The Just You Waiters Have Been Wrong About Everything
A plea for the Just You Wait Battalion to wave the white flag.
Members of the Just You Wait Battalion may not always have ill intentions, but they still drive all of us with a growing baby in our uteruses (or a newborn, or a toddler, or a preteen, or a teenager, or anyone seemingly at any stage of life) absolutely bonkers — but especially in matrescence, because there is always something to apparently be Just You Waited by.
“Oh, you think you feel tired now? Just you wait until the baby comes!”
“Oh, you think the newborn phase will be hard? Just you wait until you have a toddler!”
“Oh, you are having a girl? Just you wait until the teenage years when she becomes a hellion!”
It seems that everyone feels that these shots fired are frustrating to dodge. If that’s the case, then why do so many of us hear them so often? Have we forgotten how to be truly tender with each other? Have we forgotten that our experiences are not necessarily the reality, but simply our own realities co-existing with everyone else’s?
My grievances with the Just You Battalion have relaxed as I inch closer to the birth of my first baby. I am learning to let more comments pass in through one ear and stealthily out the other when they don’t serve me.
You may wonder, can I simply not ignore these frivolous notions and just go about my pregnant days? No. Not always, unfortunately.
Matrescence as a first-time mom is completely uncharted territory, riddled with terrifying unknowns and any receipt of compounded fear-mongering, especially when unsolicited, does nothing but make me feel more unraveled. I feel silly when I let these fleeting words worm their way into my psyche, but I cannot help but commiserate about how distressing it feels to be Just You Waited.
It is hard to be pregnant. I do not know what the future holds or what may feel worse or better or brighter as time passes. Pregnancy has been experienced since the dawn of time, but that does not make it any easier on all of the bodies that bear life.
Help us and guide us and comfort us, oh wise ones who have come before us!
What have I learned so far over the last nine months about the Just You Wait Battalion that continues to find its way into my orbit, despite my desire to be oh so chill and ignore all the circling?
The Just You Waiters have been wrong. About everything.
I have felt uncomfortable, anxious, or pained for most of my pregnancy. I have eased into a more peaceful state in my third trimester, however, holding my belly at all hours of the day, trying to catch my baby’s wriggling toes in utero, and squealing every time I feel her roll within me. But overall, my pregnancy has been quite brutal on my body, and still I’ve had a relatively normal gestation without any major complications. I can only imagine how much more support is needed for those who have experienced it worse.
The unrealistic expectation that pregnant women must continuously declare their gratitude through gritted teeth is a social element of pregnancy I have battled with since I first announced I was carrying a child. I feel compelled again to tell you here how deeply grateful I am to be growing my baby girl. Against all the odds and all that I have lost and all that is miraculous about how life is made and grown and birthed. Still, none of that gratitude erases how hard it has been to do so. It is my reality blended with challenge and madness and blessings and everything in between.
Despite all of this, the Just You Waiters are ready to tell me that I should expect to feel worse into perpetuity.
Well, should I?
Each negative “just you wait” comment I have received has been projected with an alarmist tone. These barbs disregard the targeted person’s head and heart entirely — failing to ask questions before offering strong opinions does not foster a productive conversation in any capacity, matrescence or otherwise.
No, my second trimester was not actually “enjoyable.” No, I don’t fear the loss of The Before. No, my goal after pregnancy is not to “bounce back” after birth. Yes, I do feel prepared. Yes, I do feel ready. Yes, I am cherishing it all despite all the mania.
Perhaps another mother doesn’t find comfort in any of her late-night Witching Hours of her baby’s first month of life, but she felt energized by having her baby in her womb. She tells me that I need to “stock up on sleep” and “enjoy life as it is now before everything changes you lose who you are.”
Do I tell her that I’m not sleeping already — that I’m constantly touching my stomach to make sure my baby girl is still alive and it’s further keeping me awake at night? That 65 additional pounds are pressing on my pelvic floor? Or do I keep the peace and nod and say, “HAHA!” like a well-mannered pregnant woman who’s supposed to be growing into softness should?
Do I tell her that I am not so naive that I don’t expect motherhood to be easy, but that I am ready for the next phase? That I am enthusiastic, rather than fearful, about what my next era of matrescence feels like?
Do I put my frustrations aside and ask her questions before I assume what her own intentions are? How do I cease this cycle?
These are difficult thoughts to address in a casual conversation, so perhaps we should save them for more intimate moments instead of having them strewn about invisible battlefields. Because I want to hug that mother for struggling in the times that she did. I hope that no one amplified her anxiety before it struck her. I hope that no one Just You Waited her when she herself was trying to transform.
Inhale, exhale — it all means nothing in the grand scheme of what’s happening in my body, my life, my womb.
I remind myself, in sifting through what I will take and what I will leave behind from others, that I simply do not need to fear what I do not yet know what will frighten me.
A trend I’ve been noticing online is the collective recognition that the Just You Wait Battalion should wave the white flag. I offer this same sentiment.
I instead ask this community, what are the moments a first-time mother can be excited about waiting for?
While we may all face our own battles and experience our own realities, encouraging notions will always better help us to ease our minds and celebrate our new chapters.
I’d love to hear your positive “just you waits.” The moments we may be able to look forward to that have comforted you in your own throes of new motherhood. I’d love to find those shared experiences that bring forth wide eyes and happy hearts rather than fear and anxiety.
“It takes a village,” they say. So, let’s lay down the banners and build it.
Xo,
Violet Carol
More words from Violet Carol can be found on Instagram.
Older Mother Love Letters posts can be read here.
Mother Love Letters is a newsletter for intimate words on the messy and magical shared experiences of pregnancy and motherhood. If this post resonated with you, please feel free to “like” it, share it with a friend, or leave a comment to connect.
I was at a friends baby shower last week and she was sharing all the thing she couldn’t wait to do and my response was wow, you make it all sound so magical. I regret it, I was tired, it is hard to stare the hope of a new mother in the face and not because of what the just you waits could be, at least for me, I wish I could start over again and embrace the beginning with more ease and grace. I am so excited for you, I hope your transition into motherhood is nothing but easeful. Just you wait until that baby is really here, even in the hard moments, it is magical because you made them and they are a living breathing being in front you.
This is beautiful. I write in my substack all about pregnancy and birth and the after for my family. So love that I found you through Christianna. Hope to connect some more. Many happy trails for you and your family and so glad you are able to see the beauty, too :).