Things I've Learned, 26 weeks In ...

Source: webtraj.com via Amanda on Pinterest

1. People are nicer to you when you're pregnant. Like, everyone. Girl at coffee shop, people on the train, mother and mother-in-law, who don't let you wash a single dish and hardly allow you to cook anything on Thanksgiving, even though it's at your house, and husband, who cooks and cleans and takes out the garbage and has coffee ready for you in a thermos when you wake up.

2. Women really do like telling you their horrible and traumatic birth stories. They also love telling you to enjoy sleeping and doing fun things now, because your life is going to change. That might be true (at least the sleeping part) but shut up.

3. Pregnancy really becomes so much more fun in the second trimester, when you don't feel like crap and you're finally showing. Maybe I'm just vain, but I was so happy to have a round, obvious belly as opposed to being all boobs and muffin top the first four months.

4. Picking names is hard, especially when you're not that person that has had baby names picked out since she was 12.

5. Daycare is so f-ing expensive, it makes me want to throw myself on my hands and knees, screaming and crying and kicking the floor, like that 2-year-old I saw at Starbucks this morning, who threw a serious tantrum after his mom denied him a sip of her Caramel Macchiato. Not gonna lie, he made me rethink this whole thing for a few seconds.

6. Sometimes it seems like there is just so much to research and think about beforehand —maternity leave, ever-growing and changing list of baby stuff, childcare, breastfeeding equipment, picking a pediatrician, signing up for childbirth classes, trying to find a weekend to escape with husband before "our lives will change."

7. And then there's all the other stuff that can keep you up at night, especially if you simply cannot learn to sleep on your side — will the cat hate the baby, is it really impractical to cloth diaper when we share a washer/dryer with our upstairs neighbors, how will I deal with the inevitable cabin fever now that I'm working from home, do I really need that many blankets and toys and contraptions that seem to serve the same functions (swings, bouncers, vibrating chairs, bobby nursing pillow and newborn lounger, etc.)?

8. Mostly, I've learned that I'm totally clueless about all of this, but I'm told all first-time parents are, unless you were a nanny or worked in a nursery before having a baby and then, I don't care what you say, you have a leg up on me, since the last time I even changed a diaper, I was 9, and it was only pee.