One year out

Just have a couple of thoughts as we hit the one year mark (!), not on parenthood but on the aftermath of pregnancy and all the crazy bodily changes, so thought I'd post them here in case they might be of use to somebody else wondering about that later set of indignities.

• So, a number of you are bummed that you had a c-section. Longer hospital stay, recovery from major surgery, further restrictions on your ability to move around and get some part of your life back on track. Thought it might help to hear that vaginal birth is no bed of roses either (and since I got induced, nothing about my delivery really Went The Way I Imagined either, other than avoiding surgery). Anyway, many indignities that have lingered far past the first few weeks, namely,
  
  
  
  1. Hemorrhoids. These were something I never really knew anything about, other than laughing about some ads on late-night TV. Now I know more than I ever wanted! Apparently all that pushing just blows the anal veins into a tangle of complaint. I've been awakened in the night with ass-itch. I've had blood in the toilet after a poop. And I've quadrupled the amount of toilet paper that it takes before I'm convincingly wiping clean. Gross, I know, but there you have it. Preparation H may help, but basically this is just part of my new life (helping me feel old). They apparently don't do surgery for these critters any more, although if the bleeding recurs, I'm going to ask my doctor about UV cauterization...
     
     
  2. Incontinence. Apparently your bladder is one of the things that doesn't bounce back after a pregnancy. The baby squashed it, and now it's settled into a new part of your abdomen. For me, this means that I'll never go padless again -- at least, every cough (including those "it's just cold out here" complaints from your lungs) is likely to mean a few drops, and when I play racquetball, I pretty much pee myself with all the swings and dives and running around. A panty shield is enough most days, but r'ball or a cold mean the maxi. I'm pretty unamused by all this and am likely to go for a fairly common surgery that [insert hand-waving] lifts your bladder and reattaches it to the abdominal wall or something, such that you empty it better and regain better sphincter control. If it weren't for how scary hospital-acquired infections are (and for my gynecologist's lingering belief that I intend another child), I'd have done this one already.
  
  
• Ok, so function in your nether regions isn't too spiffy. How about getting your figure back? I have better news here, but also mixed with catches.
  
  
  
  1. Weight. My advice is to not try to lose weight so long as you're breastfeeding. Some people (including my cousins) lose a ton of weight painlessly during the later months of breast-feeding -- heck, the kid is pulling hundreds of calories at that point -- but most people do not. For my part, I was pretty noteworthily hungry and often had an afternoon muffin snack in addition to the double-oatmeal breakfast that I was powering down and various whole-milk cravings, etc. However, once I weaned, all that dropped away, and I was able to lose weight with a relatively moderate set of changes -- e.g., keeping ice cream out of the house, passing on seconds, getting lots of fruit and vegetables into my meals -- without being hungry or feeling deprived at all. I even ate a full Thanksgiving dinner (complete with all the desserts), had a little chocolate around Christmas, and still managed to lose something like 20 pounds in 4 months and get back into my pre-pregnancy pants. Of course, I only got there in the last month or two, so it's taking a while to remember how I used to dress (and feel!) when I had more than 2-3 pairs of pants to choose from... heh.
     
     
  2. Boobs. I have to separate these out from general weight issues. I went up some 4 bra sizes during pregnancy, stayed there during breastfeeding, and basically, 6 months later am down only one size from the maximum. I gather that these outcomes are completely unpredictable -- you might go back to your previous size, be (or just feel) smaller after "deflation", or stay at some larger size. A lot of folks seem to hope for that last outcome, but for myself, having started at the large end of Sizes You Can Actually Find in Stores, I'm not all that excited, and I may well have troubles in ever buying a dress off the rack again. After a flurry of online shopping, I've found some non-orthopedic-looking bras that make me feel human again, but I'm not getting rid of any of my favorite maternity shirts...

