6 weeks postpartum

Don't hate me if your postpartum was horrible but the last 6 weeks have been really great. I read so many pins and crazy articles about how horrible birth and postpartum was going to be. It actually inspired me to share my story because although its not this easy for everyone I wanted to share with all the new mommas out there that it really isn't as horrible as people make it sound. I already wrote a post about the birth of my son so this one will focus on the last 6 weeks since his arrival. Overall the last month and a half has been the absolute best time in my life. I am lucky enough to be staying home with my baby and soaking up every little snuggle, sound, face and cute moment. That being said there is of course the not so fun stuff that comes with birth. The bleeding, the peeing, the soreness, the late night feedings and the gamut of issues that breastfeeding can bring. My approach to recovery was basically just laughing off the issues. At the end of the day I was just so happy to be done being pregnant and finally have my babe that nothing phased me. I have always known that breastfeeding was going to be the way I wanted to go. I tried not to stress about it and just let nature guide us. There is so many negative articles about how hard it is but just know that although it may be hard for some people that doesn't mean it will be hard for you. My baby and my body knew what they were doing even if I didn't. There is the whole leakage thing but I already have you covered there with my breast pad review post. The strangest thing that happened to me after giving birth was the bladder numbness... I really don't know what else to call it because I literally couldn't feel myself pee (I did however feel the burn.. holy shit  I mean pee).  Therefore I peed my pants...Mommy diapers here I come. Luckily the feeling started to return about two weeks after birth although I still feel like my bladder is a lot weaker. Kegels are my new bff. The bleeding is annoying but pads have come a LONG way since I was in 8th grade, so thats exciting. The Always Infinitec are actually very thin and very absorbent. The best part of postpartum was watching the scale slowly go back down to reasonable territory. I gained 40 pounds...I gave birth to a 7 pound 8 Ounce baby, a whole lot of fluid, and a 4 pound placenta.... I came home 8 pounds lighter then I went in...do the math...it doesn't work out. So if that happens to you don't cry! Within the first week I began to lose all the fluid and extra stuff they pumped in me at the hospital and by 4 weeks I had lost a full 30 pounds. The last 10 I think I am going to have to work a little harder for.  My body is not anywhere close to something I recognize but I can complain about ditching 30 pounds and finally being able to sleep on my stomach. Mt stretch marks have begun to fade but at least for this summer a one piece and I have gotten reacquainted. I will keep you posted on my journey back to my skinny jeans. Overall my hope for all the miserable excited new mommas awaiting their bundle of joy is to not stress because you may be like me and it won't be nearly as bad as the scary things you read online!

The Best Breast Pad Review

Leaky boobs.... actually leaky doesn't even describe it...more like a fountain, or a geyser, or old faithful, except less faithful and more just whenever they damn well please, usually at the most inconvenient times. I love breastfeeding and watching my little nugget get chubby and be nourished right from his dear old momma's milk jugs. That being said it can be slightly challenging at times. The main culprit is leakage, lots and lots of leakage. I am only 6 weeks in and I have gone through 4 boxes of breast pads and a failed attempt and the washables. I figured I would just try a different brand every time to see what I liked the most. The first ones I tried were the Lanisoh brand, at the time I really felt like there should have been something better out there. The main thing I didn't like was the visibility through my nursing bras and shirts.  Other than that the absorption and the sticky pads were pretty good. The next brand I tried was Nuk brand. They were a lot larger and they only had one sticky pad. They were very absorbent but basically just a large round disk with no shape which made them even more of a problem with moving around and showing through clothes. Next up was Avent by Phillips, these were my least favorite and the least absorbent. If this pad was moved a little off to one side the one side would fill up and then leak instead of just equally absorbing all over the pad. No Bueno. The last brand was Babys R Us. I feel like these are just knockoffs of the Lanisoh but not as good. So maybe the moral of this story is the grass aint always greener. The next box I buy will be the Lanisoh or if they are out, like they were last week then the Nuk would be my second choice. Oh and the washables are seriously useless which makes me so sad because the amount of paper products we go through is not ok! p.s. it took me two hours to write this post #mommyprobs

Beautiful Birth

At five weeks postpartum we have been enjoying every minute of our precious little baby. So far it has been such a wonderful experience. From conception to birth there was so much scary information and horror stories floating around from friends, family and the wonderful internet. I was so nervous about giving birth. Pregnancy was really not all it was cracked up to be (mostly by my mother who claimed she loved every minute of pregnancy....ugh were you high?) So by nine months  ten months (seriously its 10 months people, quit playing head games with us poor preg girls) I was extremely worried about giving birth and everything afterward. My birth story was pretty straight forward, at 40 weeks and 1 day pregnant I was having some contractions my water broke at around Midnight. We went to the hospital and the pain was very mild and overall I was very excited to finally be having this baby. Everything was going really great and walking around and showering really helped the pain. When they told me I had to stay in bed about 12 hours into my labor the pain became a lot worse. I was deathly afraid of stalling my labor by taking the epidural too soon so I was trying to wait as long as possible. 16 hours in I was more than ready for the juice. I wanted to see how far I could go without it but at the end of the day it was the best $4,000.00 I ever spent. The pain was making me so tense and I really felt like I was just fighting my own body by the time the pain got really bad. Luckily the epidural gave me a chance to relax and sleep before baby came. A full 23 hours after my labor started I was ready to push (like really really ready considering I was almost crowning when they finally called the doctor and she took 45 minutes to get there) 4 big pushes later my little love was out and taking his first sweet breaths. The moral of this story is try not to worry or stress out over birth. I know that not everyone's birth can go as smooth as mine but all the anxiety over birth was a waste because it was so much easier than expected. Postpartum didn't even live up to all the horror that was promised on blogs and mommy message boards across the web. Maybe I will write a TMI post on that soon.....Stay tuned if you like stories about people peeing their pants.