Gretchen Rossihas learned that the highlights of new parenthood on social media don’t always tell the whole story.
“I make a joke that I’m gonna write a book calledIt’s All a Lie,” the formerReal Housewives of Orange Countystar, 41, says on the Thursday episode ofThe Doctors, on which she and fiancéSlade Smileyappear to talk about how life has changed since they welcomed daughterSkylar Grayon July 10.
“Legitimately, I had no idea what I was in for. I just thought, ‘This is gonna be great,’ ” admits the first-time mom. “You see Instagram, you see social media, you see the media making it look like it’s so perfect, and you just sit thereand breastfeed your child andyou look magically into their eyes. It wasnothinglike that.”
Rossi goes on to share that she “went through a difficult period where, I realize now, I was depressed, and I had a lot of anxiety” — but it took a trip to the doctor’s office for her to understand what was really going on.
“I really wasn’t connecting with [Skylar] at the very beginning,” she says. “Then I came to realize [when] I went to my pediatrician’s appointment and I was crying and broke down in that appointment, and my pediatrician said, ‘You know, Gretchen, I think maybe you need to think about the fact thatyou might have some serious postpartum.’ ”
“I was like, ‘No, not me. I don’t have that. I’m happy! I’m such a positive person all the time,’ ” she recalls of her response to the doctor’s suggestion.
“Breastfeeding has been nowhere near as magical as I imagined in my head,” shecaptioned an Aug. 8 image. “I have cried so many times from being frustrated, from being freaking exhausted, from the pain and horrible sore nipples (as they literally scabbed over and or were bright pink from all the skin being rubbed off).”
“Fromthe guilt of feeling like ‘I don’twant to do this anymore because it is uncomfortable, exhausting, painful, takes way to much time, and quite honestly was not anything like I imagined in my head,’ ” she went on.
source: people.com
