Nobody Told Me!

You know how there are many and varied things that you just have no idea about relating to pregnancy or parenting until it hits you (with a big stick)?
I doesn't matter how many books you read (I think I read all of them),
or how many friends or family members go before you and tell you tales sagas dramas truths about them.
There are things you will never know until they happen to you because

nobody tells you!

I never knew that morning sickness would make me feel so bad that all I could do was lie on the couch and moan all day and night.

I never knew that pregnancy would be so painful that every step I took was agony.

I never knew that I wouldn't be able to roll over in bed or breathe properly and that heart burn would be so goddamn annoying.

I never knew that I would have to get up more than once a night to feed my new born babies for months and months and months. (I guess I really had my head in the sand to not know that one.)

AND

I never knew that I would be getting up at night, almost every night, for six and a half years.

I didn't know that there was even the possiblity that I would not get a full night's sleep almost every night for more than six years because

nobody told me!!

So I'm here today to tell everyone who has not yet had children that once you have children, there is a very high possibility that you may never sleep again.

You will have to get up to...

feed your baby (I'm sure you knew that)

rock your crying baby back to sleep

put the dummy back in their mouth (luckily we skipped dummies)

change wet nappies/pyjamas/beds

soothe them if they're scared

lie with them if they have nightmares

clean up vomit

comfort and medicate them when they have a fever

put the blanket back on them if they're cold

put them back in bed if they fall out

get them a bottle

And then on those rare nights when you don't have to get up there is a strong possiblity that one (or more) of your children will join you in your bed and they will toss and turn and kick you and hit you and dack you (oh yes, that happened to me last night!), thus leaving you lying in your bed wondering if you will ever ever sleep again.

So there, I feel I have done my duty.

Now you can't say, "No one told me."

But of course, if someone had told me....

I wouldn't have done anything differently.