Flash Back - First Time Mom

Hi Loves!

In today's post, we'll be going back in time. Reason explained below.  I am sharing  some of my views as written over three years ago  about my experience being a  mom for the first time . 

In light of mother's day coming up, I'll be sharing this and one or two more posts all about mommy-ing 
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I believe I've mentioned on here before how I tend to be cautious about what I post. I was randomly going through my draft post and reading what I have in there. I think it’s safe to say my draft had almost become a journal on its own. Although the whole blog itself is, I surprise myself sometimes with the content I have jotted down in my draft, sometimes with details others not. These are obviously things I thought was worth sharing at the time I was writing it but later decided maybe it is best if I keep this to myself.

 With that, I found quite a few pregnancy and motherhood related posts I had at some point drafted but for one reason or the other stayed in there. I do think I know the reason for that, at least for ones related to this topic.  I felt since it was my first time at this motherhood thing, I didn't have much to share as I was still learning along the way myself.  Since I’m now on baby #2, those little tricks I used during my first pregnancy and beyond and just everything I learnt along the way still proves useful today and I' have put majority of them to use again.

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Today I’ll be talking about my experience in the early weeks of bringing home baby as a new and first time mom.  My pregnancy generally was easy breezy, thank God. Towards the end as due date got closer, I was a little worried, or should I say scared about delivery, mostly because of the pain and a lots of unknown. I knew I was going to get an epidural to help with the pain but everything else was up in the air. Thankfully that part was easy breezy also from beginning to end. You can read Eliana’s birth story here. So after breezing through pregnancy and delivery, I guess I was expecting to breeze through recovery as well. While some of the things I experienced were minuet, in the grand scheme of things at the time it seemed like a big deal.  

The body changes.  Speaking honestly, I was a little bit insecure about my body after birth. It was just a weird stage for me.  Mostly my boobs and belly. I later realized this feeling was all due to the emotional highs and lows and imbalance the body was going through. As I came to this realization, I quickly learned it wasn’t anything to fuss over.

Now let’s talk about PUP. I had on onset of it while pregnancy but very minor case. My doctor said it will get worse before it gets better and it’s only common in first pregnancy. To my surprise, it cleared up as quickly as it came.  I thought lucky me. Well, looks like it was just waiting to rear its head after delivery. Then, it came full blown out. I knew what it was immediately because I remembered what it looked like.  I have to say the day after it came back right before I went to the doctor for some relief medication must have been the hardest all. I just felt overwhelmed and sleep deprived as I was up all night scratching myself like mad person or trying not to.  I literally just burst out in tears because I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I needed to release all that emotional roller coaster going on inside.

I had laceration coupled with hemorrhoids and that did not make for a happy mama either. With that fear in mind, I overdid it on laxatives /stole soother and prune juice and that didn’t go well either.  It just seems like it was never ending jumping from one hoop to the other.

Things started getting better about 2 weeks after. PUP was gone, sleep was a little better, stitches were burning less and everything was returning to a “new” normal.  

Advice:

Rest. I was full of energy right after delivery. I was up and about doing things like I didn’t just push a baby out of my body. This was the case for about 3 days after delivery. By the third day, It was like someone ran me over with a car.

Accept help. It’s hard for me to let go and be in a position where I have to depend on someone to do things for me. I’ll rather get up and do it myself. But boy, after that big drain of energy, I quickly learnt at least for that period how to accept and request help. My sister was with us for 2 weeks and as her stay was drawing close to an end, I wished she could stay longer.

Post Partum depression is real. While I didn’t experience it on a grand scale, I felt the onset. Mostly before of all I was dealing with. The body changes, which didn't bother me at all during pregnancy but  became a different story after.  The hyper-lactation (read my breastfeeding story here),  PUP, lack of sleep and a host of other things can easily get overwhelming to deal with especially going through it for the first time.

Talk to someone. While I quickly recognized what was going on with the grace of God and "snapped" out of it / cried it out . It might not be that easy for someone else. It might linger longer and translate into something bigger.  The fact that I knew everything before this state had gone perfectly definitely helped. The fact that I had a good support system also helped a great deal.

Till next time.