Five Idiotic Things the Internet Thinks you Should do When Having a Baby

For those of you who have not been subjected to my most recent instagramific narcissism, LOOK WHAT I DID: I just had my second kid.  Last April I quit my job mainly because I wanted to start trying to have another baby and I thought it would be a good idea to spend some quality time with my pre-existing child before another vessel of my genetic blueprints entered the world. Apparently I am one of those people who can get pregnant just by walking down the diaper aisle at Target and I was knocked up by May 1st.  And I got SIIICK. Nothing helped, not even a prescription for Zofran which is a pretty powerful anti-nausea med, and I pretty much spent the entire summer in bed, passing my toddler off on whoever would take him, and reading about babies on the internet between trips to the toilet to vomit.  My conclusion is that the internet has ever had a baby because some of the things that it thinks you should do when you have a kid are downright outrageous. For example:

When you go into labor, get on your hands and knees and scrub the floors before you go to the hospital. 

Apparently modern technology has the mentality of a fifties housewife. The logic behind this tip is that it will give you a distraction so that you don't end up going to the hospital too early while getting the baby in the perfect position to be born, as an added bonus you will come home from the hospital to nice, clean floors. How fun is that? After sharing your body with another human for 9 months, just top it off by doing grueling housework while trying ignore the contractions that indicate in just a few short hours you are going to be ripped to pieces by something that wont stop demanding things from you for the next 18 years. Personally, I think a better distraction would be pour yourself a glass of wine, turn on some trash TV and make your husband clean the damn floors.

Before you go to the hospital, bake the nurses some cookies. 

Again, the idea here is to distract you but this you win bonus points with the tired overworked nurses.  And I kind of get it, nurses work their asses off and they definitely don't get the respect that they deserve.  However, I don't believe that you should spend your last moments of peace, possibly for the  rest of your life baking cookies for somebody else.  Plus, logistically which nurses are you baking cookies for? The L&D nurses or the recovery nurses?   Also, if most nurses are like me, I don't eat food from strangers, I have seen one too many "normal looking" people on Hoarders to trust somebody else's kitchen, so there is the distinct possibility that the cookies get thrown out. It's a hospital, not a bake sale.  I will note that this particular tip gave me major anxiety in the hospital, "DO THE NURSES HATE ME BECAUSE I DIDN'T BRING THEM COOKIES?" Well, if they did they were very, very nice about it.

Bring your doctor a gift basket at your 6 week postpartum appointment.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my OB/GYN, she was a very sweet considerate lady and she did an outstanding bringing my baby girl into the world. That said, If I was standing next to her at Trader Joe's and my water broke, she would have no idea who the hell I was.  This really isn't her fault because she probably sees about 100+ patients and come on, newborns and their mothers all kinda look the same. I just don't feel a ton of loyalty to her and the feeling is mutual. Considering that between my insurance and myself we're paying the hospital over twenty grand for this latest little miracle and I think that will go a long way towards paying off my doctor's BMW. I brought her a birth announcement and she really wants some Pepperidge Farm I don't think it will break the bank if she stops by the mall on her way home from work. 

Don't forget to pack your makeup bag to bring to the hospital so you can look pretty in your first pictures with the baby.

I understand where this one comes from because I see pictures of women who just gave birth holding their little bundles of joy looking like they just won Miss America.  I just don't know why this keeps happening. After having my kids I just wanted to sleep and eat sushi and take painkillers.  I couldn't fathom putting on a full face of makeup just to wash it off again, because that required energy. And if you don't wash it off right away, gross.  9 months of water retention plus hormones plus laying in a bed all day leads to major sweating, meaning any makeup job would melt into a puddle in your nursing bra within an hour.  For this reason every picture of me and my hours-old kiddos are bloated-face-pony-tail-dirty-glasses-eyes-half-opened disasters. And they are beautiful. Save the makeup for a family photo session when everyone is a little bit more recovered.

Bring along several copies of your 'birth plan' so that everyone is on the same page. 

Uh... so I actually did this with my first and I am embarrassed, thankfully things got chaotic and the plan never left my hospital bag. If you really want to show some respect to your nurses instead of baking them cookies why don't you treat them with dignity and don't assume that you are the first person ever to ever have a baby, ever, and that there is no way these peons know how to deliver your baby. I can't imagine what a slap in the face it would to a medical PROFESSIONAL to be handed your dinky Microsoft Word document telling them how to do their job after the years of education and experience they have gone through. If you want daddy to cut the cord, fine, if grandma isn't allowed in the delivery room, fine, if you don't want an epidural, fine (and good luck with that by the way).  Just speak up. These are for the most part good good people who will do what is best for you and your baby (even if it is not exactly what you want).