I have a theory about post natal depression. Some of it is definitely hormonal, but I think part of it is because the reality is so very different from the expectations, people have of having babies. It aint all glowing pregnancy and playing gently with happily gurgling baby while loving husband looks on fondly. The reality is much ickier and a lot more irritating.

So, for anyone considering entering into parenthood, allow me to let you in on a few things you may not yet know.

Pregnancy
It’s vile. I don’t care what you’ve heard about glowing skin and fondly caressing smooth bowling ball shaped baby bump, pregnancy can be awful. It makes you constipated, flatulent, incontinent and insane. It can also make you very very fat, and no, I’m not just talking about baby bump, I’m talking putting on 30 kilos in 9 months (the babies weigh 4) and when you feel miserable and grotesque and have the audacity to say so, self righteous bastards will tell you that you are being shallow and vain because you should be revelling in your fat flatulent incontinence. Pregnancy means that you cease to be a person and become nothing but a lumbering baby-factory.

Also, pregnancy hormones can be nasty. A very dear friend of mine came to visit me when I was about 7 months gone with my first child, she came because I rang her and demanded her presence in my flat immediately or I would never speak to her again. By the time she had made her excuses at work, driven from Wantirna to St Kilda and unpacked all the various items I had demanded she bring with her, I had decided that she was the most hateful person ever born and locked all the gates and doors against her.

It took her 20 minutes of pleading before I allowed her into the house and then I refused to do anything but cry at her for the next hour.

And that was not my worst day.

Childbirth
Ok, we all know that it’s going to hurt like the dickens (if the dickens is the rough equivalent of slamming your genitals in a large heavy door every 3 minutes for 19 hours straight) but you should also be aware that you will pee, fart and poo in front of several strangers for hours on end.

There’s also a good chance you will end up with a screaming case of piles and don’t fool yourself, no matter what politically correct bullshit you are fed by the natural childbirth Nazis, your vagina will never be the same again.

At some point during the proceedings you may be offered the choice between an episiotomy (where the doctor will use a knife to cut your vagina to make it bigger) or natural childbirth (where they wait and see if it will tear on its own). The best response to this question is to try very hard to hurt them badly, while shrieking imprecations against your inseminator and then running bollock naked out of the hospital. You won’t be the only one doing this and it makes for great footage on the birthing video (which, by the way, yuk, you should NOT be doing anyway).

Babies
They cry. A lot. For no good reason. Sometimes for days or even weeks on end. Whatever laundry soap commercial idea you have of loving husband coming home to beautifully made up wife and smiling baby, the reality is far more likely to be terrified and exhausted husband ducking as demented new mother who hasn’t slept properly for months throws plates at him for waking the baby she’s just spent 6 hours getting off to sleep.

On that topic, do NOT underestimate the horrors of sleep deprivation. As a good friend of mine once said, the things that a new baby does to its parents are against the Geneva Convention. It’s true, they are. I looked it up. You can try bringing it up at the Hague, but you’re probably better off begging or blackmailing friends and family to take the baby out for a few hours so you can sleep. It won’t help much, but it’s better than nothing and, eventually, this too shall pass.

Children
It’s NOT all twirling at the park and cuddling up to read a story at night. Small children can be really really annoying. Not quite as annoying as other people’s children, but that’s probably because you can’t always get away with shouting at other peoples children and sending them to their room for three hours.

Small children can be relentless. You think you’ve secured 10 minutes to yourself, but just as your bottom hits the couch in bounces an excited 6 year old:

Child: Mum, I’ve got to tell you what happened at school today

Mum: Can you wait a couple of minutes, this is the first 10 minutes I’ve had to myself in weeks and I’d just like to sit down with my book/magazine/newspaper/tv/phone while I can. Please?

Child: No, mum, honest it’ll only take a sec, and it’s really important

Mum: Ok, just for a minute though, right?

Child: Yeah, sure mum, I’ll be real quick. So, um it was at lunchtime, or no, wait maybe it was play time and me and Bosco and Theodore were, no hang on Xav was there too I think, and it was, yeah, definitely lunchtime coz Sommerset went off to play with Jayden, why do you think he plays with Jayden mum? Jayden’s got red hair and he cries if he gets knocked over. I thought only girls cry when they fall down, why are girls so stupid mum? Mum? Are you listening?

Mum: Uum? You were telling me about playtime?

Child: Oh yeah, well it was playtime or maybe it was lunchtime, it doesn’t matter does it? Does it mum? Mum?

Mum: What?

Child: Does it matter?

Mum: Almost certainly not.

Child: No, well I think it was lunchtime mum, and Bosco was doing this mum, watch, mum, are you watching?

Mum: YES (looking longing at the book/magazine/dvd/phone).

Child: Ok, well he did this, muuuum, you weren't watching!! I’ll do it again…..

45 minutes later

Child: ...and then the bell went and we all had to go inside, which sucks doesn’t it? Mum? Doesn’t it suck? MUM? IT DOES DOESN’T IT? ...Hey mum, when’s dinner, I’m really hungry.

Parasites
No, not the children themselves, but things living on them, which will probably come and live on you too. At one point one of my children had head lice, intestinal worms, ringworm and warts all at the same time. They’re all far more contagious than you might think.

Other People
Every parent had another person glance at what they are doing with their child and gleefully assume a self righteous superior expression, while making remarks (in smug tones) like: “Goodness, I wouldn’t ever let my child do/eat/say/behave/watch that”. This smug, self righteous person is almost invariably childless themselves and is working from their vast experience of having the repressed robot offspring of their third cousin twice removed come to visit for 15 minutes every two years, which they have decided makes them an expert on all things parent related. When this happens, smile, breath deeply and stab them through the eyeball with an ice pick.

And...close
Even if the absolute worst of all these things happens to you every day for the next 20 years, you will still be brought to tears at the beauty of your sleeping child’s face and you will still think, without the slightest shadow of doubt, that everything you went through was absolutely worth it.

Damned if I know why, but it is.

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