postpartum
Welcome back to the final chapter of my pregnancy/birthing story.
I would just like to thank you for following this entire journey with me and hope you have found my experience useful, interesting, or even entertaining.
I have just hit 12 weeks postpartum and can safely say the trauma has subsided. yes, I am going to refer pp as trauma because it is just an experience I don’t think I’ll ever truly recover from. if you had a smooth run post-labor than consider yourself one of the lucky ones. Unfortunately, i kept hitting roadblock after roadblock in my recovery.
now, i am going to get really deep and really honest about everything postpartum physically and mentally strap yourself in. Warning graphic content and images.
during labor, I ended up having a 2nd-degree tear which required stitches. A 2nd-degree tear is a tear to the skin and muscle layers of the perineum. the amount of blood was ridiculous. there was blood in every corner of the birth suite. and if you know me, I can barely handle a wrinkle in the bedsheets, let alone being saturated in blood.
blood bath
i don’t know why i took a photo of the bed. probably because i was so naive when it came to labour. thinking it was some peaceful experience. little did i know!
to help with the pain management of the tear i was on a rotation of endone and tramadol. so if you can imagine i was a complete space cadet. i practically do not remember anything that happened in the hospital. though, i do remember the first time i attempted breastfeeding Reeves. he was maybe 2 hours old and the nurse kind of gave me a rough run down on what to do. however, i was so spaced out she may as well have spoken in a different language. i practically threw him on and thought it would just come naturally. nope! the first latch was so painful. my nipples instantly blistered and bleed. ill get deeper into breastfeeding down the track.
next day
belly is bloated and living in nappies. i didn’t realize that once you give birth you bleed for the next 6 weeks. like a period but times 10. i was extremely tired, confused and just sore. i didn’t really have any emotions either. i wasn’t happy or sad. i just was there, like a piece of furniture. strange!
i was extremely tired that first week. body was recovering, nipples bleeding, stitches killing me, and sweating out all the drugs.
during my time in hospital, my concoction of drugs stayed the same. i was fairly sore from the tear and felt uncomfortable sitting down. i used ice packs to help with the swelling but didn’t really make a difference.
from my poor first latch attempt, my nipples were ruined, completely ruined. i couldn’t breastfeed at all. the nurses were having to come in and manually extract colostrum in a syringe and give it to Reeves. and even though i was living off endone, it still was so painful. i tried to breastfeed a few more times but i ended up expressing myself until my nipples recovered and healed. it was honestly the most deflating and confidence-knocking experience.
around day 5 we left the hosptial and headed home. i remember feeling great. i was on the ADRENAL high, excited to get home and start our new life with reeves. obviously the drive home with him was TERRIFYING. part of me being scared to have something so small in the car and another part just terrified to leave the hospital. i had become so ACCUSTOMED to having nurses only a button click away and holding my hand through everything.
On day two of being home the baby blues hit me really hard. i could not stop crying. i heard a lot about the baby blues and thought i wouldn’t be affected. purely because i’m great at holding myself together. but nope! They hit me so hard. i really felt sad for the dogs. every time i looked at them i just cried! Also, i got hit with a lot of self-doubts. the adjustment was really hard for me. i kept feeling guilty that i had turned out lies upside down and that every cry or tough SITUATION was my fault. i had no confidence in being a mum. i honestly felt like i was downing. i think the first few days i really needed support because i underestimated how difficult it would be.
Michael’s mum and sister were great and helped me out when they could. i kind of didn't have any help from my mum. in fact, she actually made this a really difficult time for me. She is severely mentally unwell. but that’s a whole other story. i hope you all appreciate your mums! i would kill for that!
now, back to breast feeding …
worn out
surviving off no sleep. pumped with painkillers. another attempt at unsuccessful breastfeeding.
i ended up contacting a lactation consultant called susan shaw. She came to the house and taught me how to latch and created a breastfeeding plan for me. She cost around $350. I was so desperate to get breastfeeding right. i was persistent and determined. at this point, i would have paid anything to help! She was really great. and i ended up being able to get a good latch on one side and an ‘ok’ latch on the other. it still hurt and was uncomfortable.
milk leaks
i woke up one morning freezing cold. little did i know my milk had come in. A nice surprise all over my bed, mattress, and pillows. EVerything!
