Postpartum second time around

Today I am 3 weeks postpartum with my sweet second baby Houston. 

I truthfully thought about skipping blogging about my postpartum experience second time around because I don't feel like I have a lot to say... but I know how much I appreciated reading back over my postpartum experiences with Leo and figured - it's my blog I can talk about whatever I want, as boring as it may be... and even if my experience is atypical - it is my experience.

Pretty much by recovery with Houston has been amazing.
I don't know if this is typical of a second baby or if perhaps I was just really, really sore after having Leo, but pain/uncomfortableness level between the two is not even comparable.
After Leo it took days and days before I could even sit and stand without pain and I had muscle soreness all over my body.  Literally the hour after giving birth to Houston I felt almost completely normal.
I had 0 swelling, 0 pain, and very minimal bleeding. I felt good enough to start going on walks right away and even went swimming 6 days pp.  That would not have happened after having Leo.  At just a few days pp I started aiming to walk a mile each day and then around 2 weeks pp I've upped it to try to get at least 2 miles in and also doing other light exercises.  Tomorrow at 3 weeks pp I'm going to start the Jillian Michael's 30 day shred that I had success with after having Leo.
I feel as though my stomach has gotten flatter much quicker the 2nd time, although at the doctor for Houston's 2 week appointment I weighed myself and still weighed 15lbs more than I did before I got pregnant!  I was truthfully pretty surprised, but I guess that's one of the things about being tall is that you can gain weight and spread it out more.  The majority of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit again within about a week, despite these extra 15 or so pounds.  I also think this time I gained my weight more in my lower half... I can tell my hips and thighs are bigger. Maybe Jillian can help with with that. lol.

As I mentioned in Houston's 2 week update - the ease of breastfeeding this time has been a huge part of my great recovery.  We haven't had any issues for which I am thankful for literally every single time he nurses.  I had a terrible first couple of months feeding Leo. Not having to worry about that this time is the biggest relief.

I have not felt emotional or as though my hormones were out of wack at all.  I distinctly remember one time(and only 1 time thankfully) after having Leo where I just felt like crying for absolutely no reason and didn't feel like myself.  It only happened once, but I think it must have been a small glimpse into what some women deal with after giving birth.  With Houston the transition has been so amazingly smooth.  The closest I have come to crying or feeling overwhelmed has been watching him and Leo interact and just thanking God that these two blessings are mine.

People keep asking me how I am doing and how I am adjusting to motherhood with 2 and it's like I feel a weird sense of guilt over how well we are doing.  I'm not going to say it's super easy, it's not.  It's a lot to have two people completely dependent on you, but it's no where near as hard as I expected it to be, or how hard others scared me into thinking it'd be.  I was especially nervous knowing that my family wouldn't be able to visit right after having Houston (long story but dad has broken leg and my mom has a broken arm....) and that Lee would only have a week vacation, but Houston has made life easy on us.

I don't know if it's just my personality.  I've always been a go with the flow, adaptable kind of person. I don't get stressed out by much.  And i'm pretty sure that I must have 2 extremely easy children... so the combo of those things - and my amazing, helpful husband (when he's not at work) - has made this seriously as easy as I make it look on my instagram account. haha. Sometimes you can believe everything you see on the internet.
And really - we're still only 3 weeks into this family of 4 business. I know it's going to get harder. I know we'll have rough days.  We have had a few of those already. One day last week Leo literally pooped his pants 3x. The kid who poops once a day every single day without fail found it in himself one day to poop 4x... 3 of which were in his underwear... but you know what it's just poop.  You can flush it and throw underwear in the washer (or trash, lol) and it all goes away.

I made myself crazy the last few weeks before Houston was born preparing "busy bags" for Leo.  I did every pinterest thing I found... and 3 weeks later I haven't pulled out a single one of them yet. I will and I should... but I still find plenty of time in the day to spend quality time with Leo.  We do all the activities that we did before Houston was born and more now!  We just find ways to include Houston - we read together and Leo reads to Houston.  We play doctor but do a check up on Houston too.  We play with the superheros and explain to Houston who each of the guys are. We take walks together.  We even all 3 took a bath together the other day... haha.  And it wasn't that hard and we all 3 got clean at the same time! 

