Postpartum Update – 24 hours

Baby bump weekly updates are so easy to find all over the place and don’t get me wrong I love to read them and loved writing them when I could remember!  We all know how big of a fruit our baby is during pregnancy, how every mom is feeling, what she’s craving, the weight she’s gaining, etc.  What I feel like we don’t see enough of is post partum updates.  Not the crazy stuff you need to know for labor and delivery, not just baby updates, or what you use from your hospital bag, but real and raw looks at the post partum period.

The post partum period is one of healing that doesn’t get enough attention.  It takes 40 weeks to build a baby, and however many hours to labor and birth them – there’s definitely a healing period.  I want to create these updates as a real look into this period.  It’s raw, real, and beautiful.  But it can be emotional and it’s not always pretty.

Without telling the birth story because that will come later, Isaiahs birth was powerful, beautiful, and completely natural. It took place at Dar a Luz birth center in Albuquerque and was exactly how I envisioned birth should be. We spent about 4 hours there and were home around 9 am.

Physical:

I’m overall actually feeling pretty good. I’m sore everywhere from the efforts of labor and birth. I did not tear, so I’m not dealing with stitches his time and it makes a huge difference, but it was still an 8 lb baby so I’m definitely feeling the soreness. I had no iv this time so I have zero swelling and am down 12 lbs. I am having a lot of cramping, mostly while feeding, and the bleeding associated with my uterus contracting back down to size. In a weird way I also feel like I can feel my organs shifting back into place.

Breastfeeding

This little on latched on right away and fed for like an hour and a half straight with very minimal discomfort at the birth center, but since we’ve been home I think his latch has gotten a little more shallow and I’m experiencing the pain and bleeding nipples already.

Emotional

Emotionally I felt pretty good the first 24 hours. There is a beautiful thing in supportive natural birth. As I’m writing this around 9am I’ve felt the normal shift happening and starting feeling the emotional roller coaster of birth. I’m sure it will be a process in the next week or two as I adjust and process Isaiahs birth and inevitably compare and process Elijah’s birth and having two little boys.

Life with Two

Elijah was so excited to meet his little brother and for the most part has been so good with him. He’s been so interested and loves to give hugs and kisses. We’ve had a few meltdowns – he hates for baby to cry and is having a rough time with me not being able to lift him and give my undivided attention, but overall they are doing really well together.