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Postpartum Chat
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Katie, so sorry to hear you're possibly experiencing PP depression, and I'm glad Chris is helping out more! I think being able to get out of the house/away from Keith for a little bit will help too, but PP depression is no joke. I learned recently that my grandmother had it so bad that my dad was raised by his aunt for the first few months of his life! I'm sure you can work through this. Calling your midwife as a starting point is a good idea.0
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Katie, I'm glad you've talked with your husband and that he is helping out more. Please make sure you are taking care of yourself, and it sounds like you are on the right path! Everything about having a baby has changed your life 100%, especially you as the mom. Your body is different, you are home all of the time, you are responsible for feedings/naps, your sleeping is different...EVERYTHING! You are completely validated in your feelings and emotions. Hopefully as little Keith sleeps more and you are able to bottle feed some you will get back to some normalcy, and again, I'm so happy to hear your husband is helping more.
I don't know if you are a reddit user, but I've found loads of helpful information there since being pregnant. I mostly frequent the r/babybumps thread, but r/beyondthebump gets a lot of love from new moms who are sharing everything they are going through. Even reading some posts and finding similar experiences might be helpful for you.
To end....Keith is ADORABLE! Oh those pictures are just the sweetest
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@VeryKatie I'm glad Chris is helping out more, I think the others have pretty much said everything else so just be sure to take care of yourself!0
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Thanks ladies. I'm so glad I have this group 1
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@VeryKatie sorry I've been gone for so long but Keith is adorable!!!
I love your list of things not to do when putting baby down! It is hilariously accurate. I would like to add:- Don't sneeze. EVER.
- Don't yell at the dog
- Don't say out loud, "He's finally asleep. Now I can do X"
I'm sorry to hear about your struggles with Chris and possible PPD or PPA. I'm glad you talked with Chris. Are things still better with him helping? Leo was terrible at helping the first couple months and then slowly started improving. He is generally much better now, although he did get death glares this morning for refusing to help while I was frantically running around because I was running late.
How is your mood? I definitely find that exhaustion and sleep deprivation put me in a much more depressed mood. I have been watching my mood very carefully, but was already on mood stabilizers which I don't doubt has helped tremendously.0 -
Hahaha omg so true about the sneezing and the saying he is asleep or will go back to sleep out loud. Babies can hear that from a mile away.
No worries about being gone. Glad to have you back! I missed all of December for sure... it was just too crazy.
Realized the other day that I've been more worried about Christmas than I ever was about giving birth which is crazy. I'm glad I can relax again now. Back to logging...0 -
I just wanted to post something that I really really wish someone had told me about being postpartum. This is going to seem out of the blue but I'm frustrated that no one would tell me!
I remember asking my friends, "How long does it take to feel normal again sexually after you have a baby?". One friend said 3 months. One said "a while (very non-specific)".
For me it was 6 months before it stopped hurting (and I had to take direct action against the scar tissue of the stitches, just regularly doing "stuff" wasn't cutting it) and 8 months before I started feeling like I have any libido AT ALL. My boobs still feel off limits to anyone but the baby. Note I got my period back 3 days before the 6 month mark. I feel like if my period didn't come back, I still would have no libido.
That is all. Lol.0 -
@VeryKatie I'm glad you shared this because it is something I have wondered about and I appreciate the insight and honesty.0
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Yeah I always wondered too. But its like society (both regular and medical) try to make you feel bad if you're not yourself after 3 months.0
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That really isn't something that can (or should) be rushed. It takes as long as it takes and no one should feel bad (or be made to feel bad) about it.1
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How true. It's funny how it's done though. It's not that anyone actively makes you feel bad. But there is simply a lack of information out there as to how long it takes to feel normal again. So it's easy to convince yourself there is something wrong with you and doctors just blame breastfeeding when it's because of so much more than that.0
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@VeryKatie Thanks! That is very helpful.0
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@VeryKatie I fully agree with you that this is a huge piece of missing information! I was really horny 2-3 weeks post-partum but absolutely not physically ready to get back at it. At 8 months PP, it is just now at a point where it isn't painful most of the time. My libido right now is very much tied to my energy level; I have to be very well rested to have any interest and the second I get tired it's hands off.1
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@VeryKatie I fully agree with you that this is a huge piece of missing information! I was really horny 2-3 weeks post-partum but absolutely not physically ready to get back at it. At 8 months PP, it is just now at a point where it isn't painful most of the time. My libido right now is very much tied to my energy level; I have to be very well rested to have any interest and the second I get tired it's hands off.
