Everybody needs a mommy friend like Bekki Pope. The Hertfordshire, England–based blogger, who gave birth to her son Barnaby on July 1, recently penned a Facebook post titled “20 Things to Know When You’ve Just Pushed Out a Baby.” And she didn’t hold anything back. (Sample line: “Your first shower will be like a scene from Carrie.”)
“There was so much that nobody warned me about,” the event planner, 29, tells Us Weekly. “I felt I owed it to all the expectant moms to give an honest account of how a big body pushes a little body out.”
Read 10 of the 20 items on Pope’s hilarious list of things to know below, and see her full post here:
1. Your first wee. Take a jug with you and pour it over your bits like you’re trying to be a star in some very disturbing porno. It helps.
2. Their downstairs bits are ridiculous. You will worry about the impact they will have on their lives should they stay like that. Boys’ little nuggets are the size of whole walnut whips, but their willies are the size of the walnuts on the top that nobody wants. Apparently this “swelling” goes down soon. If it doesn’t, expect “big bollocks” to be part of your son’s school nickname.
3. Your first shower will be like a scene from Carrie. It’s normal. It may feel like you’ll never be right again and that you’ll walk like John Wayne forever, and you might, but you’ll feel so much better for the shower. You’re literally washing away your sins. (If the baby was born out of wedlock anyway …)
4. Your baby looks weird. Like … Really weird. “Oh, how cute/such a beautiful baby,” etc., will be said at you and you’ll accept other people’s opinions, but to you it looks like a hairless slightly purple old granddad with dried blood and skin stuck to its wrinkly face.
5. You will say the word “latch” more than you have ever said it in your life. And the idea of a tiny person casually sucking on your nipples suddenly becomes a reality. At this moment, you will feel like an actual proper mum. And a cow.
6. There are people in hospital that can smell your vulnerability. They will take photos of your baby looking cute and then try and charge you a million pounds for it. They will scroll through the 50 photos they’ve taken of your baby in the same position, asking you to choose your favorites. And if you’ve got a partner like mine, that means you will have to re-mortgage your house by the time he’s done …
7. They want you on contraception straight away. Countless midwives will come and talk to you about how fertile you are and how likely you are to become pregnant again. They do, however, forget one crucial thing — you’re never having sex again. You never want to see a penis again. And if one comes near you, you’ll most likely destroy it for the sake of women everywhere. The end.
8. Everything’s angry. Your brain is angry, your eyes are angry, your tummy, your bladder, your bum. Your vagina isn’t angry. It’s f@&king livid. Give it a while to calm down**, but right now, you and she ain’t friends …
9. Everyone you’ve ever met will want to come to the hospital to see you. People get overexcited about visiting hospitals. They feel VIP when they walk into a ward. You are a VIP — a very in-pain person. And you look and feel like death. So only accept visitors if you are up to it. You’re still so high on drugs that making conversation with adults is like trying to sieve flour with a fishing net. Everything just pours out of you and none of the s–t is stopped getting through …
10. Stop worrying. You’re not superwoman. There is no such thing as normal, and there is no such thing as perfect. You are your baby’s normal. You are your baby’s perfect. They aren’t judging you. They are completely reliant on you and being responsible for another human being is not a piece of cake. It’s a piece of “oh my god I can’t do this.” You can. And everyday will get easier. Breathe, mummy. You just grew and pushed out a mini Mitchell brother. There’s nothing you can’t do. Except sleep. You can’t do that anymore.
The August 24 post has been shared more than 80,000 times.
Pope tells Us that the home she shares with her partner, Simon Ellis, has been buzzing with visitors. “Everyone has got different advice and ideas about how to raise children!” she says. “They always mean well. [Don’t] worry too much about listening to them. Every child is different and what worked for them may not work for you. Your family suddenly has a little person in it, and you need to know them, so spend as much time as you can doing that and the rest will fall into place.”
