4th trimester daze gives way to 'bursting with pride'

There was a distinct moment when I was giving that final push in the delivery room when I realized that I had no clue what was coming next.

Oh, I had read at least four different pregnancy books. I knew all about dilation and episiotomies and the cervix, but I didn't actually know much about what would happen after the baby was born and a nurse with a wide smile would place a human being in my care.

Yes, this is the part I didn't take the time to read up on while I was decorating the nursery and taking semi-nude photos of my belly that I thought was beautifully maternal, but now realize was just hideously enormous.

Perhaps you, too, looked at the covers of these "How to Care for a Newborn Baby" books that lay unopened in your child's immaculate nursery. Come on, we all know you sat in there daydreaming about how your child would love this room and play with these toys. You looked at the happy mother and child frolicking through a meadow on the book cover and thought, how hard could this be? Anyone could do it.

It's all sunshine and picnics and fulfilling moments of proud motherhood, right?

Wrong.

This, my friends, is the beginning of the fourth trimester of pregnancy. It's the time period no one really likes to talk about and that most mothers will deny once they have passed through it.

This is the period where I cried for no reason at exactly 8 p.m. every night and wondered for just a second whether it would be possible to push that baby right back in — just for a couple more days.

It's pretty easy to spot new moms who are smack in the middle of this fourth trimester. They are the ones with a permanent look of shock on their faces who seem to have a look in their eye that says, "Why did no one tell me this? How did I not know it was like this?"

Yes, I call it the fourth trimester daze. I saw it this week in the face of one of my friends who recently brought her baby home. Her look of confusion, exhaustion and fear reminded me of when I brought my own daughter, Nicole, home two-and-a-half years ago.

I had picked out the perfect "going home" outfit for my daughter that consisted of velvet overalls, a collared shirt, matching socks and a matching hat. I had images of adorable pictures of her coming home to join our family in her sweet little outfit that all the nurses would ooh and aah over.