Thursday, October 2, 2014

7 Weeks Postpartum

I still can't believe that I've been doing this parenting gig for 7 weeks now.

I had my 6 week postpartum appointment last Friday and overall, things checked out well. I'm back down to my pre-pregnancy weight (I actually was at my 2 week appointment,) and my uterus has shrunk back to size. 

The only worrying things were that my incision has not completely healed, and I had a bad case of mastitis in my left breast. Dr. L said that my incision not healing could be caused by my gestational diabetes, and that all we can do is keep it clean and dry, and wait. I'm still having discharge and blood periodically, so I'm ready for it to heal. Dr. L sent me to do a repeat glucose test on Monday to make sure my levels have gone back down, so we're waiting to see the results from that. 

As for the mastitis, I'm on a round of breastfeeding-safe antibiotics. I started feeling pain in my left breast last Thursday, which I thought was due to engorgement because Kieran had slept through the night (he normally wakes up at least once.) He was still sleeping, so I pumped to try and relieve the pain, but it didn't help. The pain increased throughout the day, and by that evening, my entire body was aching, my breast was swollen and hot, and I had red streaking on my skin. Thankfully it happened the day before my appointment, and the symptoms have subsided with the antibiotics. We had a few rough days of nursing because my breast was so swollen that Kieran couldn't latch on. It's also affected my already fluctuating supply, so I'm increasing my doses of fenugreek. If anyone has any other ideas for increasing supply, I'd love to hear them! 

Mentally and emotionally, I'm doing pretty well. I was braced to experience the baby blues and had Keegan on watch for anything extreme, but my emotions have been a lot more level than I expected. I think that it's partially due to the fact that I still haven't fully allowed myself to process the birth and our time in the hospital, but I'm afraid to let myself think about it too much because I know I did everything I could, and I don't want to shine a negative light on it. 

I have had a few teary moments when Kieran is crying and I can't figure out what's wrong, and breastfeeding continues to be harder than I expected. I also get emotional when I think about how much I love this little being, and how damn lucky we are to have him. I can't help but think about if we're going to try for a second, and my heart hurts when I think about having to do treatments again. We've discussed adoption, but I don't think we'll make any firm decisions until Kieran is a year old. Dr. L doesn't feel comfortable with me getting pregnant before a year because my uterus won't fully be healed until then. 

I started back to work Tuesday/Thursday this week, and then M/W/F beginning next week. My boss is letting me bring Kieran to work for a year, or until he's too much of a hassle for me to get any work done. Bringing a baby to work has been difficult as I explained in my last post, but I think we're slowly getting into a routine. I just need to keep telling myself that he's only little once, and I'm extremely lucky to have such an amazing opportunity.

I thought my period had started on Monday, but it turned out to only be two days of extremely light bleeding, not enough to full call a period. I decided against any type of birth control because I want to see what my body will do on its own. That may change down the road, but it work for us for now.

Overall, these last 7 weeks have been the craziest, most stressful, wonderful, amazing weeks of my life. I still can't believe that I have a son who I get the honor to watch grow up.


6 comments:

  1. Breast feeding is totally hard! I wasn't expecting it to be so demanding and frustrating at times! Drink an insane amount of water! You can get mothers milk tea and drink an insane amount of that too. I am struggling with my supply also. Pumping sucks for me. It is amazing you get to bring Kieran to work with you and I totally understand the stress about him crying and fussing in front of other people. I am going to bring Hazy to my nanny job with me 4 days a week starting on mon and I am stressing about her "behaving" herself and making things easy on me so not all my focus is on her the entire time I'm getting paid to spend time with other people's children! But thank god she gets to come with me! Hopefully we will both work out a routine and our sweet babes will be mellow and quiet!

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    1. I hate pumping! It's so frustrating that I'll pump both boobs for half an hour and only get an ounce. I was super worried that that meant Kieran wasn't getting enough to eat, but my doctor said that his mouth was formed to extract milk and it will always do it better than any machine can, so I shouldn't worry. Things have already gotten better at work, which I am so thankful for. I hope things go well with you and Hazy!

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  2. A friend of mine had her baby by emergency caesarean s couple of weeks before you. She swears by this recipe to boost her supply:

    http://www.mamanatural.com/lactation-cookie-recipe/

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  3. Sounds like you are doing amazing as a new mom. Glad you got the mastitis under control right away. Breastfeeding is lots of hard work in the first few months (from what I hear). Hand expression of milk for a few minutes after feeding or pumping can bring out lots more milk while also emptying the breast more fully to help build supply.

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  4. I have no advice but the ladies above seem to have some good ideas. Hoping things just get easier and more wonderful from here on out xx

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  5. 15months later i am still not pre preg weight. ha ha ha. oh man. good for you mama!!!!

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