'I'm pregnant. Stop telling me bad things about being a parent.'

From the moment a woman falls pregnant, the comments begin rolling in. 

“Are you sure you don’t have twins in there?”

“I bet you’re looking forward to going back to the gym to get your body back.”

“Should you be drinking all that milk you’re craving? You’re gonna get fat.”

“That junk food isn’t good for the baby.”

Watch: The things pregnant women never say. Post continues after video.

From the moment a woman falls pregnant, her body and her baby, appallingly, often become the subject of public discourse. But beyond the unfiltered and unwanted remarks no one ever needs to hear are the warnings about parenthood.

“I was told that it would ruin my relationship, that I would never get to have any sleep, and that I would struggle to shower or drink hot coffee or anything else,” Megan, a mother of six-month-old twins, told Mamamia.

“It made me scared. It felt like people took glee in how miserable I would soon be!” 

No one’s denying that becoming a parent can be a “rollercoaster journey fuelled with hormones” – but it’s the unsolicited motherhood advice that is doing more harm than good.

“I’m sick to death of people telling me how hard parenting will be,” one expectant parent wrote on Reddit. “I’m already utterly sick to death of most people’s reactions being along the lines of, ‘Ha, well say goodbye to your sleep’ and, ‘Well I guess that’s the end of your *insert-hobby-here* then.'

“Why do people think that’s an appropriate thing to say? It’s not funny, and what’s less funny is seemingly taking pleasure in the idea we’ll lose our identity as individuals.”

For some, comments like these have a huge impact on their health and wellbeing – so much so that one woman we spoke to ended up being hospitalised following the 'advice;' given by a family member.

“Whilst I was pregnant, I was living at home with my parents, and my dad in particular was so horrible to me,” Rebecca told Mamamia. “It was that bad that it triggered my depression and I ended up in hospital numerous times for it.” 

We spoke to mums on the reality of being pregnant when society doesn’t have a filter.

"People would say, ‘Oh, just you wait...'"

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A post shared by Ruby Challenger (@_allruby_)

Ruby Challenger had been fighting to have a baby for five years when she finally fell pregnant.

After half a decade of pain and heartache, she was expecting at last. But that’s when the ‘just you wait’s started to roll in. 

“I was pregnant and people would say, ‘Oh, just you wait for what you’re in for’ with this horrible tone,” the Aussie film director told Mamamia. “And this was after five years of infertility!”

“I felt like saying to them, ‘Okay, hang on – now you’ve said that, I’ll just go get an abortion.'”

While Ruby tried to tune out the voices, her mother was also on the receiving end of these 'just you wait' comments.

“My mum had a similar experience of, ‘Just you wait, they [Ruby and her partner] will keep asking for babysitting’ as if that was something she shouldn’t want to do,” the 36-year-old explained. 

“She was like, ‘Yeah, I can’t wait, they are my GRANDKIDS!”

Ruby now has a three-year-old and a one-year-old. When her littlest was just a month old, the family flew to France for the Cannes Film Festival, where Ruby’s short film, MumLife, was up for an award. The musical drama takes a candid approach to first-time motherhood, inspired by Ruby’s own experiences.

“Now I’m a parent and I’m living those hard bits and I would never say [those things] to anyone,” she said.

“I would say, ‘Just you wait until you hear them laugh or watch them learn to eat or they smile for the first time.'” 

Listen to Mamamia's podcast, Get Me Pregnant. Post continues after podcast.

"I was furious and determined to write a new script."

Unwanted comments left Hannah "furious" during her pregnancy. Image: Supplied.

For Sydney mum Hannah, who has four- and five-year-old sons, the comments came in from every angle when she was pregnant.

“Your brain will turn to mush due to hormones and sleep deprivation.” 

“Your career will take a backseat while you focus on raising your kids.”

“Your social life will nosedive.” 

“Get ready to take on your household’s mental load.” 

“You’ll lose part of your identity and become someone’s mum instead of the independent person you were before.” 

The comments left her fuming.

“Most people, I imagine, would feel despondent and really sad and scared [hearing those remarks],” she told Mamamia. “But I was furious and determined to write a new script.

“Parenting is simultaneously the hardest thing I’ve ever done but nowhere near as restrictive as I was expecting. It’s more joy-inducing and soul-satisfying than I could have ever imagined.”

"We should be open and honest – we sugarcoat it too much."

While mum-of-two Veronica says “bad birth stories are a definite no-no”, she argues that there is some justification in being “open and honest”.

“I’m torn about hearing how hard it is to be home with a newborn,” she told Mamamia.

“On the one hand, if you’re pregnant, you’re already committed, so freaking you out about how hard it is isn’t the best plan! But on the flip side, I feel we sugarcoat it too much as a society, so when you’re in it and hating life, you feel really lonely.”

When asked about what kind of information she would like to have heard while pregnant, Veronica – who has two daughters, aged three and six – said she would've liked to hear people's accounts of adjusting to motherhood.

“[I would've liked to hear] stories about how hard it is to be home with a newborn but that it’s temporary and passes super quickly,” she said. 

“For example, that babies are capable of sleeping through the night as early as four months.

“Also, honest advice about how to manage it, like getting help (family or paid), making your own choices (if you can’t breastfeed, don’t feel bad about it), and managing your expectations of what you’ll be able to achieve when home with a new baby.” 

But she warns cultural differences may have swayed her opinion. 

“I personally think we should be more honest and open,” the Sydney-based mum said, “but I’m American and have a preference for pretty direct communications and not sugar coating.”

Image: Supplied.