House Guests

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail asking me what she should do about having guests over right after she gave birth. I advised her to have as many people around as possible to help her pull through the baby blues.
When I had my first daughter, my husband had just began a new job that week and when I finally got to go home with her I realized that I was alone. I had no help and had never actually DEALT with a baby. I played with them and bought them cool presents but had never ever changed a diaper, knew a thing about feedings or had any idea what came along with a c-section recovery! I remember just crying for absolutely no reason and getting upset if my husband served me my coke with 4 cubes of ice instead of 3. At no point did I hate my daughter but there were times that I wondered when this "bond" would take place.
After giving birth to my second daughter, I felt naked. LITERALLY! LOL! I didn't want to leave my house because I felt as if I was standing naked in a room of a ton of perverted men. That's the best way that I can explain it. I told my mom friends about this and they said that I had PPD. I never thought about it because unlike my first daughter, I felt as if I had an instant bond this time around. Later that year I heard Gwyneth Paltrow talking about how she felt that she wasn't IN her body after having her baby and that she loved him but felt awkward.
I am putting this out there because in a couple of months, I have a couple of friends having babies and becoming new moms and I want them to know what I didn't know before hand. PPD is out there and it isn't all about hating your baby. It actually isn't about that at all.