Stop Telling Me Life My Life Will Suck When My Babies Are Born

Please know that I am very serious when I say this: The next person who tells me “Pregnancy is the easy part!” is getting punched in the nose. I can’t even say, “I’m sure you mean well,” because really, what is well-meaning about telling someone that their recently sucky life is going to suck even more once their long-awaited babies arrive?

Maybe pregnancy is the easy part when you don’t have hyperemesis, high blood pressure, excruciating acid reflux, and three or more 2+-hour doctors’ appointments more than 30 minutes from your home every week. Maybe pregnancy is the easy part when you’re not having twins and haven’t been on bedrest for months. Maybe pregnancy is the easy part when your pregnancy isn’t the absolute worst you have ever felt in your entire life. Maybe pregnancy is the easy part when you have an easy pregnancy. But if this is “the easy part,” someone please shoot me.

If you’re making that face, that condescending, you-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about-because-you’re-a-first-time-mom-and-are-therefore-a-moron face, stop it right now. That is also grounds for getting popped in the nose. I have a flipping master’s degree; I think I’m capable of understanding that life with newborn twins — twinfants, if you will —  is not going to be a walk in the park. There will be lots of screaming and poop and laundry, and not a whole lot of sleeping. I’ll be sore for weeks. My boobs will hurt. I probably won’t shower much. Leaving the house will be a giant production that requires me to juggle multiple carseats, diaper bags, strollers, and other paraphernalia, not to mention two at-times-inconsolable infants. I get it.

But here’s the thing: I know how to deal with babies. I was a nanny for years, and until I became too sick to function I was still doing weekends and overnights with the small children of friends and family. I can change one kid’s diaper in my sleep while bottlefeeding another kid. I can juggle an infant and a toddler while making dinner from scratch. I can open the milk one-handed while bouncing a screaming child. I can bathe three children at one time. I can successfully shop for groceries with multiple toddlers in tow. I know how to do this stuff.

The mechanics of parenting are a piece of cake compared with months of debilitating illness, IVs, PICC lines, and the inability to leave the house or, for that matter, the couch. That whole mess I have yet to adjust to, and the only thing that has gotten me through these miserable 8 months has been the knowledge that when my babies arrive, I will be in familiar territory and it won’t be as hard as surviving the pregnancy. It will be a different kind of hard, but a hard I know. A hard I can handle. A hard I’m prepared for. A hard I yearn for. It can’t come soon enough. That kind of hard is what I have been waiting for my whole life.

Yet throughout this pregnancy, this miserable, seemingly endless pregnancy, other parents have seemed determined to convince me that my life is over once the kids come on the scene, and that the last 8 torturous months have been a prelude to something worse. “Give up on the idea of ever leaving the house,” they tell me. “Sleep now, because you’ll never sleep again,” they warn. “Forget time alone with [Daddy in Training] for the next 18 years,” they say. I’ve learned to smile and keep my mouth shut, but what I really want to say is, “Just because you’ve chosen not to make any of those things a priority in your life and therefore resent your children doesn’t mean I have to do it that way.” I know plenty of well-rested, socially (and sexually!) active parents who have successfully incorporated children into their lives, and I fully intend to become one of them.

If people listened to the crap so many parents spout about how miserable parenthood is, no one would ever have children. My telling you I’m excited and your responding by telling me I’m delusional is not commiseration or good humor or anything remotely well-meaning. It’s depressing and demoralizing and makes me not want to be friends with you. So if you don’t have anything positive or supportive to say, I’d prefer you just keep your mouth shut. Instead of trying to kill my excitement and delight, why not focus on ways to make your life with kids happier so you can, I don’t know, enjoy being a parent? Because last time I checked, you were once excited about this, too.