Dirty little secrets

I was recently talking to a friend who has a new baby and was reminded of just how hard and endless the newborn stage is. It should be noted that this is not just any friend but a supremely capable, accomplished, put together, and impressive friend. She is the type of girl who never tires, can travel constantly, pull 12 hour work days no problem, and still go out with friends at the end of a week. In a way, it made me feel better to hear her say that those 12 hour work days have absolutely nothing on caring for a newborn. "Oh, good it's not just me! It's really hard for you too?" I thought. I've talked to other moms and I know that it's tiring and all consuming for everyone but I still sort of felt like maybe I was doing something wrong or I had a more difficult baby and that's why it was SO hard for me. The thing is I think maybe everyone feels that way a little bit and doesn't talk about it. But that theory is impossible to prove because it involves people not talking about it! Maybe someone who took a philosophy class in college can explain how I'd go about testing the theory?

Another friend recently made the point that in contrast to the shroud of secrecy and silence surrounding newbornness, pop culture is so filled with images of hormonal, achy, tired, gassy pregnant women that we are all comfortable and accepting of this realistic, if not exaggerated, portrayal. I guess as a result of this, nothing about pregnancy really surprised me besides the endless nature of it (but really how can you prepare for that kind of hell?) Just like how romantic comedies end with a wedding, movies and stories all seem to end with a birth. Considering the fact that our cultural accounting system only counts anniversaries and birthdays, this is backwards. No one talks about how long they've known each other, just how many years they've been married. No one tacks on an extra 9 months of gestational time to their child's age, just their birthday matters. These are beginnings and not endings. Yet in every movie, the crazy pregnant lady spontaneously goes into labor at some horrendously inconvenient time, rushes to the hospital in the back of a taxi in a a traffic jam, sweats and curses until the baby pops out, and is then overcome with a calm blissful grace as she transforms into an earth mother. End scene. Does she ever get to leave the hospital and take that baby home? What happens then??

"I can't wait for day and night to lose meaning as my uterus shrinks to 1/10000 its current size and I sweat out 13 lbs of fluid in 8 days!!"

As much as I think sequels suck, I think someone should make one to What To Expect When You're Expecting. Show a woman going home from the hospital looking 6 months pregnant and more swollen than when she arrived. Show her wearing adult diapers and not being able to walk right due to the stitches. Show her waking up so drenched in hormonal hot sweats and leaky milk that she has to change outfits and sheets twice in one night. Show an actual newborn with a pointy head, baby acne, cradle cap, and piercing scream who won't sleep anywhere besides in mom's arms. This is sounding like a really crappy movie, I realize, but I would also add a scene about the first time mom has to spend a day alone in the house with the baby and realizes she actually can't eat, pee, or shower. Since she has no one to talk to, maybe they could have a little internal monologue where she says that she would rather not shower anyways because the mere sensation of water falling on her boobs would produce pain greater than labor and childbirth put together (obviously our protagonist had an epidural). Then she would come around to the fact that there would actually be no purpose to the shower that will never be, because the mere thought of the preparations required to leave the house with the baby send her into a full fledged panic attack and she can't take Xanax because she's nursing.

"If I move he will scream so I'll just try not to flinch as the acid dissolves the lining of my empty stomach and the toxins build up in my kidneys."

My phone is conspicuously quiet as I sit here waiting to hear from Hollywood producers. Was it really just me?? Was it not that hard for anyone else besides me and one very capable friend??