5 Half-Truths People Tell You When You're Pregnant

The presence of a baby bump seems to make people feel like they have carte blanche to tell you what’s on their minds. Seriously, the sight of a pregnant woman seems to send everyone and their mother into an advice- and information-giving frenzy. Here are some common tidbits of information given to moms-to-be that require amendment.

1. After you give birth, you’ll still look pregnant. True story! Unless you’re one of those magical postpartum unicorns who can waltz out of the maternity wing wearing her pre-pregnancy jeans, you will still look like you’re about six months pregnant even after giving birth. But be forewarned: this new fetus-free belly will feel a lot less like your cute six month bump and a lot more like you’re wearing an inner tube … that someone deflated halfway … and then filled with jello.

2. You’ll be sensitive down there for a while. People are more than willing to prepare you for having a vagina that looks like a scene from Saving Private Ryan. But where are the true friends who will help you prepare for the terrifying experience of that first postpartum poop? I waited until I knew there was someone else in the house because I knew my 3-day-old couldn’t be counted on to call for backup if my uterus came shooting out my ass. Trust me, the fear is real.

3. Looking a little poofy? A lot of women retain water during pregnancy. And once you’re not pregnant anymore, all of the water has got to go somewhere. Be prepared to sweat, sister. Boob sweat? Yeah, that’s a thing and you’d better get used to it. Remember how your signature scent used to be Chanel or Dolce and Gabbana? There’s a really good chance that your new signature scent is going to be body odor and breast milk in various stages of digestion.

4. You’ll have to get speedy with the diaper changes. Everyone warned me about the geyser of urine that I could expect to come out of my baby if I wasn’t fast enough with the diaper change. Yes, yes, it’s all fun and games until somebody gets pee in their eye — but somebody should step up and warn you about the POOP.

Babies can projectile poop. Who knew?! How far can these little critters shoot their shit? Well, I’m pretty sure that depends on how far away the nearest object is. If you aren’t too fried to think back to high school physics, perhaps you remember Newton’s Law about how an object in motion will stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. Pretty sure he had liquid baby feces in mind when he came up with that one.

5. You’ll never love your husband more than when you see him being a father to your child. And you’ll never resent him more than when you’ve been up feeding a squalling newborn every 45 minutes and he wakes up, turns to you, and says, “Wow! Did the baby sleep through the night?!” That’s right, even the most doting daytime fathers seem to have a mechanism in their brains that makes them deaf to the sound of night wakings. You may have thoughts of assaulting him when he says things like this, but don’t act them — because if he presses charges, then you’ll be locked up and he’ll be left to take care of your adorable newborn on his own, which is of course a problem because he can’t seem to hear that damn baby.