I Got You Mama: A Pediatrician's Guide to Surviving and Thriving During Pregnancy, Childbirth and the First Year of Your Baby's Life

By Kristen Cook, MD

The journey to parenthood is different for everyone, but the struggles of pregnancy, childbirth and the first year of a baby’s life are almost universal. As parents (or future parents), we are constantly fed a myth that being a Mommy or Daddy is a wonderful, amazing and completely fulfilling experience. We are expected to raise our children effortlessly, love every minute of being a parent and post the pictures on social media to prove it. We feel guilty if we do not like a certain aspect of this experience and we are shamed if someone doesn’t agree with our decisions. Parents, it is time to stop the insanity. Creating, growing, birthing and raising a child is really hard! I know this because I am a Mom of two strong-willed children and a pediatrician with over a decade of experience in the medical field. I understand that you are inundated with information from family members, friends, and the media who all tell you what you should do, and what you should not do, for yourself and for your child. This information is often conflicting and confusing. You know what? I Got You, Mama. Take a deep breath and hang with me. This book is a no holds barred approach with information that is real, raw, and sometimes gross! But… I promise it will help you to unapologetically thrive as a parent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662402548

Book preview

Chapter 1

Introduction to Parenthood

The Good, the Bad, and the Utterly Disgusting

You think you want to be a parent, bring a child into this world, and raise that child for the next eighteen years of their life?

Congratulations! Being someone’s mommy or daddy is the most rewarding and most challenging job in the history of the world. Being a parent involves lots of sleepless nights, tons of worry, and even more laughter. Being a parent will bring you happiness that you never imagined possible. There will be life-changing, amazing moments during your journey as a parent! And I wish I could only tell you about the happy and amazing and wonderful things about pregnancy, childbirth, and the first year of your baby’s life. But honestly, that does you no good.

You need to know the truth.

You need to know the exhausting, bodily-fluid-filled, wanting-to-rip-your-hair-out truth. And sometimes the truth hurts. As a pediatrician and a fellow parent, I want you to have the most medically accurate, real-life information about being pregnant, delivering a baby, and surviving the first year of your baby’s life. I want you to understand the joy, and I need you to understand the pain. Some of this information is going to be gross. Some of this information may be uncomfortable to read. Some of this information may cause you to cringe or slap your forehead. Some of this information may piss you off. But all this information is real and true and necessary to understand. And I am presenting this information from a standpoint of a fellow parent who just happens to be a darn good pediatrician. I got you, Mama.

By the time I had my first child, I had graduated from medical school with honors, had completed a challenging three-year pediatric residency program at one of the top children’s hospitals in the country, and had been practicing as a general pediatrician in a large multispecialty medical group for two years. I read all the best pregnancy and parenting books. I researched the best swaddle sacks and baby toys and booby covers for breastfeeding. I made sure that my husband practiced changing diapers on a teddy bear so he would know what to do when our real baby was finally here. I thought I was prepared. I thought I was ready. I thought I had the knowledge and expertise to absolutely slay the whole parenting thing. I thought everything was going to be great and beautiful and wonderful and that I would love every single minute of being someone’s mommy!

I thought wrong.

I spent all my prepregnancy and pregnancy time focused on learning things related to my baby. Big mistake. By spending all my time focusing my research on things related to the baby, I completely neglected myself in the process. I didn’t have much of an understanding of what it was truly like to be pregnant for nine months and to give birth to a child. I had never had that life experience before, so of course, I didn’t know anything about it! But I also didn’t realize how important it would be to learn about those things before I personally went through them. I didn’t read a single book about mucus plugs or about lochia. And if you don’t know what those terms mean, it is okay, and I promise I will break it all down for you.

