The Fourth Trimester And Postpartum

Makeup smeared, bags present…husband sleeping hahah

So they call the postpartum period of your journey the fourth trimester and it truly is another trimester of your pregnancy I swear.  Now the post Prior to having had Nola most of what I had heard about postpartum was just about postpartum depression, how tired you will be and how you are super fertile after you give birth so you should wait the 6 weeks to have sex. That’s pretty much the gist of what I had heard. I’m here to talk about it, even more, I guess you could also title this “the stuff no-one tells you”. Warning: this post is going to be SO SO LONG because there is just so much to talk about.

Before we have babies we think wow, you are stronger than everyone else who has given birth if you go through birth without an epidural…I’m here to tell you that YOU ARE STRONG NO MATTER HOW THE HELL YOU GIVE BIRTH! I’m not saying that to bash anyone who wants to go epidural free, I wanted to go epidural free but given a lot of my circumstances it was too hard not to. Maybe next time I will, or maybe I will get the epidural again or maybe I will end up with a c-section. All of these results are fine with me. Why? Because in the end the result is the same, I get my baby! What really makes us strong doesn’t end at giving birth, that is just the beginning of what makes us strong. I’m here to tell you that once again (as I told all of you at the end of my birth story) YOU ARE ALL WARRIORS because you have gone through the Postpartum part of your pregnancy journey and HOLY COW was that a journey!!!

Sidenote: This post is not to discourage or scare pregnant women! You can survive postpartum… I am 6 weeks out and starting to forget all the bad parts and even have decided when to start trying for our next. This post is more to prove just how strong women are!!

I had a vaginal delivery so my view is going to be of that. Just like pregnancy I might have or have not experienced different parts of postpartum than others. Ok, let’s start at the beginning of your recovery!  You’ve just pushed that baby out (or had it pulled out from you after someone has cut through like 4 layers of your body if you had a c-section). You might have to give birth again to your placenta. Some women’s placenta can be stuck inside which in that case they put their hand up there to get it out! According to my mom, this is worse than giving birth. I know that for me it wasn’t the worst part but you do sometimes have to push it out. Next part, you might have torn from your precious baby’s head so the doctor has to give you some lidocaine and stitch you up! Then they say they have to massage you, sounds amazing right? WRONG!! This is the worst massage of your life! For the next few hours, a nurse has to come in every half hour and massage your stomach so that they get any blood clots out and so they can get your uterus back to, well I’m not sure where to, I guess where it used to be.

So now they take you to recovery where you still have to get these massages. Your first pee is going to sting! Have you ever had a UTI? You know how it stings when you pee? Well, it feels like that. They give you a peri bottle to spray on your hoo-ha while you are peeing. Make sure to take this bottle home and use it during your recovery because you aren’t allowed to wipe, only dab yourself clean so this spraying will help.  Ok, this next part was like PTSD I swear. So when you finally get breastfeeding it starts to contract your uterus to shrink it down. Excuse me but I already had the baby so aren’t my contractions supposed to be done with? Oh, it hurts! Word of advice, bring a heating pad to the hospital. It feels sooo much better if you have a heating pad on your stomach during this part. While in recovery they will be giving you some ibuprofen to help with the swelling of your lady bits. No matter what keep taking it after you go home! As my doctor explained, we haven’t had ibuprofen in 9 months so the effects of it are stronger than we think. The ibuprofen helps you to heal and take the swelling down. They will also give you a stool softener. For me, stool softeners don’t do shit (no pun intended)! I didn’t have my first bowel movement until a week after giving birth and then I got a hemorrhoid from it. Another reason I believe it took me so long is that I was continuing my prenatal and I think the iron in that was making me constipated.

I had to stay at the hospital for two nights. As soon as I was given permission I took a shower. As I stood there naked, looking at my postpartum body, I felt very flabby. Your whole body feels flabby, even your butt! I thought it was weird that my butt felt flabby because what type of work did it do? Your stomach feels flabby of course and stretchy feeling. Another part that shocked me was sort of the top of your ribcage if you sucked in it was concave!! That is diastasis recti, where your abs separate from pregnancy. Now here is hope, I am 7 weeks postpartum and my butt no longer feels flabby and my abdominal muscles seem to have come back to their correct place, or at least I don’t feel they are concave anymore. Some women have said that in recovery they felt like they have been hit by a truck. Your body just pushed out a human, it definitely is going to feel rough afterward. Women who have had c-sections feel like their insides are going to fall out! I have heard for c-sections when you have to have your first bowel movement to put a pillow on your stomach so that you can push better without feeling like your stitches are going to burst open.