My motto since I first found out that I was pregnant with Leo has been - if so-and-so can do it so can I.  Almost all of the couple I know have at least 1 kid and they make it work.  And out of those people almost all of them go on to have a 2nd kid and they just figure it out.  We're all just learning as we go.

Postpartum hair

I'm almost a year postpartum and my hair is seriously out of control!  At about 3-6 months postpartum I experienced a lot of hair loss.  It was especially noticeable around my forehead.  I had some pretty thin spots!

Now 6 months later I have more new hair growing in than I know what to do with!  I have these curls popping up all over my head!!! It is impossible to wear my hair in a pony tail or bun without a head band and when I wear it down I still have a few rogue hairs doing what they please - which is usually sticking straight up!

I told Lee I was just going to cut bangs to incorporate all these new hairs and he adamantly said no.  He hated when I had bangs!  So I sometimes when I really want to feel like my husband thinks I'm beautiful I pull all the hairs down and roll them under......... haha!

The good news is that my hair is GROWING!
It might be longer than it has ever been.  It's close between now and when we left Grenada.
It's passed my belly button and depending on what pants I'm wearing it touches my waist band!
I definitely need a cut, I just haven't made the time!

I sent this pic to my niece the other day.  We have an ongoing "who's hair is longer" battle.

I'm currently in the lead ;)

Thankfully I live in the sunshine state and 9/10 have a pair of sunglasses pushed up on my head taming my wild mane!

Anyone experienced insane hair loss and regrowth after having a baby?

Postpartum

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! 

I am now 5 months postpartum and I have happy to say that the only lasting ill effect of having a baby at this point is hair loss.
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.

Our Hospital Stay

**As I am playing catch up with this blog, I have found several posts I wrote months ago but never posted.  This one was 95% finished, but apparently I got distracted and never came back to it.
So almost 5 months later here's a little about our hospital stay! **

March 5th, 2014

It is mind blowing to me that at 10pm last night it was an entire week since my little Leo was born.

This is part 1 of my experience after delivering an 8lb baby boy, vaginally, without medication.
I can only speak from my personal experience and I'm pretty sure it's quite different from a lot of other women... just based on all the things I read on the internet when I was pregnant.
My labor was long, painful, and difficult... but my recovery has been amazing.  And my baby boy even more so.

Here's a little about our first couple days in the hospital.

The first night
I left off with my birth story right when they took me to our room after delivery.  Lee informed me that I failed to mention that when I came out of the bathroom and sat down in the wheelchair I looked around the room and said it looked like a murder scene.
I forgot to mention the blood.  I guess I had assumed that you all assumed there was a lot of blood.  But just in case.... there was a lot of blood.  And the blood continued the rest of that night.
Once I got into the room, my mom left and Lee passed out for a bit in the chair.
My nurse came and did the extremely painful massage on my belly to encourage my uterus to contract and stop bleeding.  I attempted to remember my breathing exercises from labor but seriously... it just hurt.  I remember saying "can I just do this myself?!" but she assured me it was very important to slow down the bleeding... and I was bleeding a lot.  She came back several times and did it and each time was just as painful as the last.
-sidenote- right away my belly got so much flatter and squishy.  I remember remarking to Lee in the delivery room - "look my belly button looks normal!"  haha as that had been a topic of discussion throughout my pregnancy... will my belly button ever return to it's previous size?

At some point shortly after all the belly rubbing I had to go to the bathroom and instantly when I stood up I felt a huge release of something hot.  I got to the bathroom and discovered the largest blood clot imaginable. Like it filled my entire underwear and looked kinda like the placenta
-another sidenote- I did ask to see the placenta after delivery.  I didn't keep it to eat or anything, but I wanted to know what it looked like.  It was gross, like I expected.
I yelled for Lee and asked him to call the nurse.  How was I to know if this was normal?  She came and agreed that it was quite large... but still probably normal.  But she did keep it (yuck!!) in case they needed to show my doctor.
I got changed again, as it had soaked through my gown, and the nurse changed my bed because it too was blood soaked.

After that she did a few more stomach massages, but my bleeding slowed down drastically and so she said that I could do it myself after that.  She said it was like kneading bread.  I hurt myself a whole lot less.