In all reality, despite my education and training and experience, I didn’t know a damn thing about what it really meant to survive pregnancy and childbirth and the first year of my baby’s life until I actually went through it. As a result, this was a lonely and confusing time for me. Sister, I do not want that to be your experience. In order to thrive during pregnancy, childbirth, and the life that follows, you need to understand some things, which is why I am going to explain every single detail of being pregnant, delivering a baby, and what life is like for the first year after your baby is born. I will not shy away from the tough stuff because this is information that you need to know.

Nothing truly 100 percent prepares you for becoming a parent. Becoming a parent means that you have the responsibility to care for a human being 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Once that child is in your arms for the first time, it is your job to keep that child alive, make sure that child feels loved, and help that child navigate the crazy yet wonderful world that we live in. In an instant, it’s not just about you anymore. That is a huge deal, and it can be completely overwhelming.

What makes matters worse is that everyone seems to have an opinion about what you as a parent should do, what you shouldn’t do, what books you need to read, what you need to feed your child, what brand of diapers you should use, what outfit you should dress your newborn in when they go home from the hospital, what to put on your baby’s diaper rash, and the list goes on. Trying to navigate advice from friends and family members and coworkers and celebrity parents and the Internet is exhausting and confusing. This book will make it much simpler.

For many parents, the journey to parenthood starts with trying to become pregnant. Please understand that your path to becoming a mommy or daddy will be very different than someone else’s path. From the very beginning of your parenting journey, I need you to set an intention. I need you to promise to yourself that you will not compare your parenting journey to anyone else’s parenting journey. No comparisons. Set the intention, and do not break this promise to yourself. Trust me when I say that comparing yourself to others will only hurt you, especially when it relates to becoming a parent.

This is what I know about life in general—there is a big difference between a person’s real, raw life and the life they allow others to see and to understand. Perception is reality. Not convinced? Hop on your favorite social media site and look around. Your girl Jane may be quick to post pictures of the amazing dinners she makes for her family night after night but fails to mention that her husband belittles her if dinner is not ready when he gets home from work. Your coworker Mary may have her Instagram account full of pictures of her grandkids with their arms around one another even though she only sees those children once or twice a year. Still not convinced? How many times have you told someone that you are fine when you are obviously hurt or angry? How many times have you smiled when you really wanted to cry?

True story. My husband and I were out with several other couples at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant known for their strong margaritas. We were all enjoying the food, the drinks, and the conversation when suddenly one of the guys in the group said, We have something to tell you guys… He and his wife then announced their pregnancy. And I was thrilled for them. I truly was. But it also hit me like a ton of bricks—I wanted a baby. I wanted to be a mommy. And those margaritas had a funny way of making that desire insanely strong, which only made me drink more margaritas. I held it together for as long as I could, but when I felt like I was starting to cry, I ran out of the restaurant toward my car (don’t worry, we had previously arranged my then fiancé to be the designated driver that night). I tripped and fell as I stumbled out of the restaurant, hit my head on a metal pole, and flashed my underwear to a bunch of strangers on my way down to the ground. Emotionally and physically, I was in a lot of unnecessary pain.

The road to becoming a parent may be incredibly difficult for some and far too easy for others. It’s a simple fact of life that some people struggle with infertility and others are incredibly fertile and get pregnant at the drop of a hat. This statement is not meant to minimize the pain of infertility or of pregnancy loss. I’ve been through the heartache of miscarriage, and it almost broke me. Not being able to have a baby in the manner you want it to happen is completely gut-wrenching. I need to be real with you, and my point is very simple: life is not fair.

It is not fair that you desperately want to be a parent and your cousin got pregnant after a one-night stand. It is not fair that you have been trying to adopt a baby for two years and the best friend of your neighbor’s sister just gave up her baby for adoption to a family that lives five states away. Life is not fair, and it is okay to be mad about that. But that anger or that hurt does not get you any closer to becoming a parent. I need you to realize that you have no control over the variation in fertility. You have no control over a person who chooses at the last minute to keep their baby instead of adopting them out to you as they promised. And if you focus on how all your friends or colleagues are having children and you aren’t, that will only hurt you. And you do not deserve that pain. Comparing your life to someone else’s life will always be unfair. My best advice is to focus on yourself and on the creation of your family. Don’t worry about anyone else’s fertility. Don’t compare someone else’s adoption story to your own. If you want to become a parent, you will become one in the way that you were meant to become a parent.

