by Autum Liberty

Created on: January 05, 2007   Last Updated: May 17, 2007

1. If you wait for every possible labor symptom to kick in before heading off to labor and delivery, you'll end up giving birth on your bathroom floor. While you may be afraid of embarrassing yourself by showing up at the hospital in false labor, you'll look even more foolish if you end up giving birth on the side of the highway in the middle of rush hour. Trust me early is good and comforting to know your safe and so is your child!

2. Your birth plan isn't necessarily a blueprint for the actual delivery. Just as men seem to think it's a personal failing to look at a roadmap while they're driving, some babies seem determined to ignore the birth plans that their mommies have so carefully drafted. Your birth plan is a wish list, not a legal document. So dont fret when it doesnt go as planned....welcome to mommyhood!

3. You may not feel like bonding with your partner while you're in labor. Rather than wanting to whisper sweet nothings in his ear, as those women in the birthing films all seem to do, you may want to kick his sorry butt out of the birthing room altogether. After all, he's the one who got you in this predicament in the first place!

4. The blood clots you pass during the first few hours after the delivery could be the size of small lemons. For some reason, prenatal instructors aren't big on nitty-gritty facts. They like to compare the bleeding that you'll experience after the delivery to "a heavy menstrual period"
Be prepaired its gonna be awhile before you stop bleeding (personaly I did for a month)

5. You'll be slimmer after the delivery, but you won't be skinny. As a rule of thumb, you can expect to look about five months pregnant after you deliver-a whole lot slimmer than what you've looked in the recent past, but not quite slim enough to be mistaken for a supermodel the first time you hit the grocery store. And for the first couple days after (if you have a c-section you will be swollen)

6. There's no such thing as a one size fits all labor. You could end up with one of those long, drawn out labors that everyone that in your life seems to delight in telling you about or could find your with one of those speedy deliveries that's bound to make you the envy of your prenatal class buddies.

7. Pregnancy books are big on euphemisms. "You know how the pregnancy books all describe the slight burning sensation' that you're supposed to experience when the baby's head begins to crown?" "Well, it's like f*&#-ing blowtorch!"

8. You may not fall head-over-heels in

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