Motherhood is a dream and pregnancy is bliss.
That statement isn’t quite the reality for most mums – in fact – the opposite can be true. But take one scroll of a celebrity mum’s Instagram feed and that’s the message you’ll likely be subtly (or overtly) bombarded with.
Whitney Port is not one of those mums.
The Hills star has been documenting her pregnancy and first few weeks of her one-month-old son Sonny’s life via a YouTube series candidly titled: ‘I Love My Baby But…’
At first, the end to that sentence was "I hate my pregnancy". Port kicked off with a video introducing the series and talking about the symptoms she'd experienced.
"I'm feeling extra sh---y this morning so Timmy decided to set up a camera at the foot of my bed so I could share with you all the terrible things that are going on with me and my pregnancy," she says, laughing.
"How I'm feeling, what I'm doing, eating, just how I'm dealing with the whole process. I thought that it might be fun to share it with you guys."
Since then she's taken a know-holds-barred look at her pregnancy, sharing with viewers her thoughts and feelings, as well as parent dilemmas such as whether to reveal the bub's gender and what to pack in a hospital bag.
In her latest video 'Chapter 19', she shares how breastfeeding Sonny has not been the experience she'd hoped it would be.
"After about 24 to48 hours of doing it just started to get so incredibly painful. We came home and I just hit a breaking point and said, 'I can't do this. It feels like someone is slicing my nipples with glass'," she says in the clip posted on August 24.
She explains that she found out her son has tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, a condition in which the thin skin flap under the tongue that attaches to the bottom of the mouth is short and limits tongue motion.
Speaking the day after her son underwent a frenectomy to fix this, she says she was anxious because the pain had continued.
After her husband Timmy asks her how she'd been feeling, the new mum begins to tear up, explaining why she wants to breastfeed so badly - partly thanks to the pressure from others.
"I've been getting pressure from more older people who want me to try it and want me to continue to try it," she says.
"I just feel like a lot of people are going to tell me to continue to have patience and try to do it cos it's only been a week, but... I just don't know if it's something that's going to get better or not."
Listen: Holly and Christie talk taking your baby home from the hospital for the first time. (Post continues after audio.)
While telling her viewers that she's going to keep trying for one more week before she sticks to pumping and bottle-feeding permanently, she expresses how she thinks her feelings at this time are normal - something most mums would agree.
As Port makes it clear - "I Love My Baby But..." is not a parenting advice vlog, but she hopes others might be able to relate to her experience.
"We mothers have to be there for each other. I sincerely believe this community is what has given me the confidence to feel I am not doing anything wrong."
We're not the only ones loving Port's refreshingly honest and unfiltered take on pregnancy and motherhood. Each video has received tens of thousands of views, thousands of likes and hundreds of comments from mothers thanking the new mum for being so open and frank about her experience.
READ MORE:
- To read about Whitney Port's ultimate shortcut for wedding planning, click here.
- To learn about the breastfeeding condition that made mum-of-two Teagan want to “curl up and die”, click here.
- To find out what made Christie Hayes stop breastfeeding, click here.