By the way, I have no scientific evidence to support that statement. But in the years that I have been a pediatrician, I have seen a thing or two. And I have come to realize that the children who come into our lives do so because they were meant to come into our lives. This holds true whether they are biological children, foster children, adoptive children, nieces, nephews, etc. I’m not trying to feed you some everything happens for a reason nonsense. But in my experience, the world seems to work out the way it was meant to work out, whether we like it or not.

If you are struggling with infertility, please hang in there. If you have suffered the devastating loss of a miscarriage, you are not alone. But please also understand that there are many ways to become a parent. If you are unable to conceive on your own, consider researching in vitro fertilization. Consider becoming a foster parent. Explore options for adopting a child. If you have been trying to adopt a child for two years, dig your heels in and give the process another year. Please, please, please do not give up on your dream of becoming a parent. If you want to be a parent, I believe that you will make that dream a reality. It may not come about in the exact manner that you had hoped it would, but it will happen for you.

Chapter 2

Pregnancy Loss and Miscarriage

Remember how I promised to tell you the truth about pregnancy? That includes discussing the loss of a pregnancy. Of the women who knew they were pregnant, it is estimated that 10 percent to 20 percent of pregnancies result in miscarriage.¹ The actual miscarriage rate is most likely much higher because some women miscarry before they even realize that they are pregnant. Miscarriage is a taboo topic in our society even though it shouldn’t be. Miscarriage is not contagious, and talking about it doesn’t somehow cause a bad outcome.

A miscarriage is the loss of a pregnancy by spontaneous means prior to twenty weeks gestation; a loss after twenty weeks is called a stillbirth. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists estimates that 60 percent of miscarriage is the result of a chromosomal problem in the embryo.² In simple terms, something was wrong with the baby that made it impossible for them to grow properly and in a way that made it impossible to sustain life.

Mama, nothing you ate nor your favorite spin class or your lack of reading parenting books caused this loss to happen. It is not your fault. And you did nothing to deserve this pain. This is so important to understand that I am going to write it again. The loss of a pregnancy is not your fault. You did nothing wrong. Stop blaming yourself. If you have suffered a pregnancy loss, you will need time to grieve. The level of pain due to pregnancy loss is probably like nothing you have every experienced before. It’s deep and devastating.

In addition, anyone who tries to diminish your pain and loss needs to be shut down or, at a minimum, completely ignored. Because believe it or not, there are people out there who will think they are helping you by telling you that it wasn’t a real baby anyway. They may tell you that it was for the best and that your miscarriage was just nature’s way of taking its course. And in a fragile emotional state, you may not be able to respond verbally to those people. That is okay. But, parents, if you are strong enough, don’t be around those types of people, at least not until you achieve some healing. After a miscarriage, you need support and positive influences. And if a comment that someone makes causes you to question your grief, consider this: would that same helpful person tell a widower whose wife died after a lengthy battle with breast cancer that her death was just nature taking its course? Or that he should be happy now that his wife is not suffering? Or that he really should start dating again soon? I doubt it.

If you have suffered a pregnancy loss, you need to understand that you are not just grieving your baby; you are grieving all the hopes, dreams, and visions of the future you had since finding out you were pregnant. That is a hell of a lot to grieve. And please understand that there is no right or wrong way to grieve following a pregnancy loss. No one ever prepares you for this, so you need to find what works for you. It will probably take some trial and error, and please do not try to rush this process. Grieving the loss of a child takes time. Furthermore, mommies and daddies often grieve in different ways. For example, Mom may want to attend a support group, but Dad isn’t interested. Mom, please don’t be upset with Dad for not attending. As a couple, you need to respect and honor each other’s grieving process.

