Bringing a new little one into the family is wonderful and exciting. The excitement and anticipation are inevitable. Mommy and daddy work diligently to determine what the perfect everything will look like. There are conversations ranging from the color of the new nursery to the baby names that each has chosen. We walk hand-in-hand with our partners through every baby store in the 150-mile vicinity to ensure that we can touch and play with all of the items we ultimately choose for our registry. We cuddle together before bed while our guys rub our bellies and sing silly songs. Everything is working towards that perfect moment when our lives change forever: the day that baby is part of our external worlds.

With all of the excitement going on, the men in our lives don’t realize how we’ll change.

This pre-birth daydreaming colors the future so sparkly and brightly that he doesn’t even notice that poor mom is having all the feels and is about to completely change after the birth of her little peanut. It is almost as if he is partnered with a completely different woman. They wonder where our sharp, put-together, seductive and spontaneous selves have gone. Sadly, as he realizes that the exact version of her he has come to know and love is long gone, he might be crushed.

15 She Ditches Her Bikini Undies For Granny Panties

He loved how attractive she looked when she pranced around in her frilly bikini undies. She commanded the room and showed amazing grace and confidence. Birth changes us. Our guys are crushed. We now feel bulgy in all the wrong places while areas we didn’t even know existed are pushing our bodies to new levels of distress.

Who wants to put on those sexy, satin bikini cut underwear or that pretty new thong number we bought before we realized we were pregnant? Not us. We trade those in for granny panties as those are the only ones that seem to tuck us in just the right places and hide all the nooks and crannies. With white granny panties, there is no need for an array of small hearts and pastels.

14 Her Tears Increase Exponentially

Say farewell to the calm, cool and always-collected wife we once knew before our new love arrived. Our men were awed at our abilities to work hard and remain calm under even the slightest pressure.

Ever since the baby was born, we are now a wet, soggy and teary mess. The hormones are racing through our bodies as if they are running from a burning building. There are rare moments of calm, but most of the time we are in fight or flight mode or just horribly sad. We try to choke back the tears but they inevitably run down our faces in heavy streams. We feel out of control as we try to explain to our guys, but they look at us like deer caught in headlights. It’s scary.

13 She’s Suddenly Forgetful

Pregnancy brain is a real thing. We swear it is! It has been confirmed by dozens of doctors who have performed studies and brain scans. People may balk and think it’s an excuse for us women to flake on plans and forget important dates. We are suddenly looked upon as insane when we put the sugar in the fridge and the butter in the cabinet; even after we give birth, however, everyone in our path will fall victim to our forgetfulness and our inability to hold intellectually stimulating, focused conversations.

The men in our lives are horrified as they wonder what foreign entity has overtaken their once highly skilled, intelligent wife’s body and mind, that wife who was always on top of things, agenda firmly in hand.

12 His Advances Are Dismissed

We feel bad about this, too. After birth, everything changes. This includes our libido. Our bodies have now become a factory for keeping another human alive. Our men become saddened and discouraged when we shrink away from physical advances. Now, all we think about is when the relief from our nipples being engorged will come and if our nether regions will ever be the same.

We feel anything but attractive and the last thing we want to do is be vulnerable and naked. It really is not him, it’s her. Regardless, it is very crushing to his spirit as we try to explain how we just need a few extra moments of rest and are scared if we do make love, we may accidentally pee the bed, which is not attractive at all.

11 She Uses Her Bathrobe

He secretly used to glance away from his video game for quick moments while she stepped out of the shower in the adjacent master bathroom. After the baby, this scene changed. We close the door when we shower now and we always use our bathrobe. We slip it on as quickly as possible and there is never a moment for him to steal a look.

We never used our bathrobe before. Now we are so horrified by all of the changes that we feel the only way to tuck it all back in after we shower is by stuffing it carefully into a fluffy bathrobe. This is to his dismay, of course, but one he will have to get used to while we come to terms with our new post-pregnancy bodies.

10 Cup Size Conundrums

We had always been solid in our 38C-sized breasts and proud of their bounce and our body curves. We secretly loved the attention they provided. Post-birth creates some changes. *Insert insecure feelings and pain, pain and more pain*. Then, our breasts seem to take on a mind of their own and get giant.

Eventually, after all of that nursing and milk production, they tend to decrease a bit in size and sadly, they sag a bit. Not only is there now the stress of what size bra to purchase this time around and the mourning of our once-voluptuous twins, so perfectly symmetrical, but now we see the look in his eyes as we struggle in this unanticipated arena. He used to love our perfectly perky, pink breasts.

9 Confidence Decreases

We used to rock a room and all eyes would focus on us. We held our heads high and were always showing confidence, even if we did not feel it. We took the time to do our hair and makeup and choose our nicely coordinated outfit. We never left the house in sweats. Our guys are crushed when they see us not only leave the house in loungewear, but realize we aren’t even wearing yoga pants or sweats.

New rules have taken the place of our old confidence-boosting behaviors. We step out of the house with a giant, moo-moo style stained T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, the ones with the kitties on them. Confidence is not an option in this choice of attire. We are all saddened by this new reality.

