#status/processed ![Cover Image|300](https://149909199.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/03_birth-1.png) # Metadata Author:: [[Tim Urban]] Title:: 10 Thoughts From the Fourth Trimester Full Title:: 10 Thoughts From the Fourth Trimester Import Date:: 2023-05-24 Source:: #source/readwise/reader Source URL:: [Source URL](https://waitbutwhy.com/2023/05/baby.html) Review URL:: [Review URL](https://readwise.io/bookreview/28139464) Public URL:: [Public URL](https://readwise.io/reader/shared/01h15cmy616rn8cza5jz8dmdxc) Newsletter:: [[Digital gardens, Parenting, and Coffee]] # Highlights - Contractions began, which my wife described as “a really bad period cramp,” ==which helped me understand what they felt like 0%== - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h16t0jva8y30y9n1c69n6m2p) - Her epidural plan was something like “definitely get one but tough it out a little first,” and after a particularly awful contraction - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h16t1ga2ck0cvrw8dsqctqjx) - When I asked what the upsetting slimy pancake edge was, the nurse told me it was my daughter. - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h16t2v9f4nx6bwrnyq5mysj8) - A newborn is not a baby. ==Babies are cute and roly-poly and can see and are conscious and are normal and a newborn is not any of these things.== - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h16t3ytqmaz039rjdqj39b7b) - If I want to drive a car, I have to take driver’s ed first. If I want to provide medical advice, I have to go to med school first. But after we had the baby, the hospital was like “don’t shake it k bye.” - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h16t6p0g7t6dzqd1e4azb1ze) - The drive was weird. I had pictured myself heroically driving a screaming labor-having wife to the hospital, but here I was driving normally to the hospital with a very normal wife next to me. - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h172bjmehbjnydehckj5ydnj) - The next contraction came along, I leg-held, my wife pushed, and then ==in the most surreal moment of my life, I was staring at a tiny screaming alien.== - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h172dd9kvw65q2ps3cc11zk6) - There should obviously be like a mandatory ==four-hour course every expecting parent has to take before they’re actually in charge of a newborn.== - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h172gph53ewm23w2g5vw12jz) - Note: Lol yes - ==When a normal person is hungry, or tired, or needs to burp, they’re a little annoyed. Babies are in _Shakespearean agony._ And then comes the burp and one second later they’re like “sup.” It’s insane behavior.== - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h172m8jkpxc0jmseh469mfea) - Tags: [[Funny]] - I love this little creature a freakish amount, but as of now, I’m definitely saving my wife in that situation. Sorry kiddo. I’m sure Tim the Baby-Saver-Wife-Dropper will at some point emerge, but I guess it takes some time. - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h172sr8y4wcjzjc19984yvpz) - Everyone who has met her or seen a picture of her has commented on how cute she is, but they’d say that no matter what she looked like—which I know as someone who has commented on the cuteness of babies ranging from perfect to hideous—so there’s no information there either - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h172ytam1ym7527906mb3vnn) - When you choose a life partner, you’re choosing a lot of things, including your parenting partner and someone who will deeply influence your children, your eating companion for about 20,000 meals, your travel companion for about ==100 vacations, your primary leisure time and retirement friend, your career therapist, and someone whose day you’ll hear about 18,000 times==. Intense shit. - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h1732qk1ftahys5m2fvhvsm5) - Tags: [[Love]] - For people who make the decision to do this, it is the ==BC-AD line of their life. It doesn’t mean you can’t still be you==, but you are trading in one kind of life for another, with all of the pros and cons that come along with it. - Date:: [[2023-05-24]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h1734emrtjhs4z6b890btsn9) - Tags: [[Parenting]]