1. Before the baby is born, I will be able to catch up on my sleep. Yeah...no. Although it is possible to sleep through baby hiccups, baby kicks and light contractions, it is not possible to sleep through the baby bouncing on your bladder. Though I was staying awake for much shorter periods than I am now that I am nursing, I was probably actually awake more frequently in the last trimester than I am now with the starving newborn.
2. Justin and I will have time to go away for a few romantic weekend trips late 2nd and early 3rd trimester. This may have been possible, had Justin not had a family emergency during the peak of my 2nd trimester. (Which, looking back, was very fortunate timing for him to be able to leave without regrets.) But almost immediately upon his return, our baby child threatened to come out early, thereby putting me on partial bedrest and certainly eliminating the possibility if romantic getaways. Alas.
3. It will be easy to agree on a baby name. Had we been expecting a girl, this would not have been a misconception. It was eerily simple to come up with a full name for a girl. But boy names were remarkably difficult. The name I have loved since childhood was immediately shot down by my spousal figure. (Though he did say it would be okay if I really really wanted it - a very sweet sentiment on his part, but I really did want my husband to like his kid's name.) And his name choices were...unusual at best. But as these things tend to do, the situation resolved itself with a name originally used as a placeholder which somehow stuck. It's a pretty awesome name, I think, though he will be asked how it is pronounced and/or spelled for the rest of his life. That's okay. No one knows how to spell my name either.
4. Maternity clothes aren't that difficult to find. I am amazed at the challenge this became. Stores I thought would have plenty of maternity clothes - Target, Kohls, Old Navy - were oddly lacking. Come to find out, these stores don't even always have a maternity section. The place I did the best was at the Gap, which frankly surprised me. There is also a maternity clothing specialty store half an hour away, which was nice for work clothes - and fortunately, they had sales racks. Because anything that is attached to "pregnancy" or "babies" is immediately marked up on prices.
5. It will be easy to sign up for a childbirth education class. This was actually remarkably challenging! I expected to be able to easily register for the classes at my own hospital. That was not the case. I ended up taking classes in the community. (I'm really glad it worked out this way actually, it was an interesting experience.)
6. Once you are 4cm dilated, the baby is going to come out in the next 48 hrs because you are in active labor. I blame med school on this misconception. I had no idea that a first time mom could walk around over 6cm dilated without being in current active labor. Of course, I had no idea that labor could be prolonged for a week or stalled for another 2 weeks.
7. Once you begin active labor, it doesn't stop without pharmacological intervention. Hahaha no. See above. And in fact you can have regular contractions for a week at over 4cm dilated and STILL not have the baby come out. Just saying.
8. If I do plenty of kegels, I will not tear. Nope. (The topic of recovery is not a misconception on my part, because I just didn't think about it before the delivery. Why think about something you can't change, lol. Very mature coping mechanism on my part. Or not.)
9. I will have time to rest between contractions once I am in labor. No again. For some reason I expected to use all those techniques Justin and I learned in that childbirth class. Bwahaha.
10. Once the baby comes, we'll be able to get out more. Looking back, I'm not really sure where this came from. I think maybe it was because I was looking forward to being off bedrest. I really thought we'd be able to go out to dinner (finally - sushi!) and get out of the house more. While breastfeeding. ...What was I thinking?
11. There isn't any reason to buy newborn clothes because he will outgrow them in a week. People told me this one. It wasn't exactly accurate. I did think 0-3 months meant ZERO to three (or at least two-and-a-half) months. The second day out of the hospital, I was at babies r us buying newborn clothes on clearance.
12. Breastfeeding comes naturally. I had seen these videos of the breast crawl babies do after birth to breastfeed for the first time. It's pretty cool, and in fact my baby did this. Really awesome. That said, this does not mean things will continue to be easy. Latching is much more challenging than I had anticipated. More challenging than my baby anticipated, too. It's really funny. That first day, we didn't have any problems. Perhaps because we were both tired. After that, I think we both began trying too hard. Now it's easier, but we still have difficulties with a feeding or so a day. But we're improving.
13. We'll be able to go home for Christmas. Perhaps we could. But I'm not sure I'm quite up to the car ride yet. And the baby and I should continue to work on our feeding skills. Another misconception - the car ride will be the same as usual. No - we're going to have to stop every two hours for a feeding. It's going to take FOREVER to get home.
14. I will have time to catch up on some academic reading. Maybe this will change. And certainly, I have the time now - just not the energy. Leading to another misconception - I will have more energy once the baby is born and my body is "back to normal". Hey, maybe that's not a misconception, because it hasn't happened yet, lol. But now I'm not so sure it will. :P
15. My husband will be a good father. This misconception was a serious understatement. My husband is an AMAZING father.
Well, the baby is making "I'm about to be hungry" noises. Fun days of early parenthood. :)
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