Unsolicited advice from a recovering fear-monger

I have a dear friend who is expecting her first child, so I started thinking about what advice I would give a new mom if anyone was wacky enough to ask me. I had Piper when I was in my mid-30s and had 9 nieces and nephews when she was born as well as lots of friends who were parents, so I felt like I had some solid proximal parenting experience. And I did, but of course, that means very little when having a face-off with a screaming newborn at 3am. I think of the most helpful pieces of advice - or solace really -  that my friends and family gave me during those difficult first months when I was so tired I couldn't eat and bounced for so many hours on the exercise ball that Piper loved that I when I got up, I would still bop around the house as if riding an invisible horse and they were all pretty much the same - it's OK. There were times when I wanted specific guidance, like how to bathe a tiny human being who was so fragile and foreign to me that I treated her like she had a grenade in her diaper, but for the most part, I wanted people to tell me that they understood how totally overwhelming having a baby is, that it would get better, and that what I was doing was OK for me and Piper and poor Jaime. Things that I was so sure I would do as a parent, things that I felt I was expected to do by the Great & Powerful Mom God in the Sky started to seem burdensome and stressful pretty quickly. I should have realized things were not going to follow my peaceful, crunchy granola, pseudo-hippie plan at about Hour 34 of my unmedicated and unproductive labor, but I still went into motherhood thinking I would be filled with rose-colored, lavender-smelling, harp-accompanied, all-natural bliss at the mere sight of my child. But I wasn't.

I hate to put that in writing even 4+ years later - I still feel judged and ashamed, but bliss was not what filled me. I was filled with fear - overpowering, panic-inducing, reality-denying terror just about every minute of my very AWAKE life. Even though Piper was a great baby - she slept well, she ate just about anything you put in her mouth, she stared at me peacefully while I read books to her in French, she loved to watch our dogs and cats, she was gorgeous and tolerated every frilly dress and ironic onsie I put her in, cuddled with Jaime for as long as he wanted and looked contentedly at the ceiling fan while I watched Matlock reruns - I lived in a state of rigid fear. I was convinced that something was wrong with her, wrong with me, that she would be mentally challenged if she wasn't breastfed exclusively, that she would have trust issues because she hated co-sleeping (THEN, hated co-sleeping THEN, now it's the best idea in the world, goddamn it) and she would be some kind of frigid control freak, because she could sense my apprehension. And that was the easy stuff - I also was sure she had every disease my hypochondriac mind could come up with (see my pediatrician blog from August for how that was alleviated, hallelujah) and forget the many accidents that were waiting around every corner. On top of all that, I also felt guilty that all I wanted to do was sleep for 20 hours straight and go out to dinner without her. And on and on and on...until it stopped. I don't know when it stopped exactly, I suspect after 3 months of maternity leave, but slowly, I started to be part of the world again. And the best thing happened to me - I realized it was OK. I was actually a pretty good mom, Jaime was the finest dad I knew, my dogs kind of liked Piper or at least tolerated her enough not to maul her, my friends and family deemed her a keeper and Piper was...well, Piper was the world's best kid for me. She was sensitive, dramatic, adorable, defiant, chunky, hilarious, foul-mouthed, inquisitive, loving, aggravating, and perfect. And even better than all that, I looked back at photos and thought about those difficult first weeks and I realized, I really had loved her unconditionally before she was even born, which was extremely lucky for her considering her delayed entrance.

So, what would my unsolicited advice be? It really is OK. It will never go as you plan, there are a million things you did not prepare for, no amount of gear or clothes or nursery rhyme knowledge will make it easier, it will be the hardest, most humbling experience of your entire life, you will toss out long-held beliefs faster than diapers, you will make a million mistakes, you will lose your patience, be resentful and it will never be like the fuzzy montage of love songs, sunshine and flowers that you have lodged somewhere in your brain or you'd never have gotten knocked up on purpose, but you will love that kid in a way that makes it all worthwhile despite every reasonable impulse in your body. Oh and you will need good people in your life to remind you of that when your child takes 27 minutes to choose a pair of socks every morning because they all make her feel "too lumpy," but I'm just working off the assumption that one day, that will be OK too.