Ok so now it is about time to go home. Let’s talk about how you now have to take this newborn home that has NO instructions and you also are still recovering! Not all heroes wear capes, ok! Every baby is different too. There is a thing called the baby blues, it is somewhat similar to Postpartum Depression but also different. I personally have not experienced baby blues or exhaustion, please don’t hurt me for that! I have a pretty good baby and honestly, I feel that this is the job I was made for. Now, does that make me a better mom than you? Hecks no! Motherhood is rough, there are so many types of moms out there and I am just the type where things come naturally. That is how life works though, for some schooling comes naturally, for others being creative comes naturally. For me, motherhood comes naturally. I’ve never been the person that has been certain about things in life except for motherhood. I’ve always known that is the one thing I would be good at. Sorry if this comes off as if I am saying that if you struggle with motherhood you are not the mothering type. I am not saying that, but this is one area of my life where I have confidence and so yes, I am going to brag. Isn’t that what we all do after having a baby anyways, brag about your child.  Anyways, back to baby blues. So you get home and your hormones are just out of whack, they have no idea what is going on. Then your baby is screaming its head off because it wants something and you can’t figure out what it wants (even I have been there!). On top of all this, you have been up every 2 hours and your husband isn’t of much help because you are breastfeeding so you are the only one that can feed the baby. Speaking of feeding your baby is cluster feeding. Cluster feeding is when your baby wants to group its feedings close together and it usually coincides with nighttime. So now you have been up allll night and you just want to cry and cry and cry. I have cried before from frustration. What gets me through it is knowing that this is all a phase. Eventually one day they will start feeding less and less and start sleeping more and more. It might not be right now or in the next few months BUT eventually, it will happen! Then when the baby finally does fall asleep you are afraid they aren’t alive because of how much everyone scares the hell out of you about SIDS. Don’t get me wrong, SIDS is real but sometimes I wish I never knew about it. I want to sleep instead of checking to make sure my baby is breathing every 15 minutes. Unfortunately, not all of us can afford things like The Owlet monitor.

Those dreaded initials, PPD. Postpartum Depression. The difference between postpartum depression and baby blues is that baby blues usually lessens around a week or two whereas postpartum depression lasts longer and is more severe. When does postpartum depression end? That just depends on the person. It can even happen months later. I think it is important to talk to your doctor about whether or not you feel you are suffering from PPD. There are options to help you feel better. I want you to enjoy motherhood by doing anything you can to make it better. That might be needing someone to take the baby for a few hours so you can take a LONG enjoyable shower, could be someone coming over to let you take a nap, or even to drop the baby off with someone so you can have some time away. There is no shame in needing time away! Before having a baby that is what we did right? So why, now that a baby is here, do you put your mental health on the backburner? A baby needs you to be healthy, that is what is important.

Breast is best, that is what they say right? I’m telling you that FED IS BEST! I have many friends that have breastfed and many that have formula fed. Guess what, can you go to a playground and point out to me which kid was breastfed vs which was formula fed? No! What is more important is that the baby is fed and happy, however, and whatever way it gets done. I had a friend who was just not producing enough milk and her baby wanted to feed ALL the time so she didn’t even have the time nor the supply to pump so that she could get a break and it was frustrating her. She was becoming depressed and hating it. It was more important that her baby had a happy mom so she switched to formula. I know how important it is to people to breastfeed and maybe you want that supposedly magic bond with your child or you are afraid you are a horrible mom if you formula feed or “give up”. Do whatever makes you and baby happy!

