Those weeks and days after Claire was born were so hard. Extreme sleep deprivation combined with a slow healing process from the delivery left me confused, emotional, and sad. I wanted desperately to feel happy and completely in love with my baby. Instead I felt the opposite. One sleepless night when there were no tears left in me I told Tim we should send condolence cards to people when there babies are born instead of congratulations. In all honestly all I really remember is feeling tired, sad, isolated, and lonely even though I was surrounded by loving and caring family and friends. Fortunately my family lives close to us so we had a lot of support during those early weeks. I'm not sure Tim or I would have made it without them. I never expected my body to hurt so much or for it to be an ordeal for me to even leave my house.
Breastfeeding was a nightmare for us at the beginning and I was in more pain from that. That did improve slowly over time and by the time I was 3 weeks postpartum it was going fairly well. However at that time I was not doing well. Those pesky baby blues had settled in to what appeared to be something more.
Postpartum depression. There I said it. It's ugly and horrible. I was a mess. I wasn't bonding with Claire and I felt nothing but cried all the time. I felt like a failure, like I couldn't do anything right. I couldn't soothe my daughter. Every time I tried to carry her my body would rebel and hurt or worse give out on me. Physically my recovery was very slow and I had all sorts of ugly things happen to me that even now I'm embarrassed by. By the time I was 3 weeks postpartum I couldn't even sleep. I would try but sleep would elude me. My mother and Tim strongly encouraged me to call the midwives. This wasn't the baby blues. The midwives had me come in the same day I called. Tim went with me and helped me talk through everything with Vanessa. She recommended that I go on zoloft and either seek counseling or at least talk to other new moms. I wasn't happy about going on zoloft, in fact the whole thing made me feel like even more of a failure. Everything I read about postpartum depression told me that we were catching it early and that it was likely due to a hormonal imbalance.
When you are pregnant you have some pretty strong hormones surging through you and then when you give birth your body goes cold turkey. Thus why so many women experience the baby blues. Some women don't bounce back (hormonally) and end up with PPD. And some women need medication or some just seek counseling. I'll be honest I'm still not convinced I needed to take the zoloft but everyone seems to think I'm more like me. Now I feel like me (at least more often than not) but it took a long time and reduction in the dose I was on.
Within a couple of weeks of going on the zoloft I started to feel better and I slowly started to fall in love with Claire. It kills me that I felt so little during those early days. I wish I could take them back and do them over. Just knowing it would get better would help. The three things that I think saved me where the fact that we had a healthy baby, that we were successful in breastfeeding (very successful in fact), and the fact that I felt so good about her birth. Whenever I felt particularly bad I could always look at those things and feel good about something.
Physically recovering from Claire's birth has been very hard. When I had my 6 week checkup I was still not feeling as good as I thought I should. And I was right. Apparently I wasn't quite fully healed and was told that I should feel better in a couple of weeks.
After that 6 week appointment I started exercising. Slowly at first. I had already started walking before then. I started with some gentle yoga, strength training, and elliptical. I love our gym and went regularly up until the beginning of October. As the week of my return to work approached both Tim and I realized that it was going to be difficult if not impossible for me to get to the gym once I went back to work. We did a lot of talking and some browsing on amazon for exercise equipment. I had already been doing all my strength training and yoga at home so all I needed was a reliable way to do some cardio exercises. Before I got pregnant I regularly went to spinning classes at our gym and loved them. It's something I've missed a lot over the past year so we looked into buying a spinning bike for our home. We bought one and it arrived the week before I went back to work. I love it and have been able to use it several times already. It's a great workout and I love that I don't have to leave my Claire to get a good workout!
Exercising is a top priority for not just me but for Tim as well. We both know in order to loose the baby weight (and I gained a lot and needed to loose when I got pregnant) that I need to exercise. I'm super motivated and I know I'm doing it not just for me but for my entire family. In December right before the holidays I also joined weight watchers. Of course with the holidays I didn't loose much but I didn't gain anything either. So that's a win. So far I've lost about 5lbs since joining not bad all things considered.
