TWO MONTHS POST PARTUM

TWO MONTHS POST PARTUM


It feels like time goes extra fast the more kids you add to your household. This winter has been tough but time still feels like it is flying. We just celebrated Jackson's two months, which means I am also two months post partum. I just recently had my check up with my OB, and it was really bittersweet because it was the end of the road for us with him. Kyle and I both have grown to really love our OB, he has helped us through so much. If anyone is unfamiliar with our story, we struggled with infertility and loss for 2 years before finally having our little sticky baby (Everly). Our OB helped us manage and fix the issues we were having, and we were able to have two beautiful children. There were a lot of nights where I didn't think I would ever have a family and that was a really dark time in my life. 

But here we are, two kids in, and it has been quite the adjustment. In some ways it hasn't been as hard as I thought, but I still haven't been brave enough to leave the house by myself with both of them lol I still either drop one off or have help come with me. I think once the weather gets nicer things will feel a lot easier, because right now it takes so much effort to leave the house and some days it just feels overwhelming. I feel like my attention has been focused solely on my kids, which is how I feel it should be. But sometimes things tend to fall short, like communicating with others via phone and text. I know this is just a transitional period and it will get easier as time goes on, I just wish others understood my availability can be patchy at times. 

My healing this time around was completely different and I think that has contributed to my state of mind. I felt fairly normal pretty much the next day. I had bleeding of course, and I had pretty painful contractions when I nursed, but in terms of tearing I had nothing to worry about. I did have the baby blues again and that is one aspect that always turns me off of the entire child birth experience. I hate the way I feel, I hate crying every minute over nothing at all, and sometimes it feels like my mind is just showing me nothing but negative thoughts and it makes me feel so guilty. This time I had the baby blues for about a week, I think a lot of my anxiety and emotions were centred around Kyle going back to work and me being home alone. But by day 2 of him being back to work I found comfort in making our new daily schedule and finding our new normal. In terms of my emotional state this time, it is so much better. I was on anti depressants with Everly but this time I have not felt like I needed it. I feel so much more stable and confident this time around, and I'm thankful for that. Other than a few situations I am trying to work through in my personal life, everything has been manageable and we are getting really excited for warmer weather! 

I am trying to get back into a low carb eating plan, not keto at this point because I don't think I can handle something so strict at the moment. I have also purchased a gym membership and have started going twice a week to start. It feels good to have the time to focus on myself and it has really helped my mental state also! I have about 30-40lbs I would like to lose, thats a combination of weight I gained while pregnant and some extra lbs I had before I got pregnant. 

Overall I feel at peace with how my post partum healing has gone this time. I feel like I am in a much better place than I was with Everly which helps because now I have two kids I'm running after. The temperatures are starting to get nicer and I am ready to have tons of park and zoo dates with my kids! 

LABOUR AND DELIVERY : JACKSON GRAHAM PAUL

LABOUR AND DELIVERY : JACKSON GRAHAM PAUL


Our perfect little boy is finally here! He arrived January 17, 2019 at 2:27am, and was 8lbs 9oz of pure perfection! I was 37 and a half weeks along and this little boy was ready to make his debut, and to be honest, I was so ready haha. If you have been following along throughout I'm sure you know that I was so ready to meet this sweet little face. From the very start this pregnancy was tough and a lot of the time it was scary, so to have him here in my arms is all I have been waiting for! I wanted to sit down and write out my birth story like I did for Everly before I forget it all, so here it is!

January 8 I went in for my weekly appointment, I was a little early to have a sweep done but I was having contractions and cramping so my doctor wanted to check me. I was 5cm dilated already, and it didn't really surprise me because I dilated like that with Everly too. So I was already half way there and I knew it was coming up and we would be meeting this little boy soon! I scheduled my next appointment for the following week (and I planned it later so I would for sure get a sweep lol) and carried on with our week. 

January 15 I was feeling a little off, I was really tired and felt sick so I asked my mother in law to come and get Everly and have her spend the night there so I could rest a little bit and try and feel better. My doctor's appointment was the following day so the plan was to pick her up on my way home. January 16 I had my appointment first thing in the morning so I got up and left the house to go right there. I felt really nervous for this appointment, mostly because I knew I was already halfway there and I had been having anxiety for a while about labour. My doctor told me we could do a sweep and so I got up on the table and he gave me one. He told me I was about 6cm dilated and that he was pretty certain that I would have the baby within the next 24 hours. I was a bit skeptical about his statement because he said the same thing with Everly, and she ended up coming 4 days after. I scheduled my next appointment just in case Jackson was a no show, and I went to my mother in laws for a few hours to kill some time just in case things did start to happen. 