It’s really no secret how much I struggled with breastfeeding. between the pain and the inconsistency with my milk, it was just a shit show. I think I have strongly made my point on social media about my opinion of feeding. I really felt the stigma of breastfeeding. i persevered and i was incredibly persistent to accomplish it. even at the expense of my relationship with my partner and my baby. even at the expense of my mental health.
i would have so much anxiety when Reeves needed to be fed. I would cry, and scream, I was constantly hot and flustered. I hated the razor blade feeling. I hated showering. I hated wearing bras. but I also hated being exposed to air. i couldn’t use towels. I couldn’t be touched. it was really affecting every aspect of my life. I would call my friends crying, not understanding what I was doing wrong. I spent hours calling the breastfeeding hotline. it was honestly ridiculous how much I persisted. imagine I was that dedicated to a job. I’d be employee of the year.
inconsistent
my milk was all over the place. one was full of milk, the other had nothing. i never got more than 100 ml.
mastitis
not once but twice! mastitis is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy (and I have plenty). my first encounter was at 2 am. I woke up in extreme pain! a pain I have never experienced. i left breast was on fire. my entire body was aching and sore. it was like i had covid. painful! i run into the bathroom and sat on the floor, crying, and expressed for hours to relieve the pain. my breast felt like it was going to explode. popped a few painkillers, went to sleep, woke up, and started another course of antibiotics.
epson salt trick
after my third round of antibiotics, i tried a few old wives’ tricks for mastitis. can confirm the cabbage leaves worked. also using a Hakkas with hot water and Epson salts to drain. i don’t think it helps but it did feel very soothing.
it really got to the point where my partner physically made a bottle and basically told me I needed to stop breastfeeding. thankfully, it was the best outcome for all of us. I finally gave my body time to heal and recover from birth. and we finally started to enjoy the experience of being a family.
isn’t that so sad? I only started enjoying being a mum about 10 weeks in. I look back now and can’t believe I didn’t just accept the situation sooner. we don’t like in medieval times. breast pumps were invented for a reason. the formula is a perfectly good source of food for babies. we are so spoilt for choices. I didn’t find this out until recently, but i was a formula-fed baby. and I turned out fine.
while all this was going on, remember my 2nd-degree tear. yes, well that was infected. boy, That was just the icing on the cake. A few days home from the hospital my infection kicked in. It was extremely painful. I Couldn’t walk. I couldn’t sit. couldn’t stand, lie down. poor reves would start crying and I couldn’t do anything. Michael was incredible at this point. he would do mostly everything. which really added to my self-doubt and feeling so shit about my ability to be a mum.
no one really tells you about the recovery. i didn’t know i was basically going to be having an intense 6 week period with infected stitches, swollen engorged breasts, an itchy back from the epidural, and constant sweating. yes, night sweats are real and you have the worst body odar.
I think because of these roadblocks I’m only just starting to realize that I was struggling with fairly bad postnatal depression. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t like being a mum. the first 12 weeks I really didn’t think this was the right thing for me. a big part of feeling so out of my depth, depleted, tired and frustrated. it was like any bit of confidence I had was pulled from underneath me. I also hated my partner. like hated him. don’t know why, but I just did. and id be lying to say some things now I still resent him. poor Michael!
but I think these are all symptoms I can look back on now and recognize my hormones were out of balance and mentally I was just not in a good place.
fast forward to now, i have a super happy and healthy formula-fed 4-month-old baby. we are in such a better place and i have made a full recovery. although i am struggling a little with postnatal anxiety, we are working through it. if you ever see me trying to find a car park or i have one of the psycho dogs with me and the baby. I’m probably in a hectic anxiety-ridden state of mind. With or without the baby.
anyways, maybe we will save that for another blog post.
now after becoming a mum i look at other mums with such open eyes. what mums go through in postpartum is truly challenging. and if you are reading this and haven’t experienced it for yourself i hope you can now see it from a different perspective. so, please be kind and move out of the way if you see someone pushing a pram down the street. And if your friends are new mums, check in with them. They may be struggling with their new identity.
thanks for following my journey thus far. I hope you have gotten something out of this x
