While you are waiting for your baby, you think that everything is going to be perfect. You believe that you will have the strength and physical fitness to give birth through natural childbirth. And that you can bear it without an epidural and that then everything will be over and you will go home happy with your baby. That everything will go as you expect.
Then comes the time of delivery and instead of contractions you break water. Instead of the quick and painless delivery you have envisioned you find it to be long and tedious work. You cry out for the epidural and then, instead of coming home and enjoying your baby in the privacy of your home, there are constant visits, which sometimes are no longer even pleasant or welcome. You discover that being a mom is much more than giving birth.
Before being a mother
When you see other mothers with their children, you analyze the parenting failures they may have. You value them according to your criteria and you think that you can do better. You think that if every woman has the capacity to be a mother, it can't be that difficult.
You learn about all the parenting methods, vaccines, the benefits of breastfeeding, etc. From everything you're supposed to know to make it all flow on its own and never lose control.
Before becoming a mother, you believe that as long as you follow the instructions that you have read or that have been taught in any course, nothing will escape your hands. And you really think that you are going to achieve it, that everything will be under your reins and you will get everything in order on time.
You idealize the situation without thinking that life always surprises you, that later, nothing turns out as you expect. That at any moment an unforeseen event can arise, that changes everything.
After being a mother
Surely the delivery had nothing to do with what you expected. Plus a horde of hormones takes over you and makes you confused, sad, tired, happy, and excited all at the same time. It doesn't matter how much you want your friends and family to meet your baby. Everything really bothers you now.
You are very upset, if you decided to breastfeed, it may have taken a while for the milk to rise. You may have cracks that cause pain when breastfeeding. None of that matters to you, because it is the good of your baby. What does matter to you is that the visitors constantly repeat that you put the pacifier on them, when you have read in hundreds of articles, magazines and breastfeeding manuals that you should not do it. That constantly, the people you care about, are judging what you do and how you do it, when it is your baby, not theirs.
It may be that, for any reason, the milk does not rise or you have any problem and instead of the breastfeeding that you dreamed of, you have to give a bottle. And nothing will happen.
Family learning after motherhood
It is possible that you argue with your partner, you will understand why there are so many people who say that a child unites a lot, as well as that there are couples who divorce shortly after having it. It is an important bonding test, the teamwork.
You will find that sometimes things don't turn out as well as the manuals tell you. That your baby is born as a free being and that it will teach you that sometimes, that the roads are not straight. You will learn to handle its curves and slopes, highs and lows. Your son is going to teach you one of the most important lessons in life, to live improvising.
You will realize that it is very difficult, sometimes impossible, to get to everything. You will renew an admiration for your mother, for your grandmother and for all the mothers of this world. Because they didn't even have manuals to follow, some couldn't even read and raised healthy, strong and happy children.
After being a mother, you surrender to the evidence that everything is the other way around from how you imagined it. It is your child who teaches you lessons. And you gave him life, as he gives you every day.