Dirty little secret

[cajuncat743]

Have you ever felt too guilty to admit that motherhood isn't always so great? Or felt that you're a horrible person to not be jumping for joy if you find out you are pregnant? Now, I love my baby girl, and I'm not here to say I hate being a mom or I hate my child, but I wanted to address what I feel is an unfair pressure on us women to be only extremely happy about becoming pregnant and have no reservations about child-rearing.
I was with living with my (now) husband when I found out I was (oops!) pregnant. I'll be honest with you; I cried. A LOT. I was hysterical, I thought that my life had ended. I was deathly afraid of becoming a mother. The responsiblity! The pressure! Completely and totally in charge of taking care of a mini-human being for 18-plus YEARS. Not to mention all the not so fun stuff like crying, pooping, loss of sleep, loss of previous lifestyle, temper-tantrums, teenage years, etc. And I was supposed to do this? ME?? No way.
I can't tell you how many times family and friends would ask me, "You're pregnant?! OMG, are you excited?" obviously expecting me to say yes. When I would be honest and say that, no, I was the exact opposite of excited and would go back in time if I could, the looks that I got were horrified. I came to realize that admitting that having children didn't sound so great was a major no-no. I began to feel pressure to pretend to be happy. It wasn't okay to walk in to Babies R Us and get depressed by the sheer number of things that you need and get even more depressed by the price tag. No, I was supposed to be happy. It wasn't okay to look at baby clothes and think, "You mean I have to buy new clothes every THREE MONTHS? I don't even like going clothes shopping for myself!" No, I was supposed to say, "Awww, that so cuuuute!!!"
And now that she is here, I'm supposed to say "If I could go back and do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing." When in reality I want to say "If I could do it over again, I would make her come in about three years when we were financially more prepared."
My point in all of this is that being a parent DOES have definite down sides to it, and it should be okay to admit that. It wasn't until I poured my heart out to my mother at the end of my pregnancy and she assured me that I wasn't horrible for feeling that way and it was completely normal, and that, YES, motherhood wasn't all puppies and rainbows but was worth it in the end, did I feel better. But before that not a day went by where I didn't cry. If I had just felt as if I could be honest and talk to someone about how I really felt, it would have saved me almost nine months of stress and guilt and anxiety!. We need to be able to talk about stuff like this without feeling guilty. And, yes, having a baby is MUCH more wonderful than I expected it to be, and I love it(most of the time). We need to not put pressure on each other to act like being a parent is no big hardship, or that it is wonderful 100% of the time. I know now that I'm a good mother, and that having those feelings and still having them once in a while is okay, but I didn't use to feel that way. Who else feels/felt this pressure? Who else has been afraid to admit that sometimes(not all the time, but yes, sometimes) you miss life before parenthood? I KNOW I'm not the only one.

[miami_mom]

My son was an 'oops' baby as well. I was not thrilled at first either. But after a while I was excited as can be. Sometimes when motherhood gets tough I tell my husband "I wish I could run away and never come back" But of course I never would, and wouldn't really want to. Everyone feels that way sometimes, and it is normal.

[CLS]

We went through months of trying to get pregnant and 2 miscarriages before we got pregnant with my son, and I still had 9 months where I was constantly thinking "OMG, what did I get myself into." You are right, it is wonderful, but it is also a huge sacrifice. That's one of the reasons I love the message board. Whenever I'm having a day where I think it's too much to handle, I get on and read about what everyone else is going through. We're all here for you, whenever you need to vent or complain or cry.

[jaydedaisy]

When my husband and I found out that I was pregnant with number 2 we weren't all that excited.Hayley is full on into the terrible twos and we sort of realized that we were in for round 2 of this when then next on comes. And all the extra that comes with a baby in general and even at 24 weeks now there are days that I wonder if I do this again well because everyone else has more than one kid and they do it just fine. I think that we just heap all sorts of pressure upon ourselves to compete with the socalled perfect moms. But I do agree that even the worst of days can be eased by a visit here and vent session or a reading sessoin to reminds us that we aren't alone at all and there is always someone who can help or understand.

[Liana]

Both of our daughters were "accidents." During my second pregnancy, there were plenty of times when I did Not. Want. Another. Child.

Now that Daughter #2 is 10 months old (Daughter #1 is almost 3), things are mostly better, but I still have my moments. I'm a stay-at-home-mom, not really as a first choice, but because it was a better fit with my husband's current work situation. Some days, the crankiness and whining stretch my nerves to the breaking point, especially when it gets to this point and it's not even 8am!

I tend to vent in another message board/blog venue which I find incredibly helpful, although I've had various people let me know (directly and indirectly) that I'm too "dark" when it comes to parenting. Eh.

So yes, I'm quite familiar with negative feelings toward having kids. But like I said, it's not ALL bad and it's important to not focus TOO much on the hardships, at least in our own minds.

[WWmama]

I didn't have negative feelings about being pregnant (it was planned), but I don't think I was as excited as everyone thought I should be. For me, it just didn't seem real. This was my first baby and I just couldn't wrap my mind around the thought of an actual baby being in there.

