Recently, one of my closest friends had a baby. She's the first parent in the friend group and living vicariously through her journey has been educational, to say the least. There is just sooo much about having a baby that nobody really talks about until it's happening.
So when I came across 32-year-old Emily Haswell's TikTok sharing things she never thought about before having a baby, I laughed, I cried, I hit the share button, and I was absolutely fascinated with the conversation in the comments.
In the video, she says, "Hello, these are some things I didn't think about before having a baby that I urge you to consider. If you are having a baby with a dude, you will have to hear your mom call him 'daddy.' If you have a bathroom emergency while you're alone with your baby, your baby has to come with you because they can't survive. And they just watch you with dead eyes as you fight for your life."
"You still take care of your baby even when you're on your period. The government doesn't send anybody to help or anything. Boomers really don't care about visiting a 32-year-old woman that's gonna yell about police brutality every time they visit, but they are very interested in visiting a little cute baby that can't talk. So just know that your family is going to be around a lot more."
"You're responsible for clipping your baby's fingernails, even though it feels like something that a surgeon should be doing. The majority of noises that babies make sound like they're not long for this world. In reality, they're just tiny scientists. You are the test subject, and the experiment is how many times a day can they make you go, 'Is she okay?'"
And in the comments, parents are swapping harrowing tales of bathroom emergencies, fingernail clipping incidents, and the absolute horror of hearing your mom call your partner "daddy."
