Livre d'Or

Social assumptions:
"Leave the rest of your stuff in the car and dad can get it when you are back on the ward"

A discharge process from the maternity ward that assumed my lift home would be entirely happy with waiting around for over 6 hours, being told "just another hour or so" at intervals. Because of course it would be dad, with a car. (haha no).


Involuntary childlessness / mental health:
When I got married, I wanted lots of children. My first pregnancy was difficult enough that it took me over four years to even consider going through it again. My second pregnancy was so much worse that I will never voluntarily be pregnant again. I am both fierce about needing good contraception until I hit menopause, and significantly upset that I "can't" have more children.

A lot of well-meaning friends & family minimise my decision "oh, you say that now!" or "it might be better next time", or the extra-special "well, if you feel like that, why didn't you get sterilised while they were doing the c-section?"

My mother at least, who was very cheerleady "it could be better next time!" after the first pregnancy, has taken me seriously after seeing the state I was in at intervals during the second.

Not all the family is: I've had several variations on "but your babies are so lovely, what a pity you won't give us any more" or even the creepy-eugenics "but if brainy people like you and T don't have more babies, we'll get outbred by stupid people who can't use contraception".


Being fat while pregnant:
It would be nice if midwives / obstetricians didn't express such complete surprise that my blood pressure remained normal, or that I reported doing regular exercise. The booking-in midwife for my second pregnancy asked me FOUR times if I was SURE I hadn't had gestational diabetes with my first. Because I was so Terribly Overweight, see.