Edit: Almost forgot! Additionally, there was a Weird Hair Thing. The books warn you that during pregnancy you stop shedding hair, so a couple weeks after delivery you may see a lot in the shower drain. Fine. What nobody told me to expect was that six months later, when I stopped breastfeeding, I'd have another hormone shift that would affect my hair -- that is, about a third of it either fell out or broke off. I knew it wasn't looking great, but what with having to pull it back every day (because of Grabby Baby Hands), I didn't realize the extent of the damage until one day I realized that some 1/3-1/2 of my bangs were about 3/4 inch long! A very understanding hair stylist made me feel much better when he shortened my hair all around and "invented" some extra bangs from farther back on my head until such a time as the rest grows back -- the short stuff is still only about half the length of the rest of my bangs (and presumably there's short stuff all over my head too), but I think I can see the end of the tunnel. Still, I thought I'd start feeling human again when I could get back into some of my civilian clothes; didn't expect this other weirdness to hang around!

So, that's all I've got. Hopefully nothing new will turn up. Lots of thoughts on parenthood and the cuteness of my kid, but that's fodder for a different discussion...

The fourth trimester

I feel like I'm remiss in providing some kind of take-home here for the post-pregnancy (that is, Welcome Home Baby!) period of time. There's a lot to say, but I think I can boil it down to a few top points.

1. The first two weeks with the new baby are one of the hardest things/times I've ever been through. You're simultaneously recovering from the physical trauma of labor (and, really, from the last few weeks of pregnancy), while being totally paranoid about this fragile tiny thing you've been entrusted with, and all of that on totally inadequate sleep. It's mind-blowing and perspective-killing. I didn't have any overt post-partum depression, but had plenty of stretches of thinking "People get through this?" in addition to the obvious "they do it more than once??" Days seemed to gape long and difficult, especially once I was on my own during the day. Some tips:
   
   
   
   • Keep visitors at a slow pace. No more than one (or one couple) at a time, no more than an hour per visit, no matter how beloved. That's just how little mental resources you have available. Really, this rule holds for about the first month. (Partner should help run interference, although he's likely to be as brain-fried as you are.)
     
   • Have the house stocked with as many easy-to-prepare meals as possible, and take-out menus handy. You'll be plenty hungry, but have neither brain nor energy to shop or cook.
     
   • Take as many naps as you can. Baby won't always sleep as much as in the first week or so, and you need to make up the deficit whenever you can. Nap on the couch near the basket, on the floor near the crib, or stay in bed with the bassinet nearby. Really, mid-afternoon or whenever. What else do you really have to accomplish?
     
   • Be easy on yourself. I wasn't good for much other than TV (hello, TNT!) and baby advice books for a long time. Just go with it. The idea of reading a book or surfing the Internet will become imaginable again in time. That first trip down the block is a huge victory, but some day you'll go to a nearby restaurant with the kid in the stroller on a whim.
   
   
2. Progress is slow. Yours (see above, heh) and the baby's too -- it's really a sack of potatoes for a long time, just eating and sleeping. Then for a while it's awake in stretches, but just stares blankly, and you feel like you should be entertaining or otherwise stimulating your potatoes, but you don't get much feedback for the waving of toys and jiggling of limbs. Hang in there. The six weeks to that first smile can seem like a long long time. Meantime, you're re-mastering the art of functioning like an adult -- cooking, reading, having conversations of more than a few minutes, leaving the house with the baby. But slowly, like your aches and pains subside.
   
   
3. By the end of three months you'll be in a totally different place. The baby giggles and plays games with you; you're confident about its favorite toys and that it knows who you are; you're probably getting decent stretches of sleep; you are an old hand at diapers, feeding, soothing or singing, etc.; and you have a sense of your baby's temperment and how much of a schedule/rhythm its daily needs have, and you've learned to work within those constraints to do some of the things you used to do. It's important to realize that all these things really will happen, and you'll feel competent again and glad that you undertook this whole project. Of course, just as things start to reach a manageable state, you may be headed back to work, which means finding a whole new balance of life and parenting, but at least you aren't a paranoid zombie, and you've fallen in love with this little spark and its giggle.

That's it in a nutshell -- I really think a "fourth trimester" is a good way to view things, since, while there are many changes and developmental milestones still in the future at that point, there is a unit of "mental arrival" of the kid and recovery of the parent that's quite tangible in this window. I hope that this little summary helps somebody else know what to expect.

Additionally, I recommend finding a mother's group for moral support once you can get out of the house -- lactation support is a good one, or maybe a yoga class for moms and babies -- just for reality checks and social interactions when both seem most lacking. You might get some bonus friends out of it, and it's great to see some older kids so you can look ahead to what's to come at various points. All very helpful as well as fun. Good luck!