Category — Post Partum Musings

Okay, I am NOT EVEN saying that I look like this naked, but . . .

Seeing these photos of a naked, post-partum Naomi Watts kinda makes me feel better. You can see the fold of baby belly skin and how her stomach kind of protrudes outward. Her boobs also look especially maternal. Apparently, she had a baby in December. Oh, and she’s 40. She looks beautiful.

See, even celebrities can’t always undo the effects of mamahood right away! Embrace it, bitches!

Have you ever been to a chiropractor? Me neither. Well, not until now. And I love her. 

Starting at about 24 or 25 weeks into my twins pregnancy, I started having . . . issues with mobility. Basically, I sucked at walking. My coworkers commented that I was already waddling, and my perinatologist mentioned that I looked as big as a full-term singleton pregnancy. I started having nasty pain in my pelvis due to a separation of the pubic bone. Within weeks, my back started giving out. Etc.

As the pregnancy progressed, it got bad. Really bad. Chris often had to help me get dressed, get into bed, get off the couch, walk to the bathroom. He even had to help me pick up my foot to get my leg into the car. (On a related note, my husband is freakin’ amazing. What a man, to help his practically invalid wife pick up her freakin’ foot to get into a car. Thanks, babe.)

I assumed that it would get better after delivery. Wrong. The pain continued, just in different ways. My hips/pelvis/legs/knees/feet never learned how to cooperate with that whole walking thing. My back spasmed and ached every time I tried to get up from a seated position such that I was often bent at the waist, still compensating for a front-heavy weight that was no longer there. The weirdest thing was that my feet would fall asleep when I laid on my back in bed.

At my six-week post-partum visit at the OB, I rattled off my list of physical maladies to the nurse. She gave me the name of a chiropractor who has lots of experience with pregnant and post-partum ladies. 

A potential cure for the horrible pain? I called and made an appointment that same day.

Dr. T is a vivacious little thing with 30+ years experience popping and cracking and smashing people back into alignment. I was terrified, honestly, because Chris had had a bad experience with a chiropractor some time ago. Plus, the whole idea that they can snap your neck and paralyze you kind of freaked me out.

At my initial consultation, the doctor took X-rays of my neck, pelvis and lower back. Two days later, I was staring at my X-rays in horror. 

Several things:

• A healthy neck is supposed to have a gentle curve. Mine does not. It is stick straight, probably due to some car accidents I had years ago.
• I have a scoliosis in my lower back. My spine sways to the right near my waist.
• Rather than pointing upward, my hips are flared outward and are tilted forward.
• My tailbone is pointing out instead of curving down.
• My pelvis bone is still slightly separated.

With this information, the doctor went to work. She set me on her table, a contraption made up of a bunch of movable parts. First, I laid on my stomach. With her hand on my hip, she pushed down at the same time that she dropped a section of the table. BOOM-SNAP!

Woah wait. WTF is going on here.

I didn’t feel any pain. It was just totally fucked up and unexpected.

After popping my hips and butt, she flipped me over and went to work on my pubic bone. This was definitely scary, having this little woman balance her weight on my pelvic bone while dropping the table out from under me in order to pop my pelvis back into place. All the while, she is blabbering about all kinds of random nonsense. “Well, I had three babies in three years and raised them as a single mom” BOOM-SNAP! “I can’t believe you’ve been like this for five months, you could have come while you were still pregnant and” BOOM-SNAP! “See I don’t do that hocus-pocus stuff. It’s all biomechanics and science, really. We don’t need so much pain medication, we just need realignment” BOOM-SNAP! Probably the most whack thing she did was snap my neck while chatting about her daughter in college. 

$150 later and I was out the door, feeling that the treatment was a sham. The bitch had cracked a few bones and made a bunch of noise with the table, taken my money and sent me home, laughing at my stretch-marked ass the whole way to the bank.

But then . . .

But then, I went home and went about my day. And I had no pain. I could get up from the couch and stand up straight! My feet didn’t fall asleep when I laid down. This was a freakin’ miracle. 

