When you find out you are going to have a baby you picture this perfect life you will have. You imagine pink clouds raining love and happiness, the perfect baby who only smiles and giggles on command and sleeps whenever you want them to sleep. You think you have everything and nobody can ruin your fairy tale. You touch your bump all the time and smile, you’re dancing instead of walking and baby stores are pure heaven. You buy so many cute useless things and you picture the bundle of joy wearing a hundred outfits and playing with all toys you get like he/she is already mature enough when he/she will come out of you. You get yourself few mummy outfits and think you’ll rock pregnancy like no one before. You see yourself wearing those favourite heels you keep for special occasions and a dress to compliment your new figure. You think your friends will love you even more and the old pubs won’t be history.

At twelve weeks you have your first scan and seeing your baby for the first time gives you this immense joy that cannot be compared with anything. You think you already know how the baby will look like and who he/she takes their features from. They all look just the same. Trust me.
You want everyone to know your news and share your happiness. You live in this bubble that protects you from all harm and bad motherhood stories. If you have a straight forward pregnancy the bubble get thicker and thicker and you are blinded by so much positivity and joy. Nothing can ruin the heaven you built. Slowly slowly the nursery is ready and you spend your entire day in there rocking yourself in the special chair you imagine will use for the midnight feeds (that will be your bed for a long long time). You touch your belly and talk to your little one while folding a pile of tiny clothes and show him/her the toys they have and tell them who they are from and if they should like them or not. You listen to Bach or Mozart as it was already proven to help babies in the womb develop their brain and become smarter than any other newborn in the world. Yours will be the healthiest, smartest and most beautiful, the cutest and best baby there ever was since the beginning of our times.
What you don’t know is that all this is horse shit. Once the baby comes out you open your eyes and they will stay open till your dying day. All you will do is worry. Forget there was that thing called sleep. It’s long gone and will stay like that for a long time.
Your little fairy tale will be replaced by painful boobs, milk everywhere, a crying baby, wet or dirty nappies or both in the same time. And they smell so so bad. When I say crying baby I imagine mine who managed to keep going for five hours continuously when she was only four weeks old. And it was my birthday. That day when everyone was drinking and eating in my house while I was a prisoner in the bedroom pulling my hair out hoping to make her sleep or shut up for at least ten minutes. Nobody tells you colic is such a shit thing. You sweat and cry, move from bed to chair, walk around with the baby in your arms rubbing his/her back, you try and feed them, you show them the light bulb, the cars outside and anything there is around you but know this: nothing works. It won’t work until that day when the colic magically disappears. I tried all there is in the pharmacy, I tried old remedies, I tried everything I could and nothing did the job. It was all useless. Just another thing to give me hope. And this is not all of it. It’s just the beginning. You try and remember if you had a shower and I swear you won’t. Your hair will feel shampoo once in a blue moon and that would be the moment when you feel a bit like part of that heaven you built back when you had no clue what motherhood is.

You learn how to do everything with one hand as the other one will forever be holding the little munchkin. Sure. It gets easier at some point. And you forget what was like but once a stage is over there comes another one with another challenge and I swear this is never ending. You are now expected to be a good mother and that implies being a cleaner, nurse, Doctor, made, chef, teacher, psychologist, role model and on top of it all build yourself a career and please look like a fresh daisy when he comes home and make it all look like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Cause this is what we all do. Even in front of other mums. We never admit we want to run away for a while and lock ourselves somewhere where nobody needs us; we never say ” it is hard” or “I can’t do it anymore”. God forbid. There is no such thing. We only present our little ones as perfect. They all sleep through the night, never cry or drive you insane. They are those perfect little angels who look adorable and smile at everyone. Until they see someone they don’t quite like or scares them. Hold your breath and count to ten. Here it goes. That insane scream, the tears, the effort of making them stop so they can start it all over again cause that shit person doesn’t get the fact that your baby hates them.
Motherhood is a twenty four hour job. It is a career in a way. Sure it had those moments when you feel you go crazy and dumb, your brain is not used as before and it forgets how to function, reading a book becomes a challenge unless it’s Sophie la Giraffe, Peter Rabbit and company; watching a movie from beginning to end is a wish that will never come true; your once impeccable house becomes a war zone full of toys; your favourite products are the hand sanitiser and wipes; coffee and wine are your best friends and you can never spend enough time in their company; going out without getting ready three days in advance is a no go. And if you get out without the baby expect to rock yourself while talking and worry so much that you get to the conclusion it was best to have munchkin with you.
Your friends will disappear all of a sudden and you will definitely have the lonely days when you will feel miserable and negative.

Feel free. Have all of it. Cry and cry until you have no more tears left. After you do, take a look at your baby. You created him/her and that makes you a superhero. Now smile. All these shitty moments are worth it all. I would do it over and over again. And if I lost some friends I don’t care anymore. I gained better ones who are there for me day and night.
And if I forgot all about new music, pubs and wild nights, I gained Little Mermaid and Lion King songs (played on repeat for an entire day), baby clubs and swimming pools and another type of nights – the ones where three hours of sleep feel like heaven and I appreciate them so so much.
So what if my house is not the cleanest, I  am not the best looking and my child is not the best of them all? Who cares? I don’t. My child is healthy, happy (most of the times), beautiful and growing up in a family who loves her more than anything. I guess I am doing a good job.
I was never expecting any of the things that I went through so far and I can say it was damn hard and it still is but looking at her fills my heart with so much love that I would never ever change a thing.


SONG OF THE DAY: – has to be this one again. I listened to it from 7am to 10am on repeat

8 thoughts on “Motherhood – expectations vs reality

  1. Being a mum is the most challenging job out there. I have five and my very first child I had young. He was incredibly easy baby boy growing up. As the rest came into my life I have never seen so much grey hairs in the weirdest of places. I can say I will never be alone as they stuck by my side everywhere I went. Now that they are older I’ll be lucky when they call or text to borrow money.
    Your post made me smile as people do come and go, wonder why my son hid under a coffee table because he didnt like someone and the amount of feels you get after stepping on a piece of Lego. Mom’s are great 😀 Thanks for making me remember the good and the bad.


  2. Thank you so much for reading. Raising five kids you are a hero. It is amazing and exhausting to be a mum. I bet you are happy even if they call only to borrow money. I had a time like that with my mum to be honest. I think it passed once I started to understand her struggles


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