4 weeks Postpartum
Heeelllloooo!
Remember the last time I wrote, in JULY, and I was so cute and naïve and said I’d be writing more often… whoops.
Anyway, I had a baby!!!
Before that though my pregnancy took a wild turn. The last 8 weeks of pregnancy were miserable… (I will also acknowledge that this stage of pregnancy is the most miserable before health problems…)
Without getting into it, I had gestational diabetes, was on insulin, had a few physical complications, including a torn abdominal muscle, the baby breeched twice, I stopped sleeping at night….
On top of my health and wellbeing, my work environment had become pretty hostile and because of my physical condition I was only able to work a few days a week which really did not help my situation and I was absolutely drowning in stress.
So.. these two things combined, and ya girl started having mild psychosis symptoms… So, it was no longer safe for me to be pregnant anymore, and my OB and I made the decision to induce at 37 weeks.
Honestly, Thank GOD.
If you know me in real life, you would no that I need a plan. There was absolutely nothing scarier to me than spontaneous labor.. no maam. (actually, being induced was my #2 favorite birth plan… if I were to have had my “dream” birth, it involved a broken elevator and scarring an unassuming stranger).
I’m not going to go to much into my birth story (idk, not now, mostly because it was pretty mediocre, maybe it’ll be a tiktok), BUT I will say it was way better than my first birth experience. The epidural WORKED this time, I was crackin jokes and giggling all the way up til push time…
After birth, Kinnie (oh that’s her name by the way) had a slight scare and was put on a CPAP machine for 10 minutes. She was fine, she just wouldn’t cry… at all… for anything… she was SO unbothered they decided she must’ve been broken. However, her vitals were steady and she was responsive so they called off the emergency pediatrician and I was able to get her back on my chest and latched to my boob within the first 30 minutes. It took her almost 18 hours to cry for the first time… and that’s pretty much how she operated for the first 3 and a half weeks… only crying because she was hungry or trying to poop…
However, within the last week, she has been battling some pretty gnarly reflux and my chill baby cries just a little bit more, but overall, really hard to irritate and absolutely unbothered by her surroundings… (just ask her very irritated older brother who has meltdowns because after 5 minutes of loud chicken barking in his sisters face she, “WON’T OPEN HER EYES”).
Now heres the part you came here for…
Tiffy, are you living up to your name? Are you now “postpartum” and “psycho”??
Always. <3
Kidding.
As of now, I am doing pretty okay.
I have not had any psychosis symptoms since Kinnie was born, and I am pretty confident I am currently not depressed… although, I am still on anti-depressants, as I was my whole pregnancy.
Right now, I am struggling with (what I consider to be normal) normal newborn struggles.
I get overwhelmed easily. I feel like I am not showing up enough for my older child. I feel like I don’t do anything, but also like there aren’t enough hours in the day, and also like I would pay so much money to sleep for more than 2.5 hours…
I forget how draining nursing a newborn is… this girl is always eating. If she isn’t eating, shes burping, or I am pumping because she didn’t eat enough… and then after 10 minutes of time to myself where I’m not being touched, I start laundry or something, and then I feel guilt I am not using that time to cuddle and bond with my baby…
It’s an everyday struggle of balancing guilt and productivity, but I think I am managing pretty well.
My husband is great, he’s been a huge help trying to get our toddler adjusted to the new normal. We’ve had a few moments of snapping at one another out of sleeplessness (or hormones) and then one of us will remind the other of our motto, which is, “the children are the enemy”. And then we go back to being partners.
He is so eager to take her into the world and show her off, and believe me, I am too!!!
It’s the holiday season, and while we would love nothing more than to be spending time around a table with our friends and family, we will be spending most of this season at home, by ourselves, and not traveling.
Santa may be working hard, but RSV/Flu is working harder…
I was irrevocably scarred as a mother when ridge had RSV as an infant and was in and out of the hospital for a week. I am an anxious person. Postpartum anxiety was a smaller part of my previous postpartum depression, and I am just not interested in risking my mental health right now… So if we decline your holiday get together invite, or choose to just let you see (WITH YOUR EYES NOT YOUR GRUBBY HANDS) the baby from the safe distance of her carrier, its not personal. She’ll still be a baby when we are more comfortable with socializing her, probably.
Kinnie Elouise, 10/17/23
