Thanks to every one of you who contributed a post or comment to Blogging for LGBT Families Day. Once again, I am overwhelmed by their variety and thoughtfulness. I’ll be highlighting various posts and themes in the coming days, but I urge you to read through them for yourselves.
As a further way of saying thanks, here’s the last of three giveaways of And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents, and Our Unexpected Families
For today’s drawing, I’ll pick the winner randomly from all of the people who leave a comment on this post with their answer to the following question:
What’s the one thing you wish someone had told you before you became a parent? OR What’s the one thing you’d like to know before becoming one?
Comments must be left before 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time Thursday, June 3. (That’s 2:59 a.m. Eastern Time, June 4.)
Thanks to Insomniac Press for making this possible.
Full rules and restrictions after the jump.
Rules and restrictions: U.S. and Canada residents only, please. One entry per person. Don’t worry if your comment is moderated; once I approve it, it will appear based on the time you submitted it. Spam comments, including off-topic or purely commercial comments, will not count. If you win any one of the three drawings for this book, you cannot play again. If you are or have been a paying advertiser (or an employee of a paying advertiser) on Mombian, you can’t play.
You must also leave a valid e-mail address with your comment. Don’t leave a postal address, though. If you win, I’ll contact you by e-mail about shipping. I will then share the winner’s name and postal address with the publisher, for the sole purpose of allowing them to mail you your prize.
I am a member of the Amazon Associates program, and get a small referral fee from all purchases made at Amazon.com via links on this site. You are under no obligation to purchase through them.
I wish I had started earlier…but two is the new four : )
I heard and read a lot about how hard the first few months are but didn’t read much about how wonderful they are too. Or maybe, I was just focused on the hard stuff. For me, there is nothing better than a newborn, passed out sleeping on my chest.
I also wished someone had told me that the baby blues is pretty common and it would likely be more than getting just a little weepy at sad commercials. I cried every day for two weeks after my son was born and was shocked by just how much the hormones were affecting me.
i wish someone would have told me that our baby would grow so fast. sure, people mentioned that “they grow up so quickly”, but i don’t think i even know what that meant until it actually happened.
our daughter is 14 months and slowly but surely she is needing us less and less. first was the weening, and then she no longer needed us to make baby food and then she no longer needed us to feed her and then she no longer needed us to mix her formula and now she no longer needs to be rocked to sleep.
about a week ago, while trying our normal bedtime routine of cuddle and snuggle with a bottle, she pulled away and reached for her crib. we place her in it, and she layed herself down and closed her eyes… and it’s been that way ever since. our baby is slowly but surely no longer “the baby”. and now we find ourselves wanting another baby.
I wish that someone would have told me about the 2am fights with my partner. That we would fight like we never had before, due to sleep deprivation and the stress of such a big life changes. And that we would get through it (which we did) and that it would actually make us stronger as a couple.
I wish someone had told me how time-consuming a baby is! How hard it is to do any running around between feedings and naptime. I wish someone had told me as well that becoming a mom transforms you into a stronger person – that might have helped when we were so stressed out!
How incredibly deep your love for your child will be. Although I guess people can tell you that, but you’ll really understand it until you actually experience it.
Oh, and how you may develop irrational fears regarding your child’s safety.
I wish I knew that it would feel wonderful and amazing most of the time, and that completely outweighs the frustrating and annoying things.
And that a good night’s sleep can really change everything.
Honestly, nothing. Experiencing all the mystery, love and newness of my children (15 month old twins) has by far been the absolute greatest journey and discovery I have ever known in my life. I often articulate this feeling to friends by saying that it feels like I now know the answer to some huge secret or mystery regarding the meaning of life – specifically, my own. There’s really nothing anyone could have said to prepare me for that. It simply grew organically from day one, like a garden of wonderment and surprise and the love… oh my god, the love is so incredible and transcends my understanding of what I previously thought love was… Ok, there is one thing I wish someone would have told me. I wish someone would have told me that I should protect my rights as our children’s non-biological parent by forming legal agreements prior to the births of our twins. I wish someone would have told me not to have been so naive and trusting and reliant on happy, informal agreements and that our marriage/relationshiop might dissolve one day and what rights will I have if and when that happens?
This is a hard question to answer. I’ve loved discovering everything, the good and the bad. My boys are 12 months now and each day bring something new. I think people around tried to tell me things, but I’m not sure I was able to take it in. I love each new stage, the mutual discovery and growth.
So, there isn’t really anything I wish someone had told me before having them.
I wish someone could tell me how best to navigate the waters as a queer parent when I become one. How do you raise well-adjusted, self-confident children with two moms? And even more important, how do you balance you need to protect and shelter them from the world with the inevitability that they will some day experience reality? That part terrifies me.
You don’t need all that gear. They don’t use stuff for very long. Used is good.
I wish I could know what it’s like to be a nonbiological parent. Our society is based around having biological parents and I’m worried about fitting into that.
Hmmmm…. I wish someone would have told me that there are plenty of ways to foster attachment that don’t have to do with feeding (as medical issues prevented normal feeding for years, and that was so very stressful for us)
I wish someone would have told me to trust my own instincts. And that one of the keys to being a great parent is to laugh often and never take yourself too seriously!
The one thing i would like to know before I become a parent is how much becoming a parent will actually change my life. Will my partner and I turn into the people who only talk about cloth diapers and homemade baby food? I would also like to know If I will be able to love a second baby as much as I love the first…..but to tell the truth I really don’t want to know all the answers before i start the test.
[...] we’ve had some great comment threads here about parenting issues lately, here’s another topic for discussion: What’s the [...]