Nine Days Postpartum: The Honest Truth

The ever growing laundry pile.

I have been learning so much. I feel like I'm really growing as a mother, and that confidence is invigorating.  I am also a mess in every sense of the word. There is a lot that happens after birth to your body and emotions that no one tells you about. I am not trying to be negative or whine, but while I am fortunate enough to be bonding amazingly with my baby (something that doesn't always happen for a number of reasons) I am having difficulty coping with a number of issues:

1)Breastfeeding- It's custom built super nutrition for baby, it creates vital bonding time, and it can be incredibly frustrating. The fullness doesn't bother me, nor do the sore nipples (sorry if this is too much information) or baby's length or frequency of feedings. What bothers me is that I am constantly leaking breastmilk. Milk that stinks when it's dried. It's all over my clothes, the babies clothes, the babies face. I like things to be neat and orderly and so far I'm changing our clothes every hour. I just want to be clean!

2)Recovery from tearing and ongoing bleeding- I'm recovering from a tear I received during the birth (I didn't need stitches or anything, I got off pretty well actually) as well as dealing with the bleeding that will last for the next couple weeks. I repeat; you bleed for weeks after having a baby. It sucks. It makes sense that after such a huge event there would be a lot of recovery and adjustment, but not being able to sit, walk or use the bathroom without pain is exhausting and just doesn't feel fair.

3)Hormones-Most of the day I feel great but I often get hormonal, emotional surges that send me crying with no explanation. I think in those moments I feel like I just can't give anymore of my body and I feel mad that I can't seem to pull myself out of it until it goes away on it's own.

I feel fortunate that I'm comfortable talking about all these sometimes frustrating changes. We're all lucky that society has progressed to the point where new mothers aren't stigmatized for saying or thinking that recovery from birth sucks and that you can love your baby more than anything but still have regular, human emotions. A woman feeling like me 40 years ago may have been silenced by guilt and developed postpartum depresssion. But thanks to women speaking their minds, and personally thanks to the support of my midwives and family, I feel okay working through these feelings and have not let them ruin the overwhelmingly beautiful times.