If you’ve never had a baby, you’ve probably never heard the term the 4th trimester before. It’s the first 3 months of your postpartum recovery and the first 3 months of your new baby’s life. I wanted to write a blog post about my own personal experience because after going through it, I wished people talked about it more.
DISCLAIMER: we’re discussing postpartum and after birth recovery here. Don’t read further if you don’t want to know 😉😅
For some reason everyone talks about labor and delivery as the pinnacle and climax of your pregnancy journey. It’s always said to be the most difficult part and then you “forget the pain” and your new life starts with your little bundle of joy. But I was not expecting everything else that came after you bring your little bundle of joy home. So here I am, taking the plunge for new moms-to-be who are about to experience the 4th trimester.
Let me start off with a quick recap of my son’s birth story. I had to be induced due the ultrasound showing that my baby was going to be a massive 9 pounder. After 30 hours of labor and 1.5 hours of pushing, my sweet, little Daniel James made his way into the world on November 27, 2019….and weighing only 8lbs 9 oz. Even though I planned to go natural, I had an epidural and a pretty amazing one at that. I didn’t feel anything at the end, including my 2nd degree tear. I also, thankfully, didn’t feel any of the stitches (for the time being at least).
We brought little Daniel home the next day and I honestly remember being fine the first day. I was obviously sore but Daniel had been asleep for the first 24 hours of his life because he was jaundiced and I was able to rest a little. But the thing about newborn babies is that they need to eat every 2 hours at least. Their bellies are the size of a walnut when they’re born and they grow the first several weeks. What that means for mom if she’s planning to breastfeed is that baby will be latched on and attached to her for the majority of the day and unfortunately night. That brings me to my first lesson learned:
Breastfeeding Doesn’t Come Naturally
You’re probably thinking, “Wait a minute. My entire pregnancy everyone has said “breast is best” and that “breastmilk is the most natural way to feed my baby.” Well breastmilk is the most natural way to feed your baby but it takes a lot of work for it to feel natural. Your breasts aren’t used to breastfeeding so the first few weeks (for me it was the first whole month) breastfeeding is very painful. For some, myself included, to-the-point-of-tears painful. It causes cracked nipples and painful engorgement as your body learns to establish how much your baby needs. Engorgement can often lead to clogged ducts and mastitis which is a whole other beast to overcome. To help establish a healthy supply it’s advised to breastfeed as much as possible and babies cluster feed. They can eat every two hours or every 30 minutes for hours on end. The second most difficult part is that your baby also needs to learn to breastfeed. For some babies it comes more naturally but for others, they really struggle to latch. And for moms who have dreamed to breastfeed there is nothing more disappointing than your baby not being able to latch. An incorrect latch makes breastfeeding painful, causes cracked and bleeding nipples, and a hungry, fussy baby. BUT believe it or not, this comes to an end. The pain really does go away and once your baby learns to latch, the bond that breastfeeding creates is truly incredible. I would go through all the pain and tears again in a heartbeat. The important thing to remember is that breast is not best. FED is best and if breastfeeding isn’t for you, don’t feel guilty about it. Your baby needs you mentally there and sometimes that means giving up breastfeeding. After going through it, I recommend taking a breastfeeding course with Milkology and investing in lots of nipple cream to help with the pain. Apply the cream after every single feeding from the start and don’t wait for the cracks to appear. Breathe through it, you got this Mama!
The Hormones Are Insane
I had NO IDEA the amount of hormones that surge through your body after pregnancy. I thought once you had your baby those crazy hormones go away with your belly. But no. They skyrocket. And they make you feel horrible. For the first two weeks I cried more than I did my entire pregnancy not because of discomfort from my physical pain but because I honestly felt like a terrible mother. There was one time I was changing Daniel’s diaper and he started to pee as soon as I opened the diaper ( very normal for little boys). The pee went everywhere including the baby and I just started sobbing. I cleaned him up and held him close, apologizing to him for being such a terrible mom and allowing that to happen. Looking back it’s a hilarious story but I remember in that moment I honestly thought that! It actually taught me something cool: God created that bond between mom and child because we need each other. The only thing that brought me through that difficult time was knowing that no one else can take my place and be his mom. He needed ME. God created him for me.