Throughout this Leo was in his little bassinet between Lee and I and every few hours he woke up squirming and I fed him.  It's amazing how quickly you just adapt and start doing those types of things.  I probably got about 3 hours of sleep that night... I was still running on adrenaline and couldn't stop staring at this perfect little human being that now belonged to me.

The Hospital Stay
Our stay in the hospital seemed so long!  Because he was born at 10 at night and we had to stay at least 24 hours they made us stay an entire day and discharged us the next morning, so in total, including the labor, we were there for like 52 hours, but after delivery we were there about 36.

I was extremely weak that first day after labor.  I had used so much muscle strength during the pushing that my arms and legs were almost useless.  I struggled to hold Leo up to nurse.  Thank goodness I had brought my boppy to the hospital.

That first day was kinda of a blur.  We had a lot of friends from Grenada/Medical School stopped by to visit, as they were doing their rotations in the hospital and a photographer came and did a little photo shoot with Leo, so that was fun.
Otherwise, I was trying to get in some naps and learning how to breastfeed this baby. The hospital has a lactation consultant on duty at all times, so I could call at any time if I need help.
Here's what I'll say about breastfeeding the first couple of days - everyone says it shouldn't hurt.  If it hurts then you're not doing it right.  WRONG. I was reassured by 3 different lactation consultants, the nurses, and the pediatrician that Leo had an amazing "beautiful latch" and guess what?  It hurt!  This little guy has a CLAMP!  I jokingly called him my little snapping turtle the first couple days because he was so good at latching on.
It took me a couple of days to toughen up a little.  The last day I was in the hospital one of the lactation girls came by and Leo was actually gone getting circumcised so we just chatted and I told her I thought it was going great and she said "can I look at your nipples?" and well.... they were a little bruised and she said oh no, that's not good.  So then she watched Leo latch on and she also remarked how good it looked... and we decided that it was just going to take me some time to get used to it.  My OB gave me a prescription for Newman's Nipple Cream and I think it worked great.  More about breastfeeding later though.

So our last morning in the hospital my poor Leo went through a lot.
My OB came back to circumcise him and he did such a good job.  Is that weird to say? haha It has healed so nicely and Lee said that Leo barely even cried during the procedure. (I can't believe I have to move away from this Dr!)
They came and did a blood screen which required another heel prick :/  and he received a Hepatitis B shot.

The first diaper after his circumcision was really sad.  It was bloody and you could tell it was kind of sore.  The nurse taught us how to care for his new little wound with the gauze and Vaseline.  For some reason I had in my mind that I'd put the Vaseline on his penis and then wrap it in gauze, but really you just coat a square piece of gauze in lots of Vaseline and then lay it on top of his penis to keep it from sticking the diaper. We continued to use the Vaseline/gauze combo for about 4 days, until we thought it looked totally healed.

And I forgot to mention his first diapers.  Thankfully Lee took charge of those.  They were so, so, so sticky! They didn't smell at all, but were just so hard to clean up. We used cloth rags rather than the wipes because they just did a better job... and the hospital was doing the laundry.
Also, our hospital didn't provide wipes.  They provided everything else, so just check and make sure!


Me physically 

The worst part for me was the muscle pain, which is a result of 2 hours of pushing.
After the first day the bleeding slowed down considerably and the 2nd morning after delivery I took a long shower and put on real clothes.

The second worst part was the pain in my nether region.  It was really hard to stand up and sit down for several days.  I had to go really slowly.  I can't imagine what it would have felt like if I had stitches....
Things were just swollen and sore.  The hospital gave me some numbing spray and that worked pretty good. They also gave me one of those peri bottles that squirt water to clean myself after using the bathroom but I found that I could never get the temperature right so it was more uncomfortable.  I just blotted with toilet paper...
For the first day peeing was uncomfortable and I had a burning sensation, but that went away pretty quickly.
Throughout my pregnancy I was very religious with my kegel exercises and I attempted to restart them after delivery.  I have yet to be that successful with the kegels, but I'm pretty sure I'll be thankful later that I've kept it up.

One week later and I am feeling a million times better than I expected I would be.  I am still sore, soreness you'd expect a couple days after running a marathon, but every day it is improving.  I still have to stand up a little slower than normal and sitting on a hard chair isn't that fun.
But despite any comfortableness I am still on cloud 9 with my sweet little Leo!
Life is good!