2 weeks postpartum

How far along:  2 weeks postpartum (6.11.15)

Total weight gain/loss: 15 lbs down from pregnancy and 15 lbs from pre-pregnancy

Maternity clothes:  nope.  i'm blessed to be able to fit into all of my pre-pregnancy jeans and shirts and whatever although some things (naturally) are just not flattering at this stage.  also, i tried a few of my skinny waist church skirts... i was afraid i might break the zipper they're so tight.  i feel super super skinny (how could you not after losing so much of a belly so fast?!), but as evidenced by trying on my church skirts last saturday night... i'm not quite all the way skinny yet.  ha.    

Sleep:  not bad. i've been sleeping in the same room as elizabeth and unlike with previous kids, i'm not worried about her suffocating or suddenly dying in the night so i haven't been startling wide awake at every squeak and yawn and have actually been able to get decent sleep.  elizabeth has been sleeping a 4-5.5 hour stretch and then a 3.5-4 hour stretch and then when she wakes up around 6:30, i feed her a put her back to bed and she sleeps for another 1-1.5 hours.  i would be much more well rested if i went to bed when she did, but i haven't quite gotten to that point yet.  but still, i sleep pretty well.  not as well rested as i was with abigail, but definitely better off than i was with insomniac brady. 

Best moment this week:  can i just say all the days?  maybe not every day is equally amazing, but all the days are definitely great.  i'm happier than i've been in a loooooong time and i can't get over how amazing that feels every day when i wake up.

Movement:  i remember with abigail that i would feel movement in my belly afterwards that felt like baby kicks and it was so weird to me.  i didn't get that this time around (just the painful contracting of the uterus as it returns back to its original size) and i've just felt really normal.   

Food cravings:  i've been really loving food.  the first day or two, i wasn't really in the mood to eat, but occasionally things would taste good.  and then for the following week, i wanted to down everything in and out of sight.  food tasted so amazing and even if i was stuffed, i would catch myself looking for more food to eat.  my body just wanted to intake as much food as humanly possible... well, more food than humanly possible because, what a cruel joke from nature, my body would get such bad stomach aches after the smallest amount of food.  so i was constantly eating and loving food, but it was also making me feel sick to my stomach 24/7.  so weird.  but for the last 5 or so days, i haven't been getting the stomach aches that i was and i'm able to eat larger amounts of food in one sitting.  sometimes i don't really want to eat, but for the most part i do.  and even ordinary foods sound so tempting to me (like when i made peanut butter and nutella sandwiches for the kids and then kept sneaking some more and more because it looked and tasted so good) and i've been completely carb loading because people kept bringing tons of bread and rolls and brownies (caramel turtle brownies, and cookie brownies, and mint chocolate brownies) and heavy pasta dishes like ravioli lasagna and mac and cheese.  maybe i should be concerned about eating healthy and losing weight but that's really not a priority to me right now.  i've spent too much of my life not liking food or being iffy about if i want to eat because i'm not in the mood.  life is so much happier when food tastes good so i'm just soaking up this amazingness of loving food and enjoying it so much.  also... remember... i feel super skinny.  i know i have a big mass of belly hanging over the waistband of my pants right now but i can still see the chair beneath me because this belly is sooooo much smaller than my 39 week belly.  it's because i'm skinny now.  

Symptoms: i find it amazing how fast my recovery was this time around.  wonderfully enough, i did not tear at all this time around and felt almost normal within 24 hours.  within 72 hours, i really did feel like i'd never pushed a baby out of my lady parts but was in crazy pain from the horrible engorgement of my milk rushing in and having a baby that was too small and sleepy to eat enough.  happily, my milk supply is much better adjusted now and my body feels like a normal nursing body.  so i anticipate feeling like this for about a year.

Gender:  my precious little girl.

What I miss:  maybe just my big belly because that was fun.  but i'm really happy now to be able to move around more easily while i sleep and that i don't have painful kicks and rolls and contractions all the time.  biggest of all of what i don't miss is being so depressed and sad and angry all the time.  so yeah... maybe just my belly and how cool it is to house a human in my body.

Milestones:  i birthed a baby without pain medication, my body is 100% feeding this baby, and holy cow i have a two week old and i'm a mom of three kids!
Theme: the first week was the week of soaking up my newborn and the second week has been the week of life with three kids.
What's different this time around:  with abigail, my recovery and milk coming in was horrific.  like that recovery was the worst pain of my life and then getting clogged ducts and mastitis was even more of the worst pain of my life.  i would rather experience natural childbirth multiple times over before experiencing that again.  with brady, neither was bad at all.  with elizabeth, the recovery was such a breeze that it was practically nonexistent and the milk coming in was horribly painful, but being more experienced this time around, was handled better and hopefully the issue is over and done at this point (instead of lasting forever like with abigail).  newborn elizabeth is very similar to newborn abigail and not at all similar to newborn brady (thank goodness) in eating/sleeping habits, temperament, and appearance.  i'm loving it.  

i really need to write up my thoughts on my first week home with elizabeth but in one word i would describe it as "magical."  elizabeth and i stayed in the guest room for over a week and i spent my days in bed just nursing her, holding her, caring for her, or watching her sleep in her moses basket by the bed.  i love our guest room and the view and the feel of it all and my stay in there that week was positively amazing.  i loved having that space and bed as our own and the kids could come and visit us in there but i never felt like i had to leave elizabeth's side or truck her around the house with me.  it just makes me think of what my friend anne described as "the baby cave" or something.  i took off that time from life and really just relaxed with my newborn.  this is something i'm going to make sure to do (if at all possible) with my future babies... i'm already nostalgic that this time with elizabeth has passed but excited to experience it with my future newborns.  it was perfection.  when i had abigail, my mom was in town and then my mil so i didn't get that all day alone time with my baby because i always had another adult with me (which honestly was completely necessary because my recovery was soooo rough and my mom waited on me hand and foot) or all night alone time (because i was sharing a room with chris and was trying to be sensitive to not waking him up, but also i wasn't sleeping because every time abigail yawned, i was sure she was going to die, and because eventually i had to have abigail sleep in another room so i could actually rest.  with brady, i had him sleep in a moses basket by my bed but was still having to worry about waking chris.  i don't know why i thought i had to bring my newborn to join me in my sleeping area... it makes so much more sense for me to join hers.  anyways, i can't say it enough... it was perfection.

Extra: i have a lot i want to get down about the last two weeks but i do need to go to bed pretty soon so maybe i'll add more later.  the biggest things for me since elizabeth was born have been that i'm so happy to be happy and also, that i am just completely overwhelmed and amazed and grateful for my body.

everyone talks about and worries about postpartum depression.  the nurses and doctors in the hospital all talk about it and warn about it and ask questions and do surveys and on and on to check that you're not depressed.  they did it in the hospital and at my kaiser home visit three days later and again this morning when i took elizabeth in for her 2 week well check.  no one bothered asking me if i was depressed while i was pregnant but they sure do now.  it has made me even more aware of my current happiness.  my entire pregnancy, i had such a hard time getting up in the morning.  i was sad when i woke up and would try to go back to sleep for as long as possible and then try to stay in bed as long as possible and then try to return to my bed as soon as possible and never get out.  now, i wake up happy and looking forward to the day.  when my kids are driving me crazy, i feel like i still have control over myself and the situation and i don't climb in bed and start crying to get away from it all.  i've called and texted friends and family members since elizabeth has been born.  people that i love but have been screening calls from since last fall.  when i pray at night, i literally have trouble coming up with anything except "i'm so grateful to be happy again.  i'm so thankful for my life.  i'm so so happy and so so blessed.  i'm just so happy to be happy."  i'm a broken record of the very best kind.  

i remember after i had abigail that i looked in the mirror at my leftover belly and was blown away by how sad and gross it looked.  after brady, i didn't care because i knew better.  this time, i feel like i know even better than before.  holy cow, my body has grown three kids.  my body has grown my sweet, healthy elizabeth and is now 100% feeding her.  i can't get over how amazing my body is.  i look at her and can't believe that she was just inside of me (and even bigger than she currently is right now!) and that instead now, she is wearing clothes, in my arms, and my body looks normal again.  two weeks.  how does all of that happen in just two weeks?  my body grows this baby, knows exactly when it should come out and how to get it out, delivers this baby so perfectly, and then, right on cue, develops a way to feed this baby and provide for all of its needs and deliver tons of milk to it the very next day.  as lisa said... "you literally harvested a human from your body."  i definitely have tons of stretch marks (none new... just the ones from abigail) and my belly still protrudes and i'm 15 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight but i don't care.  i honestly, truly, 100% do not even care.  what my body has done is so insanely incredible.  it doesn't look as good as it did 10 years ago, but i love it and appreciate it waaaaay more now than i ever have before.  i love my body so much and am so thankful for it.  this whole experience is such a miracle.  i am completely in awe.

6.11.15 at 2 weeks postpartum

6.11.15 at 2 weeks postpartum

6.11.15 at 2 weeks postpartum