Omg its so nice to hear this from someone else. Even after i posted it i was thinking "wait is it too long?". And the last thing i read on the net was if it lasts longer than 3 months talk to a dr. Which i did and they didn't even check anything, just blamed breastfeeding. It was definitely scar tissue that was the majority of the problem pain wise.
Funny I remember being really horny around that 3 week mark too lol.0 -
Here is a rambling, not well edited birth story. The first two weeks have been hard, very hard. I've been to the ER twice, for severe constipation (thanks Percocet!) and then my blood pressure skyrocketing to 175/110 (Ibuprofen was the culprit). We've had a couple extra weight checks for Andrena as she's not yet gaining--which has me super frustrated. Really hoping we get a gain on Tuesday after some good eating all weekend or I'm going to be a emotional wreck. I've already had a few breakdowns stressing about why she isn't gaining, what I'm doing wrong, etc. She's a very clingy baby, so it's been even harder in that especially at night it's nearly impossible to get her down to sleep--we seem to fight it from 10-3am before I give up and let her sleep on my chest in the recliner just so we all get a couple hours of rest.
So, here is what I can recall/remember from labor:
I had my last OB visit on Friday, May 12th. I was 4cm and 80% effaced—progressing about 1cm/week. The doctor made a comment that she would be surprised if I made it to Mother’s Day. I pretty well brushed off the comment to avoid getting my hopes up but at the same time decided I better head back to work for the evening to get finish cleaning up the office and doing a few last minute projects. At this point I still hadn’t even felt any Braxton-Hicks or contractions. I worked from 5pm-8pm in the office and looking back I guess my only spurt of “nesting” I did was cleaning my office and not my house!
I had significant bleeding after my cervical check at the appointment but by evening it tailed off and turned into brown spotting. The next morning I had what I’m guessing was blood and my mucous plug breaking up. There was quite a bit of bloody mucous all morning. By 7am or so I was finally thinking maybe I was feeling contractions and started timing them. I sat about 60 seconds long and 5 minutes apart for an hour before calling the hospital, after speaking to them and not feeling they were super intense yet, I stayed home for another 2 hours—they slowed down for a while before becoming consistent again. I finally checked into the hospital at 10:45 am, meanwhile my mom’s airplane landed at 11:00 am and Marlin’s cousin was thankfully able to pick her up and bring her to the hospital.
Upon checking in I was 6cm and things seemed to be going very well. I labored a couple more hours without any pain medication as the intensity picked up. I was a bit frustrated as they decided to want continuous monitoring on baby’s heartrate and the external monitors were not staying put to allow me move at all, despite wireless set-up. My doctor gave me the option of breaking my water to put the electrode monitor into her scalp, which would give us better monitoring ability and mobility. But, I opted to wait it out as I didn’t want to artificially break my water quite yet—but not 5 minutes after the doctor left the room, they broke on their own. So, to gain a bit more mobility I had they attach the scalp monitor to baby. They nurse tried to attach it and was unsuccessful, eventually the doctor had to come and do it. Once we saw all her hair after she was born, it made sense as to why it was hard to get it attached!
After my water broke the intensity of labor picked up and I requested Nitrous Oxide. It was a bit awkward to get used to but once I got the hang of it I was ready to marry that darn gas mask! I alternated between laboring on my feet, leaning over the raised bed and then eventually in a rocking chair once I was exhausted from standing and rocking. I completely zoned out—I could hear my mom and such chatting away on the other side of the room but was in my own world as contractions moved 2-3 minutes apart. They were wanting to check my blood sugar every two hours along the way and sometime in the last hour or so before we moved back to the bed for a cervical check a poor nurse asked me if I could stop rocking so she could check it, I said no…I think she eventually got it despite the motion—I didn’t really care at that point. As the labor got more intense I noticed myself not taking breaks from the gas as often and the breaks I took were shorter. I kind of knew I needed more breaks but kept doing what was working—until they got concerned about baby’s heartrate shooting up. I’d been in pretty intense labor for 3-4 hours at that point and they took away the Nitrous Oxide and had me transfer back to the bed to my left side with the oxygen mask trying to get baby back to safe spot. She responded to the oxygen but both the physical and mental toll of losing my pain management tool took me out of a strong spot mentally FAST. I could not focus and struggled, cursed and fought through the very intense contractions. The nurses, thinking I had to be super close to pushing kind of pushed off my epidural requests and delayed them until the doctor finally came by to check progress. In all the 6 hours or so since my last check I’d only progressed to 7-8cm—I was very frustrated and disappointed and insisted on the epidural at that point. I was exhausted and spent, very much ready for relief in hopes that if I wasn’t fighting my body any more I would relax and finish progressing to 10cm while resting a bit.
