Soon I will sit down to write Meredith’s birth story, but it was such an overwhelming experience that it might take me awhile. In the meantime, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about what I’ve been going through in these first two weeks of motherhood, so I wanted to get some of them out while they’re fresh on my mind.
>I didn’t expect to be so emotional about everything! I suppose it’s not a surprise considering the state of my hormones and the fact that I’ve just experienced the biggest life change ever, and yet I was still caught off guard. It started the night before we left the hospital. David was asleep and it was just me and Meredith up for most of the night. She wouldn’t let me sleep for long, and every time I dozed off I had a nightmare. I would wake up crying and couldn’t stop. The next day when we left I was sobbing, and this continued on and off for the next few days. On the drive home I had visions of terrible things happening to her. I wasn’t afraid to be at home, but I was sad to leave the whole birth experience behind. I had been anticipating it for so long, and then it was over. Not to mention it didn’t go at all as I had hoped it would. I liked the attention and the help I received in the hospital. I liked seeing my doctor every day. I liked the visitors. I liked ordering my food. And I was already sad about Meredith growing up and changing – still am. Two weeks later and I’m still emotional, although I don’t cry as much. My husband thinks I seem sad, but I’m not.
>My body. I knew I would probably have some loose belly skin or flab where there wasn’t any before, but I didn’t know I would still look six months pregnant. Thankfully my stomach has continued to shrink day by day and now my pooch isn’t too big. Right now I’m about fifteen pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight and I hope it’ll continue to go down a bit. The area around my belly button is pretty hideous right now with the stretch marks and linea negra. For the first few days after the birth I was more swollen all over than I ever had been, but that’s all subsided now. (Although I still can’t fit my wedding ring over my knuckle. Sadness.) So far I’m still experiencing some carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s definitely better, but my fingers are still numb and tingly. If this doesn’t go away at some point I’ll have to see a specialist about it, but I think it might just need more time. I did have a C-section so I had a significant amount of pain at the incision site, and although I’ve gotten myself off the pain meds it’s still tender and sensitive. It’s so weird to look at myself in the mirror now; I can’t believe it’s me. I feel self-conscious sometimes about the way I look, but I try to cut myself some slack and allow myself to heal.
>Breastfeeding is an adventure! I didn’t get to nurse Meredith for an hour or so after she was born, but thankfully my hospital is extremely pro-breastfeeding and everything was done in order to make that a success for us. So far I can’t complain too much, as Meredith latches great and is gaining weight like a champ. It doesn’t hurt like I thought it would, and I only had a couple of days where I even needed to use the Lanolin ointment. So all of that is great, but we don’t have any kind of routine or pattern. Every day and night is different, and I can’t seem to figure her out. I’m trying to feed her on demand, and in general she seems to nurse 10-15 minutes at a time every single hour. This is getting tough because it means she’s basically attached to me at all times. Today she started to spit up quite a bit, so I think she might be nursing for comfort. So far she won’t accept a pacifier, but we’re going to keep trying. She has to go to daycare in a couple months and will need to be soothed by something other than me!
>So far this is kind of how our time is spent. I head to bed later than usual, anywhere from 9 to 11 p.m. For the first half of the night Meredith nurses every hour or two in short increments. Sometimes I can sleep in between, sometimes not. I try to put her in her Rock and Play Sleeper at my bedside, and usually she lets me until early in the morning when she just wants to sleep on my chest. David wakes up for work around 7:30, and we stay in bed resting until around 9. I nurse her in the rocking chair in the nursery and read, then I shower while she sits in her sleeper. We nurse again and then I finally make it out to the kitchen to eat around 10 or 11. For the rest of the day I will watch TV, do things around the house, or read. Sometimes I sit on the couch, sometimes I lounge in bed, sometimes I’m up and around. There are lots of nursing breaks, and many days my mom comes over to help. David comes home from work around 5 p.m. and he’ll get me anything I need and we hope that Meredith will let him hold her for awhile. Usually we watch a movie or TV show before bed.
>Being on maternity leave is weird. I feel this strange sadness like the world is going on without me, and I actually miss my coworkers and my job somewhat. It leads to some isolation and restlessness, but it helps to have little outings every so often. I so wish that I could take walks around the neighborhood, but the heat wave prevents that. David and I went for a walk around the mall over the weekend, and my mom took me to get my nails done. Those were good things. I like having visitors, but too many is overwhelming. I also love being able to take my time doing everything during the day. Taking care of a newborn is definitely work and not exactly relaxing, but I feel honored to be the one doing it. Sometimes I feel like I could just stare at Meredith all day long and be happy.
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