Ok, so two days after giving birth I had to go to the ER. I only have told like 3 people this. I went to the bathroom and found a HUGE blood clot in my underwear. It was the size of a ping-pong ball (I’m not gonna post pictures but if you want one then message me and I’ll show you). I called the nurse hotline and they said to come in because on top of that I was also feeling like it was harder to breathe. They got me a cat scan to make sure that there were no other blood clots, luckily there was not. One of my best friends had DVT after birth and so I knew how serious clots were and I would rather be safe than sorry. They said I was having a hard time breathing because I was getting dehydrated. After having a baby you lose a ton of blood and you don’t pay attention to your water intake as much as when you were pregnant. It is super important to stay hydrated! It will help the healing process.

Another problem I had that didn’t come up until a few days after birth was my tailbone. I had pushed for 6 hours and my baby’s head was turned sideways so my pubic bone and tailbone were bruised. This hurt soo soo bad. One way I knew I had bruised it was when I pooped it felt soo much better. I remember I was hunched over crying to my husband about how bad it hurt and how my daughter “broke me”. The best remedy was to lay down and not walk around, keep taking my ibuprofen to help with the swelling, stay hydrated, keep a heating pad on my butt AND sit on a donut. If you do not have a donut then you can use your kid’s boppy pillow! Believe me, it helps!!!

Now onto your hoo-ha! So you are bleeding a lot and for a long time! You also have this stuff called Lochia coming out and it smells gross so it makes you feel super gross every day. Many people use huge overnight pads or adult diapers. I had done both, not sure which I liked better. Before birth, I made padsicles which consisted of alcohol-free witch hazel and aloe vera. You then put them in the freezer and it gives you a cooling sensation. Personally, these did not help me. The cold part did but I did not like the witch hazel at all. When you are at the hospital ask the nurse for a sitz bath tub. Let your insurance pay for it. When you come home you put it on your toilet and fill it with warm water and sit in it. I wish I could have done this more because it felt good but because of my tailbone injury, it hurt too much. Another way to do this is by just sitting in a bathtub with warm water but if you are unfortunate like me you do not have a bathtub. When you are at the hospital take everything they give you! Put the pads they have in your bag and ask for more! Ask for more of the underwear, take the peri-bottle, take a few of the swaddle wraps they wrap the babies in (I use them as burp cloths), take the hat they give the baby! TAKE EVERYTHING! I mean you are paying for the birth anyway so take what you can. Ask for anything that is free.

I feel like there is so much more I could keep writing about but instead, I will just leave these anonymous comments about what everyone else has said about Postpartum and the Fourth Trimester:

Q: What was the worst part about the postpartum period?

A: PPD is very real and for some people, it lasts a lot longer than others.

A: Hemorrhoids  I had no clue that would happen and using the bathroom was painful for the first month

A: When all you want to eat is sushi/cold cuts/unpasteurized cheese but the doctor that stitches up your 3rd-degree tear tells you to eat nothing but fiber/bran flakes

A: I felt like I got hit by a truck. I had so many sore muscles in my back, shoulders, and legs from pushing. And I only pushed for an hour!

A: Mine was when they come in to push on your uterus every half hour! That was worse than labor

A: I had a horrible spinal headache from my epidural so that made the first few days really rough. Then you can’t tell what hurts the most from your pelvis, to your nipples that are now permanently chaffed or on fire, then the back pain from where the epidural was placed. Then to top it off with exhaustion. Also, extreme thirst while breastfeeding. Oh and leaky boobs everywhere. My poor baby and couch were soaked plenty of times! Also the sitz bath I didn’t try for like 2 or 3 weeks and once I didn’t it was great for the pelvic pain.

A: Cluster feeding

A: Postpartum preeclampsia. I was hospitalized a week later after giving birth. I had a perfect pregnancy and after birth, my blood pressure was up the roof. It was a very stressful time being so sick, healing from a c-section, and caring for a newborn.

A: Swelling

A: The fear of pooping after having had a C-section

A: What your nipples look like when your pumping . How uncomfortable it was to wear a pad for like 5 weeks!

A: How all of a sudden your milk just shows up. 1 min your pumping drops, the next you have rocks in your chest and it’s pouring out at the slightest smell or glimpse of your baby my milk rolled in standing at my babies bedside in the Nicu. Puddle on the floor and all nobody warned me to wear the nursing pads. I’m a FTM, I had no clue all I knew is I was barely getting anything the first 4 days

A: Breastfeeding is HARD