My Postpartum Journey: One Week In
10 days into this mom of two gig and sometimes I still can’t believe it – I have two kids!?! Thank you so much for all of the love since Marigold joined our family last week, we have been soaking up every single minute with her and can’t believe it’s already “back to reality” with Henri returning to work today. Luckily, my mom arrives tonight and will be here for 2 weeks so I still have some time before I’m solo momming it during the day on a regular basis.
Today I wanted to share about my first week of postpartum recovery. As I said in Marigold’s birth story my labor and delivery with her were so much more difficult than Lavinia’s so I’ve been really surprised to find that my recovery this time around has been a lot quicker. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t tear this time so healing from that perspective is nowhere near as bad this time – I didn’t even use all of the frozen witch hazel pads that I had prepped and the Dermoplast (which I went through cans and cans of last time) I bought is sitting unused in my bathroom cabinet. Henri was really good at holding me back when I maybe wanted to do too much and always reminded me of my midwives’ orders to not stand for more than 10 minutes at a time in the first few days.
In general this week was just a week of relaxing and recovering, with a few easy walks thrown in for the sake of my sanity. Doing “nothing” is really hard for me but I knew that even though I might be feeling good and ready to be up and about my body was still doing a lot of healing on the inside and it was necessary to give it time before jumping into anything.
Here’s a little glimpse into what the first week postpartum was like…
1/18/2019 – 40 weeks +4 days Pregnant
This is the day that I went into labor with Marigold. I was feeling so big and just overall ready to get things going! After a few days of having contractions in the evening that didn’t end up turning into anything I was starting to feel like this baby was never going to come. Thankfully though we had less than 24 hours until we’d be meeting our Miss Marigold.
1/19/2019 – Delivery day!
I snapped this picture as we were getting ready to climb in bed for the night the evening after Marigold was born. I was shocked at how much my belly had deflated already… I guess that’s what happens when you have an almost 9 pound baby in there! haha
1/20/2019 – 1 Day Postpartum
Lots of adjustments were going on at this point. I busted out my BaoBei ProBump because my ab muscles were feeling like mush, Marigold had been feeding around the clock so lots of changes were going on with that and we hadn’t slept very much in one stretch for a few days. Feeling very tired but also so happy.
1/21/2019 – 2 Days Postpartum
I was feeling sooooo tired of all of my maternity clothes so I busted out a pair of Lululemon leggings that I bought while I was pregnant and hadn’t got the chance to wear yet. The high rise was a lifesaver! We also made it out of the house for the first time because we had to go to my and Marigold’s follow up appointment at the birth center but other than that we had another lazy day relaxing around the house.
1/22/2019 – 3 Days Postpartum
This is the first day that I saw a significant decrease in bleeding and I was itching to get out of the house for some fresh air so we went on a super short, quarter mile walk before dinner. It felt so so nice to get moving after a few days of sitting on the couch all day watching TV but .25 miles was definitely enough for my first little excursion.
1/23/2019 – 4 Days Postpartum
I felt pretty good this day and I really wanted to go for another walk but I told myself that I’m still in the first week of recovery and that I would wait one more day before attempting a longer walk. Instead we went on a family trip to the park (drove than rather than walking like usual) and that was just as good of a way to get some fresh air and Vitamin D.
1/24/2019 – 5 Days Postpartum
Today we had our newborn photo session which took up most of the morning. It felt so nice to do my hair and make up and put on a pair of jeans, even if I never left the house, haha. In the evening we went on a .75 mile walk as a family. That walk felt even better than the quarter mile walk a few days before which got me excited about my progress.
1/25/2019 – 6 Days Postpartum
Marigold had her first pediatrician appointment today and we stopped by one of our new favorite brunch spots on the way home so I was zonked from a busy morning the remainder of the day. It’s crazy how in the first few weeks postpartum things that would usually be so easy can really take a toll. Our doula also came over to visit, it was so nice to see her and really refreshing to talk over our birth experience with someone else that had been there and could offer us an outsider’s view of everything that had unfolded.
1/26/2019 – 1 Week Postpartum
I can’t believe how quickly this past week went. Today I took Marigold on a 1 mile walk around the neighborhood while Henri took Liv to her swim lesson and it felt so nice to get outside for ~20 minutes. It also didn’t hurt that it was 76 degrees and sunny! Henri also helped me do a diastisis recti self test to get the “before” measurements for my ReCore program with Celeste. My separation is 2 fingerwidths above my belly button, 3 fingerwidths at my belly button and 1 fingerwidth below my belly button. I never measured my separation after Lavinia so it’s pretty interesting to know it this time around and I’m looking forward to starting to do the little exercises necessary to close the gap.
This week I’m doing a bit more walking and I’m starting some simple core and pelvic floor exercises to prep for starting my 6 week ReCore program with Celeste. Slowly but surely taking baby steps in the right direction and I can’t wait to continue bringing you along on this postpartum journey with me!