Do you kegel and tell? Do you divulge your hospital bedroom antics? Or, are you someone who prefers to keep the truth about childbirth to yourself?

 

It is a tough one. 

 

All too often in some of our more 'intimate' articles, we get comments from mums-to-be completely shocked at some of the more graphic truths about having a baby.  Perhaps they don't realise the extent of the pain, the messiness, the joy.... and how could they?

 

I guess the question is, how much do you really want to know before you hit the labour ward?

 

And it is not just the birth - there are all kinds of weird and wonderful things that happen to your body (and your mind) after you have a child that you couldn't fathom.

 

It makes me ask myself the question if I would have wanted to know beforehand or if experiencing motherhood as it happens is somehow 'better?'

 

I was warned about certain things and it prepared me hugely for what was to come, but things are not the same for everyone so what might have been a bump in the new motherhood road for a friend might, in reality, be a large (veiny) mountain for you to climb. 

 

 

I was one of those people who watched graphic c-section videos online when I knew I was going to be having one.

 

I wanted to know EVERY. LITTLE. DETAIL.

 

My friends were horrified. Luckily for them, I wasn't a squealer (metaphorically) so I kept all I found out to myself. 

 

Other pals were more of the stick-their-fingers-in-their-ears-and-hum types who didn't want to hear a single squeamish detail. And that's fine too. 

 

Having a baby is a shock to the system. A wonderfully joyous, intense and confusing shock to the system. Anyone who reveals too much is probably just trying to prepare you rather than scare you. 

 

My advice would be to only seek what you are prepared to know. Leave the rest to the slow reveal that is motherhood. 

 

But know this very important detail.... you do NOT always poop.

 

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