mama update

I just wanted to write a few things down to help me remember what my first few weeks were like.

*I've realized that the one thing I would change from our hospital stay is that I wouldn't allow any visitors.  It's very hard to bond with your baby when you don't really get to hold him or spend one-on-one time with him his first day.  I think this is why it wasn't until the second night that all the emotions hit me....that's when I finally got to spend uninterrupted time with him.

*Recovery got remarkably easier as each week passed.  I could tell at the one week point that things weren't quite so sore, at two weeks I finally felt ready to take short walks, and by three weeks things were feeling pretty normal again.

*Hormones are a b*tch.  Holy cow.  I've cried more in the past three weeks than I think I've cried in the past three years combined.  Add in the sleep loss and I can pretty much cry about anything ....happy, sad, worried, etc.

*Lots of women told me that you forget about the pain of birth and I thought there was no way.  But, you really do forget about all the pain.  I told Dave that first night that Holden would definitely be our only child.  Now, I'm already talking about when we have our next one.

*Sleep loss does suck but there's really nothing like sitting in the middle of the night with your little one as he falls asleep in your arms (and cue hormones, getting teary eyed now).

*I lost all of my pregnancy weight plus another 14 pounds (total of 35 pounds) in the first two weeks after giving birth.  My thyroid medicine made my level drop way down after birth and I guess that makes the weight just fall right off.  I went in to have my level checked on October 10, and found out it was at 0.42.  At the beginning of my pregnancy, my level was at 3.2 and we worked to keep it around 2.5 during the rest of my pregnancy.

*Pumping has been a struggle for me.  My doctor prescribed me a medication that is suppose to help with milk supply but it gave me such bad diarrhea that sometimes I'd barely walk out of the bathroom before I'd have to go right back in.  So, no help there since I quit taking it after two days.  I'm now only able to pump about ten drops of milk out in a session so I'm about to the end of this journey.

*Almost all the swelling was gone around the three week mark.  I still have a little swelling left in my feet but I can get my regular shoes on again.

*David has been super amazing through all of this.  He's been my shoulder to cry on, added almost all my responsibilities to his own the first couple weeks, worked hard to take care of Holden and me, and been my voice of reason when I start to over analyze things.