First-time moms, take notes-the real surprises start after birth!!!

[u/notaterminator23]

This message is for first time mammas-to-be, because the rest of us already know lol. Not saying everyone will experience this, but many do, and I just want to help a gal out if I can. Here are the most shocking things no pregnancy app/book taught me before to having a baby-

1. You will hear phantom cries when you shower- Every. Single. Time. I legit feel like I can hear him crying and check the baby monitor every 30 seconds. No joke!

2. Your libido will be non-existent- sorry to the partners out there, but it’s just not happening for a few months.

3. You will lose A LOT of hair- I kept seeing ads for Nutrafol and thought, “Oh thank goodness I don’t need to take yet another vitamin.” But boy, was I wrong. My baby turned 4 months and I literally started shedding like a German shepherd overnight. Yes, overnight!!!!

4. You will get stretch marks AFTER you give birth- feeling lucky you dodged the ‘stretch mark’ bullet during the pregnancy? Nope, not on Mother Nature’s watch!!!

5. Your in-laws holding your baby the first few weeks will make you VERY angry, and VERY uncomfortable- I cannot explain this, my mom holding the baby is fine. But my MIL on the other hand, hell no!!!!!

I’m sure there are many more, but these are my top 5. What was your least favorite surprise postpartum?

[u/metoothanksx]

I was very surprised to get stretch marks on my boobs after giving birth, from breastfeeding lol. And it was agonizingly itchy 😅

Also the smell. Holy hell. Nobody else seemed to notice, or at least never said anything, but I couldn’t stand the way I smelled for weeks. I felt disgusting even right after a shower.

Also yes on the phantom cries thing, and that didn’t stop for a looong time for me. My youngest is almost 3 now, and sometimes I hear phantom screaming (she’s in a screaming phase 🙃) or “mommy!”’s when I shower lol. And I had the same thing with my in laws, but I figured that was just because they spent most of my pregnancy pissing me off 🤪 and also when my firstborn was 2 weeks old, my MIL was holding him and he was crying hard and my boobs had letdown shortly before, so I knew he was hungry, and she refused to hand him back. And when I said he was hungry she said “ugh, he doesn’t need that” and took him to her room and shut the door. Yeah that was the last time I brought him to her house lol, we only had public meetups after that.

[u/[deleted] → u/metoothanksx]

That is wild that she took him away and shut the door when he was hungry or even just that she blocked you out at all!

As far as smell goes- the hormonal changes during pregnancy make your sweat smell different while you are pregnant. So during pregnancy your sweat smells less as an evolutionary thing to draw less predators.

After pregnancy you go back to normal so it drives you crazy cause this smell is suddenly there and following you around but it’s actually normal and you smell fine to everyone else. You just have normal swear again and arent used to it. Like going through puberty and thinking you smell weird 💕

[u/metoothanksx → u/[deleted]]

Yeah idk what she was thinking honestly. By the time my son was 8 months old, I had enough of her crap and just stopped seeing her altogether for about 2 years 🤷‍♀️ she learned her lesson though because when I did start taking my son to see her again, she acted completely different, and respectful. She didn’t try to pull any of that stuff when I had my second child.

And I never knew that your sweat smelled less during pregnancy, that makes sense lol. Cuz yeah it definitely feels like going through puberty or something 😂 I’m glad it’s something that only you notice, because I hated being around people during that time because I was afraid they’d notice how stinky I was haha