7.29.2010

No One Told Me It Would Be Hard

Yesterday, at our Relief Society Activity, my friend Sara who just had a baby, was asking the rest of us if it was supposed to be hard.   

Um, yes.


But no one ever talks about that.  When you're pregnant, everyone is so happy and excited for you, but no one tells you that once the baby comes out, it's going to be the hardest thing you've ever done in your life.  It's hard to want to get up every 2-3 hours with a baby, and then feel like you get no love back.  It's hard to have all those emotions and hormones just going crazy, and not really knowing why you feel like you're a terrible mother.  It's hard to see other moms and think that they've just got such a better grip on things or that they love their babies more than you love yours. 

It's that way with a lot of things, especially new changes.  When I was getting ready to go to BYU, everyone kept telling me how I was going to have the time of my life and I was just going to love it so much and yada yada yada. 

Reality check:  I didn't.

I guess this is just a rant to let you know, that you're not alone.  My biggest comfort was hearing my mom tell me, "Rachelle, you don't have to hold him and interact with him 24/7.  You WANT him to learn to play on his own."  She also told me, "The days DRAG by, it's the years that go by fast."

I think that's the type of advice we should give.  But maybe we don't because we don't want to prejudice or scare anybody.  Just know, that no matter how perfect and collected I may seem or someone else may seem, inside, they feel the same way you do, and they're probably wondering just how you do it. 

Oh, and it does get better, I promise.  It's nice how we only remember the good things when you look back at something.  That's probably why missionaries say that their mission was the best two years. 

By the way, we learned how to make these at our activity.  I'm only slightly proud.


Okay, so we didn't learn how to make these.  For more information, please see



We learned how to make flowers.  This was my only one that did not suffer from some sort of fire damage. 

1 comment:

Ashly and Josh said...

It's funny that you wrote this post because Josh and I were just talking about this! I've been at home all day and it has made me REALLY bored and naturally I've started wanting a baby to keep me company. It doesn't help that Josh really wants one too and gets so excited when we talk about it! But then I start to think about the reality of it all and it brings me back down to Earth a little bit. It's fun to think about playing with their chubby little feet and rocking them to sleep, but what about the other side of the story? You are right, no one ever talks about that side so I'm really glad you did! I'm sure we will have many talks when I have one of my own because I can see myself having a really hard time once the reality check hits. Love ya!