In Bloom Doula Services

On November 24th my Waylon turned 6 months old! He is starting solids (sweet potatoes, avocados, and bananas are all a hit), loves to move and just started pulling himself into a stand. Army crawls all over the house and is a Momma’s boy all the way. He’s seriously the sweetest, happiest, easiest baby ever, which has spoiled me completely. Not only is he the easiest baby, but this has been a much easier postpartum experience than my first.

At 6 months postpartum with Holden I had just started feeling like myself again. With Waylon I feel like I’ve been recovered for months now. Pregnancy and his birth seems like ages ago. I’m in a much better place physically and emotionally. Not only do I feel stronger than ever really, but I also feel more confident in motherhood than ever before. I’m not so scared of the unknown, or the next big change. I handle the baby hurdles in stride and am not in a constant state of fear about how good of a job I’m doing.

I figured it could be helpful to break down the recovery process and lay out what it’s been like compared to the first go round. Plus, explain what I’ve done to get to where I’m at now.

First things first I’ll talk about weight loss..

I gained a total of 29 pounds with Waylon which put me at 192. I weighed myself at 1 week postpartum and I had lost about 17 pounds. Considering that includes Waylon’s almost 9 pounds, placenta, fluids and various other things I felt quite discouraged. I had hoped I would have lost more by then.

I had made a commitment to myself that I would be on complete rest mode for the first month postpartum, which I was. (see “Why I Am Sitting the Month Once My Baby is Born.”) I was basically couch ridden and did very minimal physical activity. See, once you lose the placenta, you have a wound inside your uterus that needs to heal. This wound is about the size of a paper plate, and rushing your recovery to work out is doing your body a disservice. You have to respect the process and what your body went through. What your body accomplished.

I will admit sitting the month was hard, and I made a few exceptions (like when I went to pack up my classroom) and I got a little stir crazy, so I would unload this dishwasher, or do some light cleaning and I would notice my bleeding increase, and the way I felt worsen. So, I had to be very purposeful in my resting, but it did serve as a reminder that recovery is very important and not to be rushed.

At about 5 weeks I began going on walks again. I’d go out for about 30 minutes while wearing Waylon and walk around my neighborhood at an easy pace. After I was cleared at my 6 week appointment, I just gradually picked up the pace and increased my length and rigor. At two months postpartum I was back to my 45-60 min walks 4-5 times a week. I also began incorporating yoga 2 times a week to work on rebuilding my core strength.

I quickly got down to 168, and from there have been working off the remaining weight week by week to get down to my beginning weight of 162. Now at 6 months postpartum I’ve hit another goal of 155. My next goal is 150, and then 145 (my college weight). I think with a stronger core and at a lighter weight I will hopefully feel better through another pregnancy. I cannot stress enough how much yoga has helped me. From pregnancy to birth and postpartum. Yoga has played a huge role in my recovery and weight loss (which are not synonymous) and I’m so thankful I’ve made it a regular part of my routine. Additionally I have been very active chasing a toddler and an unusually mobile 6 month old, and am breastfeeding, but I haven’t had the best diet so I can’t attribute any weight loss to healthy choices in that department.

Placenta Consumption:

I know I said I’d update you on how eating my placenta went for round 2. After Holden I drank it in a span of 3 months. With Waylon I drank it in a span of two weeks, and I think the benefits were incredible. I repeatedly said, “I don’t feel like I had a baby!” And I didn’t. I had minimal soreness, unlike with Holden. After Holden I felt stiff, sore, and weak. My knees hurt, my back hurt. I felt like I’d aged and my body was broken. With Waylon I had a sore vagina and butt, and that was literally it. I did have a small tear with Waylon, and hemorrhoids from hell, but other than that I had no pain at all. No sore muscles, or stiff joints. I felt like my normal self again.

That being said I did notice significant weakness as I began to work out, but that is to be expected because pregnancy is a long and taxing process on ones body, and I did it twice in under two years. My milk supply came in rock solid and I stopped bleeding, again right at the 3 week mark. So I give consuming your placenta a 10/10 rating, and I will most likely be doing it again whenever I have another baby, and I may even try to consume it faster.

