I fully intended to do this post much, much sooner so that my postpartum experience would much a lot fresher in my mind, but that didn't happen, so this will be a little less descriptive I suppose. It's unfortunate though because I look forward to having these posts to read when I'm preparing for the next Baby Coghill!
MY. HAIR. IS. FALLING. OUT. EVERYWHERE.
Now I have long hair, really long hair, so it is even more noticeable.
My sweet baby is learning to crawl and I am constantly pulling hairs off the floor so he doesn't eat it!!
I did find a new trick one day after I had vacuumed and still found like 10 hairs on the carpet - lint roller!! It is amazing! You can get them at the Dollar Tree so it's a cheap way to pick up every single hair, fuzz ball, and grain of sand in a hurry. And, baby isn't afraid of the lint roller :) All of a sudden last week he decided the vacuum was terrifying...
Anyway, to prevent my hair from falling out everywhere I usually have my hair in a bun or a braid throughout the day so it doesn't fall out around Leo. When I take a shower and brush my hair out the bathroom is a frightening scene. I wouldn't say it comes out in clumps, per say, but there is a lot of it coming out. I am starting to get thin areas along my hairline. I guess soon I'll be back to my 5th grade hairstyle with all those dang curly "baby hairs" along my hair line sticking out in every which directions. Awesome.
I also still have a very faint trace of the linea alba (the dark line on my belly) remaining, but it gets lighter all the time and I forget it's there. Other than that though I really cannot complain. I feel pretty much like I did before I had Leo, that I can remember anyway.
So, what was it really like postpartum?
I detailed a lot of the gory details in my last post - Our Hospital Stay, but I left off 1 week after having Leo.
Now I admittedly had a extremely easy pregnancy. Like a dream pregnancy. I have 0 complaints about the 9 months I carried Leo. Sure I got a few headaches and saw some flashing lights, but I'm pretty sure that's minuscule compared to some other stories I've heard. Anyway, I think that my pregnancy put me a leg up on the recovery as well. When I was pregnant I read so many scary blogs about what my life and body were going to be like postpartum and I want to tell you that it might not be that way! Every single person is different. Every pregnancy and delivery are different, so there is no way to know how your body is going to respond.... but just because you have a baby doesn't mean you'll have a horror story to tell.
So I'm going to share my positive - post birth experience.
Obviously we have to talk about weight.
Over all I gained around 34ish pounds and as of last week I am 4 lbs less than I was pre-pregnancy!!
I did work for some of that, but to be honest, I lost a lot immediately. I had an 8lb baby and lost a lot of blood and fluid during delivery. I weighed myself when I got home from the hospital and I was already down about 25 lbs.
Over the next couple weeks the swelling in my stomach slowly went down and I began to feel ready to exercise. I started off walking outside with Leo. Short walks about 2 weeks postpartum and slowly adding distance. Around 6 weeks postpartum I began Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. Ok. this workout is legit. It is HARD. Especially for someone who hadn't really worked out in months and months. But it was worth it!! Within about a week I felt so much more endurance and stronger. I really felt like it strengthened all my muscles, including my internal muscles. In the beginning if I didn't pee immediately before starting the workout I would pee doing jumping jacks, but through a combination of doing my kegels and the 30 day shred I quickly regained control of... that.
I did have a bit of underlying motivation for completing the 30 day shred - Hawaii!! My sister in law got married 11 weeks after I had Leo in Hawaii and I did not want regret not trying my hardest to slim down before the trip. At the end of the shred I really felt shredded. I had abdominal muscles that were probably more firm that before Leo was born! Another great video is the Ab Ripper X which is apart of P90X.
And of course, I am breastfeeding Leo, which burns an additional 500 calories a day they say... but I am positive I more than make up for that loss with eating. Breastfeeding made me sooooo hungry and thirsty initially, now I've kinda leveled off, but I still like to eat.
Next, stretch marks.
I was terrified of getting stretch marks. Which is kind of silly when you think about it. My body was producing a human being and I'm worried about some scarring on my stomach? But, somehow, genetics probably, I didn't get a single stretch mark from pregnancy.
2 weeks later + milk inflated breasts = a few stretch marks. They seriously appeared over night. One feeding nothing, the next I had purple lines on the outsides of my breasts. I was bummed, I had made it through 9 months of serious skin stretching and then bam! But you know what... 5 months later you would never know they were there. The purple faded to red which faded to pink, which I'm guessing faded to white but since this area never sees the sun it's 98% unnoticeable. So have no fear, it's true when they say they'll fade over time! 5 months isn't even that long!
Now what they'll look like once I quit breastfeeding?? Who knows. I'm not too concerned. These breasts have fulfilled their purpose. haha
So, how about the bleeding.
I bought the jumbo sized Always overnight pads and a pack of granny panties in preparation because pretty much everything I read told me to, but in my experience after a couple days I downgraded from overnights to regulars for about 2 weeks and then on to just a liner for about 1 more week. I do have a nice stock pile of sanitary napkins under my sink though.
Oh and in case you're wondering, no my period has not returned. I am still breastfeeding so it's really unpredictable as to when it will return. I'm not complaining though.
Otherwise all things appear to be in full working order and basically exactly as they were before baby.
Ok, the pain.
It did hurt that's true. The first week I was very, very sore. When we went to the doctor every bump in the car hurt like heck. Standing and sitting were difficult. I think it was the stretching in those movements that hurt the worst. Getting up out of bed at night was no fun either. Thankfully our bed isn't that low to the ground so it wasn't too bad.
It's funny because I didn't take a single medication my entire pregnancy and during labor the only thing I had was something for the nausea... but when I got to my room in the hospital with Leo and the nurse asked if I wanted something for the pain I said YES! The first week I took a few Tylenol here and there and sat on an ice pack to help with the swelling and after about a week I was moving around much easier and within 3 weeks I had absolutely no pain.
I also experience the contracting pain in my uterus while breastfeeding for a couple weeks. It didn't hurt that bad, but also didn't feel good. Contracting uterus = flatter stomach = another reason to breastfeed!
Another area to discuss - hormones. To be honest, I don't know a whole lot about this subject. I've never really been too affected by hormones by way of emotions (unless you count liking boys as a teenager... and I definitely did that). I actually I mentioned to Lee before I was pregnant that I was concerned with my fertility because I didn't know if I produced the proper hormones and then again when I was pregnant I was convinced I wouldn't be able to breastfeed because I didn't have ANY pregnancy symptoms - therefore in my mind I must not have hormones or at least not enough hormones...
Well, I was wrong. Apparently I do in fact have sufficient amounts of the proper hormones (thankfully).
After having Leo I did have a few times where I felt a little overly emotional or irrational, but thankfully after about 2-3 weeks things seemed to level out. I mean I guess to be sure you should ask Lee... but I feel normal.
So yea... that's that.
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