Although she's yet to make an official announcement — reportedly because she's saving that for Us Weekly — it's all but confirmed that Snooki is pregnant, with "sources" indicating that she's about three or four months along. We want to congratulate the Jersey Shore star and her boyfriend Jionni on their impending arrival. But we also have some words of wisdom to share, from one former party girl to another, about the lifelong hangover that is motherhood.
Dear Snooki,
I am going to tell you something that nobody told me when I was pregnant: Having a newborn is a total fucking nightmare. Seriously. I think maybe most parents feel like they aren't allowed to say that aloud because children are supposed to be blessings and to be cherished, or because they think people will think they don't love their kids if they complain. I also think that most parents are secretly so terrified of SIDS that they illogically fear they'll jinx their babies' lives if they even hint at the fact that early infancy can be a giant bummer.
So, Snooki, know this: It's okay to acknowledge that it completely sucks butt to listen to a baby scream and cry for hours on end while your body somehow continues to function despite the fact that you haven't slept for more than two consecutive hours for about six weeks. You'll be amazed at how much sleep deprivation screws with your head. And this isn't the kind of sleep deprivation one experiences after, say, a three-day bender. You're at least allowed to feel remorseful after those. But the minute you engage in any kind of compunction during the early days of motherhood, you begin to feel guilty — and you will probably handle those emotions by crying alone in the shower. And that's all if you don't have postpartum depression.
By the seventh or eighth month of your pregnancy, you'll no doubt be desperate for a margarita and will insist that you're going to celebrate with one upon the birth of your child, but when you get home from the hospital, you'll be too tired to go anywhere and the ordeal of having to pump and dump your milk just makes liquor seem totally not worth it. Your partying days will be over, and maybe what's even sadder is that you won't care.
If you do decide to breastfeed your tits will most likely bleed before they get all crusty and cracked and you'll find it excruciating to put on a bra, so it'll become normal for you to sit on the couch completely topless while you have a conversation with your mother-in-law. You will constantly be drenched in sweat as your body expels all that water weight, and the sweat will continue in your sleep and fuck up your hair, making you look like Christopher Lloyd every morning. Bonus: If you have a C-section, you'll also be hunched over because standing up straight will be an impossibility. You will look horrible and feel worse.
The fact of the matter is that it takes forever for babies to do anything remotely interesting. It'll be a few weeks before they stop being all googly eyed and can actually focus. A few more before the gross red splotches and baby acne completely go away. You have to wait nearly two months just to get a social smile and another month before your baby will make a sound other than crying. My kid didn't even realize she had feet until she was four months old. The good news is that five months into it your baby will start to be really fun and you will have already cycled through the Kübler-Ross stages of grief over the fact that you just have to exist on less sleep. The bad news is that you'll have to wait five fucking months to get to that point, which will at once seem excruciatingly long and totally fly by.
But yes, it's true that you'll have that beautiful baby to make it all worth it. And you'll be unable to stop taking pictures and you and your baby's father will have all these bonding moments in bed laughing at the unbelievably, explosively loud farts that your little one will make, and you'll smile as you play with your baby's tiny, delicate little fingers while your egos get stroked over this sublime being that you two managed to make with your own bodies.
Frankly, you will be in awe over how something so perfect could result from the world's sloppiest pull out.
Photo art by Jim Cooke.