I discuss more about my postpartum recovery in my series linked below:

Honest Postpartum: 9 Truths About the 4th Trimester Nobody Talks About

4th Trimester Must Haves

I Ate My Placenta and You Should Too (If you want to)

Breastfeeding

I am proud to say that I breastfed for 6 months (exclusively if you consider expressed milk exclusively breastfeeding) and we are still going strong! My goal is to get to one year while pumping at work and then I will allow Waylon to breastfeed on demand throughout the summer and then will gradually wean him as I do not plan on pumping into the next school year.

Breastfeeding started out well, but the pain of shallow latching and a slight tongue tie gave me a run for my money. I’d wince and writhe in pain at each feeding and the contractions for the first few days were no fun at all. Although breastfeeding was equally painful with Holden at the beginning, I did not have any contractions at all post labor. I did have contractions for the first few days postpartum with Waylon, but they are now a blur in the newborn abyss of memories.

I began pumping excess milk after morning feedings at two weeks postpartum to begin building my freezer stash, and returned to work at 9 weeks postpartum, which began my pump ‘n grind journey. I pump twice, sometimes three times daily while at work and my supply ranges from 12-18 ounces a day. I love being able to give my son breastmilk, but I absolutely hate pumping, and pumping throughout an entire school year is a big mountain I’m currently climbing. Thankfully I’m almost half way though the school year and I’m grateful for a supportive work environment that makes it possible.

Hair Loss

Postpartum hair loss is something I dealt with after Holden, but I decided to bite the bullet and chop my hair off. I cut off 10 inches and donated it proudly to Children With Hair Loss, but I did miss my hair. In less than 2 years my hair is back to its original length, thank you pregnancy, but now… falling out in clumps. I pulled some hair behind my ear a few weeks ago and instead found a clump in my hand. I was shocked/ upset/ disgusted. Every time I brush or wash my hair I’m left with a palm sized ball of hair.

Fortunately at 6 months the hair loss has slowed and I see the lovely regrowth beginning to form a little halo around my head. I have the cycle of growth and loss to look forward again if another pregnancy comes my way because it seems inevitable. ( Side note: I will not buy your expensive hair loss shampoos either, so don’t bother sending me a link.)

Skin Changes

When I was pregnant with Holden I got terrible break outs. Acne took over my back and Holden even got baby acne caused by the hormones transfered via breastmilk. I assumed I would get another bought of acne, but I never got a break out once with Waylon. Instead I got glorious keratosis pilaris, or chicken skin all over my arms. As my pregnancy progress, it got worse and worse until 40 weeks when I delivered Waylon it looked like this.

That was literally moments before pushing Waylon earthside. I documented so much of my pregnancy with him, but one thing I didn’t pay much attention to was that. Thankfully it is slowly but surely clearing up. I talked to my dermatologist about it for my annual screening and she said it is all because of those hormones and theres not much you can do. She did prescribe me a cream to put on it and I tried exfoliating and moisturizing all throughout my third trimester to no avail. Thankfully time and healing has cleared it up quite a bit, but not completely still at 6 months pp. I also have some stretch marks that have changed significantly over the course of 6 months, but I will save that for another blog.

Postpartum Period

One thing that goes frequently un-talked about is the dreaded postpartum period. Thanks to breastfeeding, I still haven’t had mine yet, but I did begin solids on Thanksgiving. I got my period at 7 months postpartum after Holden and it was a month to the day I began solids. I am fine with that timing, but I never noticed a change it my cycle other than it being less regular. My cycles pre-pregnancy were extremely regular. My two postpartum cycles were very spread out and quickly followed by another pregnancy, so it’ll be interesting to see how these change. I wish I had something more beneficial and helpful to say about postpartum periods, but I just don’t.

Postpartum Stink

Thankfully the funk has faded away, or maybe I got used to it. Either way it is much less noticeable than it was at even 8 weeks postpartum. When I returned to work I often could smell myself at the end of the day no matter the amount of deodorant I applied, no matter how frequent or recent my showers were. I ended up ditching my all natural Salt of the Earth deodorant that I love for something stronger, but I plan on returning to my all natural favorite.

