What Do You Wish You Knew Before You Gave Birth?

In honor of Nancy O'Dell's guest spot on Momversation, and her book Full of Life: Mom-to-Mom Tips I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Was Pregnant, we decided to ask our Twitter followers what they wish they knew for their delivery. Here's what some of them said:

What do you wish you had known?

Showing the Latest of 4 Comments

starrlife
3 yearss ago

I wish I had absorbed the realness of it, I wish I had been able to watch someone else first. Wait- I take that back. I might not have done it! Alot of the reading talks about the spirituality of birth and neglect the acute physicality of it.... I guess you can be told and it just isn't real until you go through it. Also, how much peeing would hurt afterwards, lol.

lousymom
3 yearss ago

I wish I had known really what would come after. The whole baby thing threw me for a loop. I had no idea how much would change.

Summer
3 yearss ago

bwankel
3 yearss ago

I wish I had known what contractions were supposed to be like. I kept reading you felt a lot of it in your back. Mine, to start, were all in the front and consequently I thought I just had bad diarrhea, I had NO IDEA I was in labor. I think it would have been smoother and less panicky if I had known. I also wish I'd know what the recovery was like. I had this image if me 6 weeks post partum, my old happy self again. And I was disappointed that I was not. For like 4 months. And I knew I'd lose some pelvic floor control, but I wish I could have mentally prepared to pee my hospital bed 3 times a day. That was horrible.

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