I recently went back to work (another post for another day) which is presenting it's own new challenges for exercise and me. What I've learned in the last three months is that I'm a strong woman and that I need to be patient with myself. It took me 9 months to grow a baby. Now I'm raising a person and it may take a little time to get my body back.
Pregnant Me:
Postpartum Me:
Breastfeeding was a nightmare for us at the beginning and I was in more pain from that. That did improve slowly over time and by the time I was 3 weeks postpartum it was going fairly well. However at that time I was not doing well. Those pesky baby blues had settled in to what appeared to be something more.
Postpartum depression. There I said it. It's ugly and horrible. I was a mess. I wasn't bonding with Claire and I felt nothing but cried all the time. I felt like a failure, like I couldn't do anything right. I couldn't soothe my daughter. Every time I tried to carry her my body would rebel and hurt or worse give out on me. Physically my recovery was very slow and I had all sorts of ugly things happen to me that even now I'm embarrassed by. By the time I was 3 weeks postpartum I couldn't even sleep. I would try but sleep would elude me. My mother and Tim strongly encouraged me to call the midwives. This wasn't the baby blues. The midwives had me come in the same day I called. Tim went with me and helped me talk through everything with Vanessa. She recommended that I go on zoloft and either seek counseling or at least talk to other new moms. I wasn't happy about going on zoloft, in fact the whole thing made me feel like even more of a failure. Everything I read about postpartum depression told me that we were catching it early and that it was likely due to a hormonal imbalance.
When you are pregnant you have some pretty strong hormones surging through you and then when you give birth your body goes cold turkey. Thus why so many women experience the baby blues. Some women don't bounce back (hormonally) and end up with PPD. And some women need medication or some just seek counseling. I'll be honest I'm still not convinced I needed to take the zoloft but everyone seems to think I'm more like me. Now I feel like me (at least more often than not) but it took a long time and reduction in the dose I was on.
Within a couple of weeks of going on the zoloft I started to feel better and I slowly started to fall in love with Claire. It kills me that I felt so little during those early days. I wish I could take them back and do them over. Just knowing it would get better would help. The three things that I think saved me where the fact that we had a healthy baby, that we were successful in breastfeeding (very successful in fact), and the fact that I felt so good about her birth. Whenever I felt particularly bad I could always look at those things and feel good about something.
Physically recovering from Claire's birth has been very hard. When I had my 6 week checkup I was still not feeling as good as I thought I should. And I was right. Apparently I wasn't quite fully healed and was told that I should feel better in a couple of weeks.
After that 6 week appointment I started exercising. Slowly at first. I had already started walking before then. I started with some gentle yoga, strength training, and elliptical. I love our gym and went regularly up until the beginning of October. As the week of my return to work approached both Tim and I realized that it was going to be difficult if not impossible for me to get to the gym once I went back to work. We did a lot of talking and some browsing on amazon for exercise equipment. I had already been doing all my strength training and yoga at home so all I needed was a reliable way to do some cardio exercises. Before I got pregnant I regularly went to spinning classes at our gym and loved them. It's something I've missed a lot over the past year so we looked into buying a spinning bike for our home. We bought one and it arrived the week before I went back to work. I love it and have been able to use it several times already. It's a great workout and I love that I don't have to leave my Claire to get a good workout!
Exercising is a top priority for not just me but for Tim as well. We both know in order to loose the baby weight (and I gained a lot and needed to loose when I got pregnant) that I need to exercise. I'm super motivated and I know I'm doing it not just for me but for my entire family. In December right before the holidays I also joined weight watchers. Of course with the holidays I didn't loose much but I didn't gain anything either. So that's a win. So far I've lost about 5lbs since joining not bad all things considered.
I recently went back to work (another post for another day) which is presenting it's own new challenges for exercise and me. What I've learned in the last three months is that I'm a strong woman and that I need to be patient with myself. It took me 9 months to grow a baby. Now I'm raising a person and it may take a little time to get my body back.
Pregnant Me:
 |
| 39 week bump |
 |
| 39 weeks pregnant |
 |
| 8 weeks postpartum |
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