6 Weeks Postpartum - Mom

Baby is now 6 weeks old! I can't believe it's only been 6 weeks; it feels like baby has been with us for so much longer. He fills a little space we never really knew was missing :)

Here are my jumbled thoughts updates. Because thinking is hard. 

Mom Updates:




My postpartum recovery was really pretty great. I have no major complaints and recovered pretty good (I'm assuming average, but I have nothing to compare it to...). The pain was gone around 2 weeks and the bleeding stopped around 3.5/4 weeks (Also: no one tells you that lochia stinks! It's super gross). 5 days after giving birth I was 6 lbs under my starting pregnancy weight. I've been eating everything in site trying to gain a bit of weight and as of this AM at my 6 week PP OBGYN appointment I am up 4 lbs, hooray! I literally sleep with a clif bar next to my bed and eat it in the wee hours of the morning during one of Connor's early AM feeds. I need to keep the calories coming for breastfeeding!

The Dr. gave me clearance to have sex and workout again. I'll also start taking a BC pill so we don't have an oopsie baby. We've already discussed baby #2, but not quite yet :)


Breastfeeding is still going well, though I actually can't stand it. We haven't had any latch/pain problems since those first few days. I have had a few clogged ducts though and those are miserable! I've started taking the supplement sunflower lecithen which is supposed to help with clogged ducts. But breastfeeding is just boring and it feels like such a chore. I'm still doing it because of all the benefits for mom, baby, and our wallet, but formula sounds so much better. Good for the people that seem to love breastfeeding, but I'm not one of them.

I've been trying to pump once everyday to build a stash of breastmilk, but being home alone it can be really hard to do so. Some days I can feed and plop baby in the rock n play and take the 20 minutes to pump. But other times he cries bloody murder when I put him down and pumping is out of the window for that day. The internet says you get more milk pumping in the morning but I haven't found that to be the case. No matter what time of day I pump I get between .5 and 1.5 ounces. But any extra milk is ok with me.

We get out of the house every day, whether it is shopping or walk. I'd go crazy if I were stuck at home all day every day. When we go on walk there is an old man that lives down the street that tell sme every time he sees us that it is too cold for a baby. Nah dude, it's not. My husband and I subscribe to the "he'll be fine" philosophy. We dress baby for the weather and that's that!

I also take a shower every day. That is another sanity thing for me. I feel like a human after a hot shower (ok, sometimes 2 or 3 showers depending on the spit up situation. I don't like smelling like vomit!). A little shower and mascara go a long way for me.

In sad news: My leave is half over which is unbelievable! This time is going too fast :(

18 days Postpartum

Wow. I wrote this ages ago and never posted it! Baby's take a lot of brain power!

Today I am 18 days postpartum and things have changed so much in the last two and a half weeks.

I will start with the rest of our hospital stay:

After the delivery we had about an hour and half for recovery before we moved to the recovery/postpartum room we'd be in the rest of our stay. The Dr. and resident were busy stopping my bleeding and stitching things up down yonder and I didn't have a care in the world. I had a beautiful baby laying on me and couldn't have been happier. We did skin to skin and he latched on and fed pretty well for the first time. My husband fed me hospital pot roast and apple juice while I nursed the baby. The nurse helped me walk to the bathroom (my legs were still half numb from the epidural. I was walking like a newborn giraffe), got me cleaned up, and showed me all of the postpartum recovery goodies I got to use: tucks, dermoblast spray, epifoam, gigantic mesh undies and even bigger pads, etc. I wasn't able to take a shower because of a broken watermain in the area which kind of sucked. It also meant I had to use cold water in squeeze bottle for my lady parts and that wasn't fun at all!

Once I was cleaned up we moved to the recovery room and we finally had visitors come in. Our families had been waiting since 3:30am and were clamoring to see the baby (and us I suppose haha). I feel like the rest of the day was a blur of feeding baby and hospital staff coming in and out. We were in the hospital for only 36 hours and were sooo ready to leave by the time we were discharged. There were constantly people coming in for my vitals, baby's vitals, bathing baby, baby testing, food service, medication, hospital admin, etc. Even though baby was sleeping long stretches we didn't get much sleep because of the revolving door of our room. It seemed like one person would leave, we would try to sleep, but then an hour later someone else would come in. Not very rest full. And then with the no shower issue as well we were completely ready for discharge! We left the hospital at 3:30pm on Sunday and made our way home!

First Days Home:

The first week home was a blur of feeding baby and very minimal sleeping. We have a bassinet for the baby (Halo Bassinest) but he wanted nothing to do with laying on his back (and who can blame him...for 40 weeks he was curled into a tiny ball). My husband and I would rotate who held the baby. I would feed him and hold him for a few hours until the next feeding and then after feeding again I would go lay down and my husband would hold him for a few hours. We rotated like this throughout the night for the first week. Once the sky started lightening I felt such a sense of relief. Like, if I could make it through the night I'd be ok. Just make it to the next day. The hours between 2am and 6am were the worst. It seemed like the night would never end. My mom was staying for a few days and did grocery shopping. laundry, held the baby while we both took a nap, etc. Everything she did was incredibly helpful.

Breastfeeding:

Breastfeeding has had it's ups and downs for sure. The lactation consultant visited us the 2nd day in the hospital (why they don't come the first day is a complete mystery to me. It would have been much for helpful! She basically told me I was doing everything wrong. But after meeting with her I felt pretty good about everything. Until we got home. Baby would latch fine on the right side but then the left side was SO painful. I have no idea why it was so different but it was awful. I was in tears. I even pumped a few times and gave him a bottle because I just couldn't bear the thought of him latching on. I desperately called the outpatient breastfeeding clinic and they didn't call me back for days. SO not helpful. But luckily whatever baby's issue was corrected itself and I never bothered calling the clinic back because I was mad at them.



Since it took me so long to post this I have no idea if I meant to write about anything else. I will make another update now that we are 6 weeks post baby's birthday.