I had heard postpartum was very challenging. A girl in a Bible study that I was attending in the spring gave birth and was staying home with her new baby. I heard some of the other women saying how she was having a very difficult time. They had suggested she come to the Bible study or go on a walk, basically recommend she get out of the house and see people.
That kind of scared me. I didn’t know her very well, but she seemed like a strong, confident, smart, and hardworking person. How could postpartum take down a woman like her?
I tried to prepare my husband that it would be hard, but I think I was really trying to prepare myself.
1. Sleep
The first night home, my husband was nice enough to take care of Samson while I slept. I forgot to tell him that Samson needs to eat every two to three hours. I ended up sleeping 5 hours straight, which was totally fine. Samson was still surviving from the buffet in my uterus.
The pediatrician told me going for a 4 hour stretch was fine at night. I did my best to make that happen. My goal was to get at least 6 hours of sleep for myself during the night. The first couple weeks, it was more like 4-5 hours of total sleep at night. I napped the best I could during the day to make up for lost sleep, but I was still tired.
2. Hormones Another postpartum symptom was I cried a lot. A lot a lot. As I mentioned in the delivery story, I am a crybaby. But this was a whole new level. Anything that made me a teensy bit emotional and I was balling my eyes out. I made sure not to watch any sad movies during that time, only comedies. The changing hormones combined with lack of sleep meant lots of tissue being used.
3. Meals
My mom stayed with me the first week and a half after he was born, which was a life saver. I nursed him and she offered to burp him. One of the best things you can do for a new mom is offer to burp her baby. It gave me a chance to shower, sleep or eat. Those were the only things I did other than take care of my baby the first two weeks. Whenever he was sleeping, I had to decide which one took precedence. I skipped some meals because sleep was more important to me.
If you don’t have someone to prepare meals for you, then you need to prepare some freezer meals before you give birth. There is just no time or energy the first couple weeks to make anything that takes longer than 5 minutes. My mom was such a blessing in that she had dinners for us every night and made some extra for after she left.
4. Weakness I felt so weak that first week. My biceps were incredibly sore. You don’t realize how much you are using your biceps to pull your legs toward you when you’re pushing. Standing up and the first few steps I took were rather painful. I walked slow and not very far for about a week. I don’t know if the pain was because I had an epidural and I had a tear or if it’s normal for all kinds of births. Was it painful for you?
Thank God babies are so light because carrying a 7 lbs baby was heavy enough. With my son’s first appointment with the pediatrician, I had to go by myself because of COVID. My husband drove me and carried Samson in his car seat to the front door before I had to grab him. I could hardly walk and carry the car seat. Thankfully the medical assistant noticed and offered to carry him for me.
Most of the difficulties with postpartum can be eliminated or lessened if you have someone to help take care of the baby, prepare meals, and be there for you emotionally. All in all, as long as you have someone there to help you, postpartum is likely to not be terrible.
How was your postpartum experience? Was it easier or harder than you thought? Tell me how your initial postpartum period was in the comment section.
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