I think I got the epidural around 8pm. My husband left to go do chores at the farm real quick while I tried to sleep. At 11 or so the doctor checked again and I was still at 8cm and baby’s heartrate was shooting up again and positioning and oxygen was not bringing her back down. Her heartrate was staying up over 200. That’s when they started talking about the c-section would be the best route—which was what I wanted to 100% avoid. I am not sure how long it took me to come around to their persuasion, I know it was many tears and lots of headshaking no. But, I think I also knew at that point things just weren’t happening on their own and making the decision sooner rather than later made it less of an emergency.
Things moved quickly but not as quick as I expected once I agreed, which I appreciated as it wasn’t stressful and didn’t feel dire. They came back and increased the epidural for the c-section, I signed all the paperwork, my hubby got scrubs on and we made our way to the OR around midnight.
They did a great job on the epidural, I hardly felt any of the tugging and pushing on me as the delivered baby. I also have had no backache or headaches associated with it after the fact either. She came out screaming and fighting, I remember hearing the doctors saying she was pretty big, but then were surprised that she was 8lbs 6.5oz and not bigger. Her flailing around pissed off must have made her seem bigger than she was! Within moments and after a quick check they had her swaddled and on my chest. They allowed Marlin to take photos of her ASAP and so he was able to have photos texted to my mom was downstairs waiting within 2 minutes of her birth---then the nurses also snapped photos with Marlin’s cell phone of the 3 of us as they were sewing me up and I was holding baby the best I could on my chest.
Since she was so healthy we were headed back to my room in Labor and Delivery within 45 minutes to recover, get skin-to-skin time in and breastfeed. It was 4am before she’d finished eating so all said and done I was running about 24 hours without sleep. Between adrenaline, nurses, blood pressure cuff etc I never did get to sleep that night/morning. By the afternoon the next day I let my mom take baby to the nursery, Marlin went home to get a nap and I finally got 2 hours of sleep. If I could have went home then I would have—I was over it. I hate the hospital and it was worse than expected since I was tied to the bed with a catheter and IVs for 24 hours. I was miserable, sweating like crazy and just plain over it all.
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Wow. Thanks for sharing! Heh, that's insightful about how you cleaned up at work as your nesting burst. And everything sounds like it happened so fast after your last dr.'s visit! Sorry things didn't go as planned. You held up like a champ though. I think you did great! Baby getting turned around is not something you could really control. And 8.5 lbs sounds plenty big to me! She sounds wonderful though. Sorry recovery has been so painful and baby is not letting you sleep a whole lot. Also, I hope everything gets worked out soon with baby's weight so you can have peace of mind. I have read that the number of wet diapers matters more than actual gain with breastfeeding? Maybe you could see lactation consultant? In any case, I hope you get some real rest soon and all healed up.
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I am maybe feeling a bit more human, for today at least. We are headed back for another weight check tomorrow. At our appointment on Friday she'd gained 2 oz in 3 days but they still wanted to do a blood draw to make sure nothing else was going on and sent me to a lactation consultant on Sunday. The blood draw came back fine and she'd gained another ounce on Sunday. So she was 7lbs 11oz then, so I'm really hoping she'll be about 8 pounds tomorrow.
Our meeting with lactation consultant was fine--about the only issue was that she was a smidge short of the amount they hoped she'd transfer. So I've been trying to pump a couple times a day for extra stimulation and started taking Fenugreek. It seems it's starting to increase my supply. Hopefully they'll keep letting us work at it as long as we're making progress--if we're not making progress still I'll be pretty deflated.
I've already decided if they want us to do more intensive pumping, feeding, ect I will just supplement with formula and give up the fight as I can't enjoy any of it if we add in that much more stress.
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Great news! I'm glad you're feeling a bit better and that baby is gaining weight. I've never heard of fenugreek used for that? Thanks for the tip. I'll try to remember it later.0
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Today has been ridiculous. I hope it's just a growth spurt and not a reflection of me not meeting her needs, but she nursed 9:30am-5:30pm pretty well constantly. The most break I could get was 15 minutes if she dozed off or if I handed her to Marlin to hold while I used to bathroom---and she would scream the whole time. Finally she slept 6-8pm before an 8-10pm session...I just gave her the 1oz from the only pumping I could do today and she's still screaming. At this point I would take any sleep I can get, my body aches from sitting all day and I'm crying as much as she is as from the exhaustion and frustration. Despite trying to exclusively breastfeed I'm pretty sure I'm gaining weight from eating what ever is fastest before she starts screaming again and not being able to move from the couch all day. I'm losing my mind.2
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@SheilAnneSmith Wow. Hang in there! Praying for your sanity and rest!0
