I thought I had a lot of surprises when I was pregnant, so I felt like I was pretty ready for postpartum and all of the changes that would come. I was ready to be back in my body and have everything be normal again. I knew about postpartum hair loss, to expect to look pregnant for a while after, but I mostly thought I would deflate and might be a little hormonal.

Some of those things did happen, but there was a lot that surprised me once I finally reached the postpartum stage. For the most part I was too wrapped up in learning how to be a new mom for any of these to be too crazy annoying, but nonetheless I think it’s important to talk about all these things because it seems like not many people do. So many people talk about how to care for your new baby, products you might need for postpartum, products you need for your baby, but not too many people go into detail about what exactly might happen once you are in the postpartum phase. So here are some things that took me by surprise: