There’s something hopeful about having Gucci on your face when you have blood leaking between your legs.
Well I did it. I had my baby. I pushed a human out of my body after laboring across three days and as I sit at home recovering from the physical and emotional experience, while attempting to find a few moments to use my hands for anything other than the two hand hold required to keep my son on a boob without whiplashing backwards, I am here to tell you how truly wonderful and awful it is to be a new mom.
I don’t know how anyone does anything with a newborn. After two and a half weeks of ruminating on this I’m on the couch with my child laying next to me (yes in a SIDS safe position jesus the stress from my own hormones mixed with the external pressures to parent in the right way is far more intense than what I had imagined) and two and a half weeks of trying to find time to take a shower, go to the bathroom, or make time to pluck my chin hairs (a daily occurrence now, thank you hormones again) I am taking advantage of my husband and mother cooking food and giving me a moment before I’m throwing my child back on the tit.
This article will be written in several segments. I’ve already stopped twice, once because my dog was shouting at the third Amazon delivery person dropping off my middle of the night breast feeding purchases, and a second because it was time to change our son, do his tongue tie exercises (torture), and then feed him. Again.
I’m not sure how anyone completes a cohesive task with a newborn. And so people say is that it gets better.
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And here I am maybe three days later trying to work on this.
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And here we ware again a day later. Hi.
What to wear postpartum at home
People say you won’t fit into your pre pregnancy clothes right away, and I didn’t expect to go from 85 pounds up to all the way back down right after giving birth, but the uncomfortable part about early postpartum is you’re left with all this extra weight around your body, and a soft belly and none of it feels like it makes as much sense because it’s lacking a baby bump. It almost feels like the skin around my stomach has even migrated to my back and sides, like it’s all just hanging out there.
The restlessness that I feel is overwhelming. My body is itchy, my brain itching to do things. I want to run and grab coffee and feel skinny again. I want to sleep, good god I want to sleep so very badly. I want my hands to not be so dry and I’d love for the feeling to come back into my right fingers and for the carpel tunnel to stop, and I want my cuticles to stop being cuticles.
I’d love for my stitches not to poke the inside walls of my vagina and I’d really love for the bleeding to stop so I can cease using pads and being underwear restricted. As someone who doesn’t wear underwear with workout pants and lives in thong land because underwear lines are not cool, have never been cool, and will never be cool, wearing diapers is quite challenging. It makes it so my oversized Nike and Artizia sweatpants are the only bottoms that make sense.
It’s so hard to get dressed when the only place you have to go is downstairs and the sidewalk around the block. This last week I started putting on concealer and blush because I wanted to feel like I was putting some life back into my face. I’ve tried putting on jeans that I wore in my second trimester. That was a mistake. Don’t do that. Don’t try on anything that didn’t fit you in your last month, maybe last two months of pregnancy. Just keep it hidden away for awhile.
Body changes
I don’t like all the girls on instagram who were pregnant and still had their skinny arms and skinny legs. I lost those by about month four and I’m not about to flounce around in tank tops and tight things right now because mama has some ish going on everywhere. I can’t imagine only having my belly grow and then giving birth and going back to wearing mostly the same things. Thank goodness I have a collection and affinity towards oversized things, but my god what is that life like to have your body barley affected by pregnancy? What does that do to your mental state to gain a meager 20 maybe 30 pounds, and then to be basically back to normal at your 6 week appointment?
What I have going for me is knowing that my weight will be less but probably won’t be out of range of concern for my doctor. And I know it takes that long for the uterus to shrink back down, but that doesn’t’ mean the fat around it won’t persist. I wonder what it’s like to have the rest of your body back to normal and you’re just up a casual jean size instead of up six wholes sizes. I wonder what it’s like to not have a wardrobe for pre-pregnancy size, your first trimester, second, third, and then this fourth trimester wave. I am so sorry to my husband who has to constantly handle the rotation of clothes in the garage, spilling out of my closet and appearing on our front porch, but what is a girl to do when her body is going through so many size changes? How do you keep up with your style even?
Styling the curves
Before I was pregnant I was in the best shape of my life. I was also the most at peace I have ever been with food. I felt strong in my body and I really loved the way I looked in clothes. Thank goodness for the ability to look back at photos on my phone and see that just not that long ago my face was snatched and so too was everything else on my body. I don’t expect to be the exact same, but feeling hormonal and confused and broken and new and lost all at the same time I think would feel a heck of a lot better if I didn’t have a skin tag necklace, acne on my arms that don’t fit into anything other than my oversized T-shirts (thank you Urban outfitters for your ridiculously large band Tt’s and The Frankie Shop for your focus on oversized everything–truly, bless you).
When I sleep at night I wear a makeshift diaper and a bra. The first to hold back my uterus and placenta leftovers from leaking out on my bed, the second to keep my titty milk from leaking, but also to keep my damaged nipples warm because I have Raynard’s now and cold nipples make for more painful ones, and then I perspire through everything because of my hormonal night sweats. When I wake up I throw on a pair of pants and robe because the moment I get out of bed I’m too cold after being too hot in the sheets. I know that one day things will be different and I’ll look back and wish my son was small again. I know that but when I look at him I also don’t quite feel it yet.
Will report back soon on how my journey progresses. In the meantime I’m wearing different pairs of sunglasses each day for my little walk around the block. There’s something hopeful about having Gucci on your face when you have blood leaking between your legs.
