Blog From A Broad

it's a learning experience

I have learned so much about newborns and my boobs recently. Truly, it's been fascinating. For example, I never knew that newborns don't quite have the knack of using both eyes in unison. I thought Jack had lazy eye or that I was hallucinating from the sleep deprivation. Also, none of my pregnancy books ever mentioned that the "letting down" feeling you get when your milk comes in could hurt. Most described it as a "tingle" or a "trickle", so I had no idea what was going on when I was experiencing very uncomfortable pins and needles. I finally saw it described as such in a book I got on breastfeeding, and apparently this should go away after a few weeks. Plus, did you know that newborns tend to make alarming gasping breathing noises and sometimes stop breathing altogether just to give their parents a cardiac arrest? It's a fact! Oh yes, and all those books that say breastfed babies don't have smelly nappies? They lie.

I am so glad that I'm a voracious reader/researcher, because I would otherwise be in a state of panic. You figure that newborns basically just eat, generate dirty nappies, sleep, and perhaps stare at you in wonderment and disbelief ("I cannot believe you removed me from that nice watery warm place and forced me into this strange world"), but they do a whole host of strange and wonderful things that no one tells you about.

Now if you'll excuse me, Jack is now doing one of those strange things I've just learned about - crying hysterically for no apparent reason. Ah, motherhood.