told me this time last year that I'd be feeling this way. Which I guess is why I should stop asking why didn't anybody tell me because they did tell me. I just wasn't ready to hear it then. I wasn't a mom yet.