When you think about someone being a mom what crosses your mind? Baby puke and dirty diapers? Staying up all night and not having any free time whatsoever? These are all accurate in a sense but there’s more to it than that. Especially being a young mom there’s a lot of growing up that most of us do. There’s also a lot of sacrifices we have to make. I made a lot of sacrifices when I had my son because that’s what need to be done.
Social Life Is Limited
One of the many sacrifices made once you become a mom is your amount of social life. I have been what feels like tied to my house because I’m mostly the one taking care of my son. I have a few of my friends ask me “hey want to hang out today around 3?” I can’t because I have no one to watch my son and I just don’t have the time. Even if I had someone to watch him the amount of laundry, bottle washing, room straightening, and lack of energy trumps it all so it wouldn’t be worth going out because I’m so exhausted.
Lack of Sleep
Ever hear a Mom say a million times “I’m too tired to do ______”, yeah that’s a real thing! The amount of sleep you get as a new Mom is like next to nothing. Especially if you are breastfeeding, that makes it worse. Every 2-4 hours a day the baby is up and wants to eat. When my son came home from the hospital he was up and wanted to eat every 2 hours almost on the dot. It didn’t matter if I was “too tired” or not, when he is hungry you better get up or he will get even more mad and louder. I have adjusted to maybe getting 5-6 hours of sleep every night. It’s a miracle if I get more than that!
Criticism
The amount of people trying to tell you how to be the “perfect parent” or the “you shouldn’t do that with your child” is endless. I have had some people tell me I was not a true mother because I had my son via C-Section. I had no choice but to have a C-Section because after the doctor gave me the epidural they lost my son’s heartbeat. As they prepped me for the C-Section they lost my heartbeat as well. My son and I essentially died and what would have happened if I would have given birth naturally? I would have never been able to hold and kiss my son because he would have died. As long as you know you are making the best choices you can for your child and your child is fully provided for then the negative Nancy’s have no room to talk.
Relationship Strain
When you have a new baby, you can’t really spend time with your significant other. If you do spend time with them you always have the baby. You always talk about the baby; all the money is spent on bills and the baby. You argue about the way you parent your child. You and your SO whole world is revolving around your child and you don’t get to appreciate the time with just them because your so wrapped up in being a parent that you sometimes forget about them. When one or both of you work and you have to choose between who’s taking your child to their doctor’s appointments and who’s not because of the time off it gets more difficult.
Sanity/Postpartum Depression
When you are pregnant with a child your hormones are making your life not only a living hell but it feels like you are on an emotional roller coaster and you have no way of getting off. Once you have your child take that roller coaster feeling and times it by 100. Postpartum depression is very scary. There are times when your child will cry and scream for hours and all you want to do is curl up in a ball and cry. The times when you are so depressed that you don’t want to take care of your child and that’s the scary part. I have had times where I am so depressed that I don’t want to even get out of bed, shower, eat or anything.
Physical Body
You know how there are those Mom’s that you can look at them and think “how did you have 3 kids” because they look so good. The amount of physical changes that happen to a woman’s body during and after pregnancy is amazing. A woman’s body goes through not only growing a mini human inside her but also has the capacity of pushing it out or sometimes having to have the child cut out of her aka C-Section. I gained 85 pounds with my son and had to have a C-Section with him due to medical complications. My son is almost 2 months old and I am trying so desperately to lose the baby weight. It’s not as easy as a lot of people think it is. The amount of healing time between a woman who had given birth naturally and a woman who had a C-Section is different but it’s still healing. I have been asked while I was pregnant “how are you so tired you didn’t do anything all day”; I’m just growing a little human inside me that’s why. It takes a lot of energy to grow that little bundle of joy so please be patient with us if we are extremely tired.
There are days that I forget to brush my hair because I have just been so busy with my son that it just slips my mind. I remember coming home from the hospital with my son and I hadn’t showered for 3 days because I was too busy dealing with him that by the time I even got a chance I was too exhausted to move. I finally got to shower once I had my SO mom come over and see my son and she asked me if I needed anything and all I said was “shower”. When you have a child it’s very difficult at least in the beginning to keep up with hygiene because your every waking moment of every day is revolved around the baby so it can be very tough to find time to maybe go get your hair cut or even shave your armpits.
Out of all these sacrifices there’s not one that would be considered the worst to me. If you ask me; Would you go through this all over again to have another child? My answer will always be yes. I don’t regret anything when it comes to having my son because I love him that much. Are there any other sacrifices you think should be on this list?