The hormones also made me snap on several occasions. My poor husband took quite the beating of words from me as I battled the hormones and lack of sleep. I wanted to give up because I honestly felt like a failure. I thought “I’ve been around babies my entire life. Why do I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing?!” My friends, that’s how so many moms have postpartum depression. It’s a real thing. Please don’t dismiss it. Thankfully in my case, I don’t believe it went that far. Everything settled down emotionally for me after about 2 weeks.
Lack of Sleep
Ok EVERYONE knows babies don’t sleep well. I did too. But I guess I didn’t realize how bad it was until I went through it. Daniel ate every 2 hours and that’s calculated from the start of his feeding. That means if he woke up at 12 am to eat, he would finish eating at 12:30am and be up at 2 am to eat again. Which really means I got 1.5 hour stretches of sleep and that’s just brutal. “Sleeping when the baby slept” was not happening either because when he slept, I wanted some me time. I wanted to get up off the corner of my couch and eat or shower or even just snuggle my adorable newborn. The first week wasn’t so bad but after a few days of sleeping like that all I wanted was coffee. But wait. Coffee made Daniel’s tummy hurt so I had to go through the day without coffee. Believe it or not, I consider myself lucky because Daniel would go right back to sleep after he was fed. There are a lot of babies that don’t or some that mix up day and night and parents don’t sleep at all at night. So I’m at least thankful that I had an easy baby in those terms. This also got better. You guys have no idea how refreshed I felt when he gave me my first 3 hour stretch around the time he was one month old. And then a 5 hour stretch. Now at 3.5 months, he sleeps 7-8 hours a night and I can’t believe he ever woke up every two hours.
Postpartum Belly/Weight-loss
Right after you give birth you lose about 10-15 lbs with the baby being out, your amniotic fluid is gone and the placenta is no longer in your body. Despite all of that, you’ll still look about 6 months pregnant. Your belly feels really weird too, it’s very jiggly and not something you can “suck in.” It’s kind of a hilarious feeling. The first few weeks your body is getting rid of everything that it created to help sustain a baby so you bleed a lot and you sweat a lot. Your uterus stretches a lot during pregnancy to accommodate a baby and within 6 weeks shrinks back to it’s normal size, about the size of a fist. This shrinking is brought on by contractions when you breastfeed. Yep. You still have contractions after having a baby. This also helps you lose weight and within the first month you’ll lose quite a bit of your pregnancy weight without really doing anything. The important lesson that I keep reminding myself of is that it took 9 months for me to grow this child. My body moved organs, it grew, I put on weight and I can’t expect it to go back to normal after one month. I gained about 50 lbs in my pregnancy and 3.5 months postpartum I am just 10 lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight!
Stitches!
Most women preparing for birth also probably know that there’s a high likelihood to tear. Sadly there isn’t a way to avoid it and it’s all part of the process I guess. During delivery I had a second degree tear and which required stitches. I had an amazing epidural and didn’t feel anything at all for probably 24 hours. Then I felt the stitches. Let’s just say ibuprofen and you become very close friends. It’s rough, I’m not going to lie. It took about 2 full weeks for me to sit without wincing. There were times my sleep deprived self would wake my husband up in tears, asking him to bring me pain killers. My favorite products to help cope were homemade “padscicles”, and mama fridas peri bottle.
That’s postpartum, at least that was my experience. My little bundle of joy didn’t always bring me joy and the pain didn’t go away once he was born like everyone told me. It was really just beginning. My sweet husband offered to help regularly but how could he help when I needed something he couldn’t provide. I needed breastfeeding not to hurt, I needed my stitches to heal faster, I needed not to feel like I was failing because of the hormone surge, I needed my baby to sleep longer than 2 hour stretches. It was rough but it taught me a lot and I feel so much more prepared for the next time I’ll need to go through postpartum. If I had advice for new moms who are anxiously awaiting it’s this: accept help and pray for strength to get through it. Everyone will tell you it will get better and it does. Just power through the first few weeks and months. It’s not all bad (even though this blog post makes it seem that way) because you have a new baby that loves to snuggle and smells amazing with that newborn smell. You’re also so overcome with love for your little baby, the type of love that you’ve never experienced before and it’s truly incredible. It’s hard but oh so worth it…otherwise we probably wouldn’t want more kids 🙂
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