I learned all this the hard way. When my husband and I were ready to have children, we were financially stable, had blossoming careers, and desperately wanted to become parents. And less than three months after we decided that we were ready for children, I became pregnant. I was so excited that I threw my positive pregnancy test at my husband. As a couple, we were ecstatic. The little blob that we saw on our first prenatal ultrasound was so wanted and already so loved. I started writing lists of potential names for my child, bought a half-dozen parenting books, started designing my child’s future bedroom, and even started looking at maternity clothes.

And then a week later, I had some vaginal bleeding. My doctor ordered another ultrasound. And I will never be able to get the image of my lovely physician looking at the ultrasound screen, looking at me, looking back at the screen, and saying, I’m so sorry, but there is no heartbeat. The emotional pain that followed those words was intense. To make matters worse, my mom and my husband just happened to be in the room with me when this occurred. For my mom, the very first image of her very first grandchild was a dead embryo. I have the image of her face looking at that ultrasound screen in my head as well, and it will probably never go away. My entire world was shattered in the blink of an eye. It took me six years to fully grieve my miscarriage, my desperately wanted, lost child. Six. Years.

I had a surgical D and C (dilation and curettage) two days after that ultrasound, which just happened to be on a Friday. The following Monday, I was back at work. The first patient whom I had to take care of was a newborn whose mother regularly used crack/cocaine during her pregnancy. In fact, the mom was high on cocaine during the baby’s delivery. My already broken heart broke a million times again. I just had a dead, loved, desperately wanted baby sucked out of my body; and this woman gave birth to a very much alive baby whom she didn’t want, didn’t care about, and gave away to anyone who would take him. It took everything in my power not to scream at her. Even though I was shaking, I forced a smile in her direction, did my job, then went back to my office and sobbed.

My pain was compounded by the fact that only a few trusted people in my inner circle even knew I had suffered a miscarriage. I wasn’t ready to talk about the loss, and I didn’t want anyone to know that something was wrong. As such, I forced myself to live my life in the manner I had always lived it, at least to the outside world. For a long time, I was living a lie. It felt the exact opposite of genuine, but survival mode was what I needed until I was able to grieve.

From a fertility perspective, I was fortunate. I became pregnant a few months after my miscarriage. What should have been an incredibly happy time was riddled with fear. Every time that I went to the bathroom, I was afraid to see blood in my underwear. Every time I felt a cramp in my abdomen, I contemplated calling my ob-gyn. I was terrified of suffering another pregnancy loss, and I was even more terrified that I would never become a mom. I considered buying an at-home fetal heart rate monitor so I wouldn’t have to receive the news of another dead baby while I was lying in a cold exam room with a full bladder and an ultrasound wand shoved into my lady parts. The first time I felt my son kick me, I felt like an alien was inside my body. Once I could feel his kicks regularly, I panicked if he wasn’t kicking enough. I spent so much time pushing on my belly just to get him to move around. Even as I had my twenty-week ultrasound, the absolute joy of seeing my baby boy was tainted with fear. The pregnancy itself was miserable, and I was constantly waiting for signs that I had lost another child. I spent the entire time preparing for another heartbreak. With my son’s pregnancy, I didn’t truly relax until he was born.

My third pregnancy was unexpected. My husband and I were thrilled, but this pregnancy was riddled with guilt. Not just fleeting guilt but a deep, heavy, substantial guilt that caused me to struggle with bonding with this new creation. When my husband and I had envisioned our future, we both knew that having two children was our magic number, the blessings we desired. Technically, this was my third pregnancy. Throughout the pregnancy, I kept thinking, What makes this baby better than the one I lost? Is she more worthy of life? I felt like I was somehow dishonoring my lost child by successfully carrying this child to term. Did getting pregnant again mean that my miscarried baby was not important? And how would I be able to love this child and not view her as a replacement to the child I had lost?

If you have suffered a miscarriage, please do