Wow, great start to this thread! I really appreciate all the feedback and advice. My wife wants to breastfeed but we are trying to keep in mind that it might not go as planned and that is just fine. My wife reads a bunch of pregnancy groups and boards, and there is so much pressure for women do things the “right” and natural way.
This is really good advice. Until baby is actually here it’s all hypothetical, and it’s easy to start imagining a future where we are perfect parents and our son is the easiest most well adjusted child that anyone ever raised. I appreciate your point that it’s important to give yourself some room to fail and figure things out as you go, and to not have too many expectations about how everything will play out. I’m going to try to remember to go with the flow with my son and not place too many expectations on him.
Thanks for this. I know the whole “it’s difficult but rewarding and worth it” bit can be a little cliche, but honestly hearing stuff like this is really nice and reassuring. Probably the most frustrating part of this whole pregnancy is how quickly people shifted from “when are you having kids? kids are everything!” to “you’re pregnant! Haha! Say goodbye to your life!” It all comes from older relatives too. I had extended family visit us a few months ago, and my cousin has a 2 year old and was so happy for me and just gushing about how wonderful being a parent is. It was all my aunts and uncles telling me how sorry I was gonna be and how my life is gonna be over hardy har har
. People do this a lot. It never feels like it’s trying to be helpful or prepare me, just being obnoxious. Like I’m not naive about the challenges, but first time parents have no experience so it’s nice to hear people say nice things about parenthood instead of sowing seeds of doubt. Thank you for your comment!
And yeah, as for chores and stuff I am definitely of the mindset that it should mainly fall on me. Especially since my wife will likely have a C-section. I mean she is literally growing and birthing our child, the least I can do is clean up the house and cook some dinners. That’s really nothing compared to what she is going through, and her pregnancy has not been that difficult. It is kind of sad how low the bar is for men in these situations. My wife reads a lot of pregnancy groups and like half the posts are women complaining about unhelpful or antagonistic husbands. It’s sad.
Regarding the breastfeeding bit, I’d just like to add that it is very important for you to keep that doubly in mind. It’s great that you have both adopted the mentality that, if breastfeeding doesn’t work out, that’s fine - because it absolutely is! But, even knowing so, it can still be emotionally difficult for a mother if she feels “she can’t feed her baby” and if she were to get postpartum depression, that can exacerbate that. It’s a very primal feeling that can be hard to dismiss even if you know you should. Just be prepared to have to remind her that it’s okay, because even if she knows that, it can be difficult to
feel it if your emotional state is all over the place. But, of course, hopefully breastfeeding goes well, there won’t be any postpartum, and this won’t be a problem at all!
“Parenting is difficult but rewarding” is probably one of the biggest cliches in life, hahaha! But I think it’s one of those things that are a cliche because they’re simply true. Not for everyone of course - we’re all different - but like you say, if it wasn’t rewarding most of us probably wouldn’t have any children or at least not more than one.
The whole “Oh, you’re in for it now!” is interesting. My wife and I discussed it a lot as well during her late pregnancy and after our daughter was born. Our conclusion was that it is a bit like overstating a point to make sure it gets across. “No, it probably won’t be horrible, but maybe if you expect that, then you won’t be disheartened when it gets difficult.”
It’s cool if your wife is having a caesarean but I’d still like to talk about (for a lack of a better word) “regular” labour to illustrate a point: A modified manifestation of the above is telling first-time pregnant women how painful labour will be. It might be true - after all, death during labour was relatively common before modern medicine and still is where there aren’t enough resources - or it might not: My mum noticed that my wife have gotten pretty anxious for labour (like that helps
) because everyone had been telling her horror stories about labour. She got annoyed with all our relatives and then say my wife down and just said “Listen, yes, labour is painful. But when I had my three kids, it was painful like the most difficult exercise you will ever do in your life, not like seething agony.” I don’t know if it is true or not, obviously. But it did calm my wife down a lot
. And labour ended up being
relatively easy for her.
Another thing to keep in mind here: Because labour can be very difficult, you will often hear the worst stories. Because they can be in fact be absolutely horrible (days of contractions, severe tearing, complications, stillbirth etc.). But a lot of them just aren’t. However, you’ll not hear those stories as often. The reason is pretty simple. When my friend needs to talk about how she was in labour for three days, got preeclampsia, had to have an emergency surgery etc., my wife doesn’t answer “Oh, how bad. I was in labour for six hours and the baby came less than 15 minutes after my water broke in three pushes. No complications.” It’d make her a massive fucking prick and a very bad friend, no?
Just… listen to the stuff people tell you with a spoonful of salt in your ears, I guess.
Including what I say, since this is such a different experience for everyone.
Re: your last paragraph: Yeah. It’s super sad. But the only thing we can do is to be the change we want to see in the world and be positive role models. And you’re on the right track for that!