My sister had a baby about three months ago, she did a post on her blog, Managing Mommy’s,  a few days ago that was awesome! It explains what every mom goes through after she has her first baby. Here it is…

Oh, and a big thank you to Kristen for letting me post this on my site! Check out her website ManagingMommys.com and see how she has managed having a baby and getting back to work.

Post Pregnancy Bliss

You’ve just had a baby; you feel a sense of euphoria, you love the way it has changed you and you have accepted your new body and well life is just perfect! …..yeah right! Like Megan mentioned in a comment before, the period after you have a baby isn’t really talked about and guess what, it’s hard and it just plain sucks sometimes! So I want to talk about it! I think there is this idea out there that once your baby is here, everything is supposed to be wonderful, and why wouldn’t it be? You have a sweet, innocent bundle of joy that many people, who maybe aren’t as lucky, envy you for. Babies are a great blessing but there’s a little bad mixed in with all that good. Plus everyone is always telling you to enjoy these times because they grow so fast, which is true, but that doesn’t mean it is all smiles and giggles. There’s a lot of poo, pee and spit up to deal with, let alone feeling like you’re completely crazy because your emotions are worse than when you were pregnant, you might have a hard time breast feeding or choose not to and there’s guilt with that because BREAST FEEDING IS BEST and then every time you turn around you feel like someone is JUDGING your parenting skills and evaluating what kind of a parent you will be. Oh and you’ve just realized those 30 to 60 pounds you’ve gained WASN’T all baby weight! You can’t fit into any clothes, you feel too young to be a mom and even if you can find something to wear to go out and maybe even get a babysitter, well you just might not want to, either you’re too tired or you just plain feel DEPRESSED and want to sit at home and do NOTHING (where’s the spontanaeity?). Yes, I said DEPRESSED! Even if you don’t have to deal with full on post-partum depression, I think every woman feels parts of it after having a baby. It could just be because youre down because you’re frustrated or all of the hormones; nothing you do makes you feel any better and you find yourself staring at a blank wall for who knows how long and getting extremely frustrated every time your sweet baby cries or fusses. You’re supposed to be this super mom you’ve always imagined right? But really most days you don’t even want to get dressed, let alone shower… (or work on losing all that baby weight). Most of this has nothing to do with your baby, yes they can be frustrating sometimes, especially if you have a fussy baby but most of it is because you had the baby and even though the best thing you’ll ever have came out of that and yeah it’s WORTH IT, it’s hard and it takes a while to feel normal and like yourself again. Also, I don’t think I have gained back the 15% of brain cells I lost when I was pregnant… When does that come back? Or does it…?

A few weeks ago I felt like I had no girlfriends and that they were all just so different from me and I think part of me really wanted someone to talk to about it all because it’s kind of a shock. But this last little bit I’ve realized how many AWESOME girlfriends I do have and how many are going through the same thing! I realized that I had isolated myself a little by not making an effort and so I started making more of an effort but mostly I just plain got lucky and have been able to hang out with many of them lately. I don’t have 1 group where we always hangout and do everything together, I have a lot of different girlfriends; single, married, pregnant, married with kids, etc. and they all are great for different things. Some of them I talk to on a regular basis, some I don’t see for years at a time, some I see once a year, some I only see at group gatherings, but I can talk to all of them and it’s never awkward, I love it! Anyways, so lately I have talked to some of them who have had kids recently about different things and was so glad to know they had some of the exact same feelings and struggles! So thanks for listening, sorry I’m a little crazy!

Oh and guess what, I was looking for an image that could maybe back up my theory here, I googled a few different mom and post pregnancy things and they are all showing off the euphoric feeling I talked about… What’s so scary about being honest?