8 Her Morning Runs Are Now Non-Existent

Faithfully, our guys watched us get up each morning and look on point as we pulled our locks back into a ponytail and took off for our morning run. By the time we were back, he was just getting up and the delicious smell of coffee began to permeate the air. Our coffee cups were on the table, steam spilling over them and we were smitten by this beautiful, well-played routine each day.

We rocked the morning complete with our hubbies looking on in awe. Once we give birth to that precious little peanut, things change. We don’t even fit into those running shorts anymore, nevermind the fact that we have been up since one in the morning with sore nipples and a super-needy infant who is suddenly going through a growth spurt.

7 Sometimes Coffee Cups Get Thrown

Along with unpredictable, raging hormones in general, after birth, we become short-tempered and extremely agitated. We chock this up to lack of sleep, hormonal hell and the feeling of our whole worlds (and once pulled-together sleeker bodies) being tossed haphazardly into perpetual chaos.

Sometimes, much to our man’s dismay, we become so short-tempered that even we do not know when we might snap. Seeing deep, dark red is common. We even shock ourselves sometimes! We apologize in advance for hurting your tender heart if we get so enraged that a coffee cup goes flying or we start punching our pillows like an insane person in crazy desperation. We try to anticipate this, but it often appears to come out of nowhere. Sometimes smashing stuff seems the only path of release.

6 Cankles Can Happen

Long gone is our bombshell silhouette, complete with long, shapely legs and six-pack abs where we could awe an audience in seconds. Our bodies have been invaded by (gasp!) cankles! Our feet swell and we swear we are not human anymore. Much to our partner’s dismay, we are no longer able to get around so easily.

Our feet are sore and ankles have now morphed into cankles. We are embarrassed by the way that we are unable to move with such grace and ease. We do not feel we can keep up with our partners and we feel ashamed. We never, ever thought we would fall victim to this type of existence. It crushes his heart, we know; however, he is not the one whose feet have held him hostage.

5 His Fearless Female Is Now A Germaphobe

Before birth, our OCD-induced paranoia was limited. We kept things in neat piles, organized our CDs alphabetically, and arranged our books according to subject. That seemed socially acceptable and not indicative of a psych stay. Our guy, although he teases us a bit, is smitten by our organization; after giving birth, however, we morph into a germaphobe monster complete with fangs and wielding a bottle of hand sanitizer and aiming it at anyone who dares approach our baby.

We become obsessed with keeping germs at bay. We no longer leave the house without our sanitizer stash, and we wipe down every hard surface that our baby may come in contact with. Not only is this crushing, but for our guys who aren’t used to this obsessive madness, they become slightly embarrassed by our new antics.

4 He Is No Longer The One And Only

There was once a time that our baby daddy was not the jealous type. Since the creation of our new family unit has come to fruition, he’s dismayed at his new feelings of jealousy. He may think to himself, “It’s okay, I will just fend for myself tonight for dinner,” when you forget to check in during the day. He begins to feel neglected and is annoyed at being put second all the time.

We’re so exhausted that we don’t even ask how his day was. We become obsessed with how many times our nugget is pooping each day and panic about SIDS. We are neck deep in stained baby laundry and ruled by our breast pump which appears to be our new best friend and faithful sidekick. He is no longer number one.

3 Date Night Is Not A Priority

Before, it was just us: regular date nights, trivia games and beer on Thursdays, pizza at home on Fridays. Then, enter stage below, baby. This tiny little munchkin has completely taken over our once easy, peasy baby-less world. Our date night rituals are only a distant memory and now the star of the show is our new little addition.

Not only is he the star, but now he gets all of our attention pretty much on a non-stop basis. Our guy is now sloppy seconds and that’s only if we have the time and energy to squeeze in a cuddle once the baby has been put down until the next, undoubtedly too-soon feeding. It appears that all that is discussed is the baby and the world that revolves around him.

2 Family Vacations Now Involve Mickey

Bermuda, the Bahamas, Aruba and Costa Rica were amazing and relaxing vacations with the all-inclusive perks and, of course, adult-only fun. Our husbands sigh in defeat as they open the email you sent with Disney cruise specials and dates for when your newborn turns two. Our guys wonder what happened to vacations now? What happened to the quiet cabin in the woods each winter in December? What happened to our beach house getaway in the summer?

Long live those days, our guys realize, as they grunt at the thought of having to sport Mickey Mouse ears and dance around to Disney songs on a cruise infested with tiny little beings, who outnumber the adults. He is not only sad, but feels his soul has died a little on the inside.

1 Hormonal Heartbreak

One thing that our poor, naive other-half never could never see coming was the postpartum depression symptoms that we begin to experience almost too soon after birth. This is not simply rage or moodiness, but more of a specific set of symptoms that can sometimes be so horrific that we end up in the mental hospital for actual medical treatment.

This is not raging hormones or a lack of sleep. It is a serious illness that truly breaks our guy’s heart. He is sad to see us in this emotional space. Just a year ago, nothing could break us. We flew by the seat of our pants, easy-going, confident and happy. This has just about crushed him as he navigates new ways to help us.

References: The Atlantic, WebMD, Parents