I was originally going to write this for a blog blast on another blog of mine.  Except then I realized I didn’t need the prize – it was for munchkin babies and my kids are too old.  But I’d already written the post and apparently had something to say.  So, here it is.

You know… There are several things I wished I knew before I became a mother. All the way from pregnancy all the way down to where I am now (my sons are 5 & 7.)

I wished someone would tell me how crappy I would feel when pregnant. I knew the technical symptoms. But no one ever sat me down and said, “Look. You’re going to feel like crap for the next 9 10 months. There will be varying forms of suckitude, and it can take different forms. Be prepared.” Or, how freakin’ bloody it would be – both for my husband to witness during the birth, and for the after process of bleeding. My poor husband went literally white and almost passed out. He thought I was bleeding to death, poor man. The doctor had to reassure him that this amount of blood was normal.

Or in the infant stages… That a fever did not mean certain death. That diaper rashes didn’t mean I was a bad mother. Or how everything would be, well, sticky. Of course that continues for, well, ever.

Nobody told me that I wouldn’t instantaneously feel love for the children. That in reality what I would feel was terror that they were sending me home with this creature and I didn’t have a medical degree.

No one told me I’d die for them either, but I think now, that’s a given.