[charliesmommy]

After being put under two times for fibroids (once was to have an ablasion (sp) and couldn't because of them), we were told that I couldn't get pregnant. I went to see a fibroid specialist at the Cleveland Clinic to have one very large one removed. She removed it and told us at my follow-up again that we probably couldn't get pregnant. I left hoping my periods would get better and that I didn't have to have a hystorectamy (sp).
A few weeks later we walked into PetSmart and there was a rescue there adopting out puppies. We were looking at the pups and to make a long story short we walked out of there with 3 little foster pups. After that we were hooked and it made not being able to get pregnant easier. We always had babies. Yes, they were puppies but they were still babies and some of them were very sick. Nursing them back to health and taking care of them really did help. Our life was good. We were very happy.
After about a year of fostering I got pregnant. Honestly, I was devistated. I didn't know how we were going to handle everything and I was not ready to give up fostering.
After hearing my baby's heart beat at my first appointment, everything changed. From that point on I was a mom and there isn't a day, a moment or even a glimpse of wishing anything were different. :)

[fuzzy]

When we found out we were pregnant for DS,we were thrilled! I didn't really enjoy pregnancy and complained about it quite frequently but nobody really said too much,I think it's cause I'd add "I guess you have to go through all of this to get to the end:)"Then after about 2/3 months of being a SAHM,I started going shack whacky,My fiancee worked all the time and I felt trapped:( Then after many blow outs with DF(fiancee)we decided that while i loved being a mom to our son that I still needed me time and i needed to get out in order to completely have me time! So every friday night I get to go out with my friends to play cards/board games and whatever else?It gives me something to look forward to every week!Some people(even friends and family),give me wierd looks when i tell them that or even better say the "they never needed a break"Talk about try to make you feel bad:( but I just ignore them and say that my "break"Is what keeps me sane and In my opinion Logan and I are better from it!I am currently pregnant for the 2nd time and happy but also scared and not looking forward to the next 36 weeks or labor or really the first 3 months of the baby's life but,I think that;s normal and if anyone would want to look at me bad for having those feelings I'd tell them where to go!Some people just aren't as excited as others are and I don't think that we should automatically have to be" over the moon "every minute of everyday!Now that would not be normal!

[geoh]

After being put under two times for fibroids (once was to have an ablasion (sp) and couldn't because of them), we were told that I couldn't get pregnant....After hearing my baby's heart beat at my first appointment, everything changed. From that point on I was a mom and there isn't a day, a moment or even a glimpse of wishing anything were different. :)

That sounds very similar to my situation. I was told that I couldn't get pregnant, and when I found out about my first, I crawled back into bed and cried... right after I yelled at my husband for only buying a one pack pregnancy test instead of two. The same thing happened to me with the first heartbeat. The first ultrasound made it real, but hearing the heartbeat was a totally different feeling.
That said, I am pregnant with my second (we tried this time) and I sometimes wonder if we did the right thing. In the middle of a terrible two day, I ask myself "why I did this to myself a second time?" and I wish for a vacation. When I'm not completely frazzled, I love being a mom! It's the most rewarding thing I've ever done.

[ra11en]

We were more than ecstatic to be pregnant. It was our second pregnancy, our first ended quite tragically, and we were extremely excited to find out we were pregnant again. We got pregnant on our honeymoon, and we really didn't expect it to happen so quickly (1 week of trying) but were over the moon with happiness. At 15 weeks when I was put on full bed rest, I did question if I really had any idea what I was in for, but since I was able to work from home (kept me sane!) we got through it and knew we were about to be given the best gift ever.

With that being said, there are absolutely times when I am frazzled and so frustrated. Never do I regret becoming a mom, ever, but I am only human. Sometimes my patience wears thin, and my nerves are frayed to the breaking point. Doesn't all mom's get that way from time to time? I too love being a mom, but again - only human. :)

The hardest part of being a mom - getting my husband to learn that even at my most frazzeled, I don't regret, for one second, becoming a mom. He used to think that when I got all nerved up I regretted our choice to become parents. Once I realized that was what he thought, and I voiced that it wasn't the case, it was much easier to get him engaged when I was about to lose it. Our DD is absolutely the light of my life, but I still lose my patience and get frustrated. Life as a childless-mom was so easy, even as a wife. And I knew it then just as I know it now. I wouldn't change it for the world. Do we want to have another - still undecided. We love the freedom we have in having only one, and the ability to financially afford 1 quite comfortably. We'll see.

Its not a secret in my opinion - moms get frustrated, impatient, and frazzled. It happens!!

[amyi]

Our situation was a little different both our children were planned and with our first it took us a year to conceive after every month of not getting pregnant I grew more and more anxious and frustrated. When we found out we were pregnant we were ecstatic! And then the vomiting started...I had severe hyper emisis (which means you puke without ceasing) I lost 20 lbs in less than two weeks I had to be hospitalized often for IV therapy, my hair started falling out, I couldn't work couldn't eat or drinking anything and life as I knew it stopped. I went from being elated about the pregnancy to hating it! I felt so much guilt for how "ungrateful" I was being, here I had begged and pleaded with God for the last year to give us a child and now I couldn't believe this child growing inside me could make me so miserable. They finally found a medication that made it possible to control the vomiting this was at about month 6. Anyone out there experiencing this the drug is called Zofran, it's amazing. It's very expensive so my doctor tried all the other ones first but this was all that helped, I think they now make a generic version that is much less expensive. Even now when I get a really bad stomach flu I get in a panic because I'm taken back to that really hard time in my life, I swear I have post traumatic stress disorder.