Hip/Groin Pain

During pregnancy it isn’t only your belly that expands. Your hips, pelvis and all of your internal organs move around to accommodate a growing uterus. As my pregnancy with Waylon progressed I began noticing my right hip/groin area feeling very strained. Relaxin makes us stretch and loose and it seems as though my right hip hasn’t gone back to its right place the right way. I’ve been treating it with stretching and yoga, but am now contemplating a chiropractor visit.

Baby Brain

Baby brain has seriously affected me and I worry that I will be like this for the rest of my life. It’s like my brain short circuits and I don’t know basic words. I constantly am confusing things I say which makes teaching tricky and life frustrating. “Thing” means anything. My family knows when I say car seat/stroller/ or high chair I could be talking about any of the three, and my students know chrome books and composition books are one in the same. The other day I found myself driving three exits past the grocery store I was headed to. I can talk about it in a light hearted way, but it is endlessly frustrating and annoying. It is one of my least favorite parts of postpartum and I fear that it will never go away.

Anxiety and Rage

Lastly, I’ve shared a bit about postpartum anxiety before.  (Being Honest About Postpartum Anxiety) For me, it peaks around changes in routine, so doing things like going back to work, traveling, or any time that has added stress add to it (the holidays, for example) increase the anxiety I feel and usually impacts how I cope. I still have disturbing compulsive thoughts, irrational fears, and quite a bit of postpartum rage. I could write additional blogs on that topic alone. Rage has a lot to do with being at the end of my rope and then literally snapping. I have a physical reaction to anger that I never had before motherhood. I never felt the urge to break, throw or hit anything out of anger in my life until I had children. The stress of work on top of raising babies on top of daily house work, the need to pump, the need to work out the need to get a blog up all complies and sends into a rage when something small goes wrong like I spill my drink and can’t find my keys. I suddenly want to smash my windows out with a bat.

I obviously know that isn’t a healthy reaction and I’ve never acted on that, but what I have done to deal with that is simplify my life. I purge things in my house, so I have less clutter. I have unsubscribed from literally hundreds of emails, I delete accounts, delete apps and most importantly say “no” to things. I refused to be a mentor at work despite a lot of pressuring from co-works to do so. I don’t go to events that I feel dread about. I’m at my mental, emotional and physical and financial capacity of what I can take on. I’ve let myself let go of the guilt of it and decluttered and minimized the noise in my life significantly. It’s a process I’m continuing to work on, but it helps.

I remind myself that I can’t do everything in day. I can’t work, clean, work out, cook and blog. I just physically can’t. There simply just aren’t enough hours. So I do some of those things on top of motherhood each day. Sometimes I cook and blog, so I refuse to beat myself up over a messy house and the fact that I didn’t work out. We may eat a pizza for dinner, but we went on a walk and I did all our laundry. Instead of focusing on what I didn’t do I focus on what I did do and it puts my mind in a state of peace as opposed to stress.

I’m one week away from pumping through half of an entire school year. I’m half way to a year of breastfeeding. I’m ten pounds away from my goal weight and have had many other victories happen while in the throws of postpartum. I’ve paid of $5,000 in credit card debt and loans. I had my highest month of blog views to date, and I got to do my first product review for Precious Mammaries Breastmilk Jewelry. All while raising two babies, and working a brand new job that has been kicking my butt.

I think it is important to remember that there is a variation of normal. Your postpartum experience may not be anything like mine, and that is ok. I share to open up the dialogue that surrounds postpartum, not to set an unrealistic standard. We have tried to get a sound answer for everything surrounding pregnancy, labor and recovery. We want our baby born on the “due date” or their “late.” We want a 12 hour or less labor, or have interventions. We think there is something wrong with us if we don’t “bounce back.” There is no bouncing back. Recovery is not an instant thing, and there is no shame in a postpartum body. There is no shame in owning the process of recovery. My students don’t understand that I just had a baby, my co-workers may not consider that I just had a baby, but that doesn’t change the fact that I just had a baby, and giving myself grace for that is the only way I can keep going.

So give yourself some grace too Momma. Whether it has been 6 months or 6 years. You deserve it and are doing a wonderful job!