My doctor told me that if I started having any types of contractions to go right to labour and delivery because I was already so far along. We live out of town so I wanted to stay close. I had to time it right because Kyle was also at work, and I didn't want him leaving unless things were actually happening. 

My appointment was at 10am, and around 1pm I started feeling some cramping and light contractions. We started timing them just to see, but they would only happen when I was sitting down and they would stop when I walked around. I told Kyle to stay put, but maybe see if he could have an earlier day and leave around 3pm. Of course as soon as I said that my contractions stopped, and around 3:30pm I went and got something to eat because I was starving. Around 5pm we were still at my mother in laws, and we were making plans to head back to the house (we decided to let Everly stay one more night there just in case things picked up again), and my contractions started up again. This time they felt more intense, and they were about 4-5 minutes apart. We timed them for about 45 minutes and finally I said I wanted to go to the hospital to get checked. 

They hooked me up to the machine and my contractions were actually about 2 minutes apart by that time, so they called the on call doctor in to take a look at our options. At that point, I was so far along that I felt the best option for us because we do live out of town was to break my water, admit me, and get things going. I have to take a moment and say how amazing our doctor was, we had Dr. Mckinney deliver our son and he just had an amazing bedside manor and humour that was so similar to ours. It was just such an amazing experience having him as our doctor, I was pretty bummed at first that we wouldn't have our doctor deliver, but I could not have asked for a better person to help bring our son into the world. 

Once they got me into the birthing room, the doctor came in and told us that the man who delivers the epidural is tied up in a surgery and may not be able to come in time. I think at that moment the entire world stopped and part of me died inside lol. I have so much respect for women who can give birth naturally, I just know that isn't me. He said he would do his best and I started praying for a miracle. Turns out I dilate quickly but once my water breaks things slow right down, so even though they thought I wouldn't have any time, I did. Although, I had to wait about 3 hours before I was able to get the epidural, I was just thankful I could get it. I let him know about a million times how thankful I was too, because for those three hours I was experiencing back labour like I had with Everly and it is just another level of pain. The good news was that because I had been having back labour for three hours, my spine already felt numb and I didn't feel the needle to in which was one of the things I was really afraid of. 

Once the epidural was in everything in the world was alright. I also made a point to push the button a lot more because with Everly by the time I was ready to push, the epidural wasn't as effective because I didn't push the button very much. This resulted in me being a little too numb (from the neck down lol) so they told me to stop pushing it so I could get some feeling back into the upper part of my body. I could feel the pressure starting to become more intense, and I knew that pushing was just around the corner. 

When I reached 10cm like with Everly they let my body do a bit more work for about an hour before they told me to start pushing, just so he could squeeze his way down a bit more. I was really nervous and I was shaking a ton which made things a bit more difficult. I think I was scared of tearing, with Everly I ended up needing an episiotomy and the healing aspect of that was extremely hard. But I knew this baby needed to come out one way or another, so I started pushing. 

So this is where I knew we had a doctor who was just hilarious: when the head was out and we were waiting for the next round of contractions to finish pushing, he saw Jackson had a head full of hair and while he was waiting he made a mohawk. His head just chilling there lol Kyle thought it was the funniest thing and it just made the room less tense (the pressure you feel is insane and you can't do anything until contractions start up again). 

45 minutes of pushing and he was here, it was a moment I won't ever forget. I loved everything about this labour experience and honestly if they could all be like this I would have 20 more babies. The best part was I didn't tear. He gave me one stitch because I had a cut that was a little stubborn and wouldn't stop bleeding, but other than that everything was fine. With Everly, even though she was a vaginal birth it didn't seem like one because we were in an operating room in case they had to go in with an emergency c section. She was taken away and I didn't get to hold her for a little while until they knew she was alright. This was such a different experience, I literally pulled out my son. I got to hold him right away and I held him for almost an hour before they took him to weigh and measure. 

The doctor afterwards even showed us the placenta and showed Kyle where Jackson had grown for the past 9 months. It was truly just a beautiful experience, one that I won't ever forget. The nurses we had in the room with us were amazing, the doctor was perfect, and the energy was just so happy and positive. I was so nervous leading up to that moment, but when it was all said and done I could not have asked for a better birth (even with the scare of possibly not having an epidural lol).  

We are home and adjusting well, overall my post partum experience has been good and we are all settling in to our new routine!