So, do I believe in chiropractic care  now? You bet your dislocated ass bones I do.

I sucked at posting this week, but I had a really really good excuse.

Last Thursday, my husband told me he was going to Lowe’s to get a replacement light fixture for our bathroom. About an hour later, he called me and said he was lying – he was not at Lowe’s, but was instead on his way to get me a surprise and would be home in a while. An hour and a half later, he shows up with my best friend from California waiting for me outside. Surprise, indeed. Here’s the video of my shocked reaction. (For the record, I didn’t actually know she was coming, despite what I’m saying in the video.)

News from the baby front: The girls are rockin’. We had a visit to the pediatrician last Monday. Both babies have regained their birth weight plus some: Elise is now 7 pounds 1 ounce (up from 6 lb 3 oz last visit and 6 lb 13 oz at birth), while Althea is at 6 pounds 6 ounces (up from 5 lb 7 oz last visit, 6 lb 1 oz at birth). They’ve also gotten a little taller and their heads have grown a half inch each. The doctor wants me to supplement some vitamin drops for them, since breast milk is apparently low in vitamin D and iron. 

Nursing is getting so easy these days. That first week after the girls were born, I was pretty sure I was going to give up on breast feeding. I’m so glad I stuck with it. Just like everyone told me, breast feeding DOES get easier and it is SO worth it. When we first started, by far the most frustrating thing was that they’d fall asleep three minutes into it, making each feeding take close to an hour at times. Add the time for changing diapers, soothing, swaddling and setting back down to sleep, and we’re talking an hour and a half each session. If the babies eat every 2.5 – 3 hours, you can do the math to figure out that this was not a happy time for me.

It took a good 10 or 14 days, but the girls can now stay awake an entire feeding. If I have someone to help me, I can tandem feed every time in 10 – 15 minutes. Chris and I now have it down to a science for the night feedings:

1. Babies start stirring. I mumble to Chris to turn on the light.
2. Chris changes two diapers while I get set up to feed. Girls are now awake.
3. Chris brings the babies to the boobies. 
4. Babies feed for 10 – 15 minutes straight. 
5. Mom and Dad each burp a baby.
6. Swaddle Master Dad swaddles the hell out of each baby.
7. Girls get put back in bassinet. Sleep. Repeat.

This routine takes 30 – 40 minutes. Now THIS feels doable.

Also, they are staying awake more often during the day. After the 9-ish a.m. feeding, we all roll out of bed and the girls will quietly eat their hands and stare wide-eyed at something or other for a couple of hours. They then doze most of the afternoon and have more awake time in the evening. They’re making a lot more eye contact and are more aware of their surroundings and of who we are.

This evening, I was holding Althea and she grasped my thumb with both hands and stuck it in her mouth. Yeah, my kids are freakin’ geniuses.

One more thing: We got the pathology report back from the examination of the placenta and the girls are, indeed, identical. 

On the mama front, I ended up going in to see Dr. Amazing on Friday. You see, I was feeling pretty good the first two weeks after the delivery. But out of nowhere, I started having really awful pain in my nethers. Delayed Onset Vagina Pain, I guess. After I told him what was going on, he put my feet in the stirrups, plopped down on the stool between my legs and said, “Okay, let me see if I left my watch in here.” Boy, do I miss him.

He did a thorough poking-around of my ladybits before announcing that I have a “Golden Vagina,” my cervix is “in New Jersey” (his actual words) and everything is as it should be. Mega Motrin and the occasional Percocet are on the menu until the pain goes away.

As for the rest of me . . . Well, let me say that these last 20 pounds aren’t going down without a fight. My maternity pants are sliding off me, but I can’t get my pre-pregnancy jeans past my flabby ass.

Also, nursing bras suck. The ones I have come up really high on the chest and a couple of mine are racer-back style, so I can’t wear any regular tops anymore. I guess it doesn’t matter too much, seeing that I spend most of my time topless on the couch with two babies sucking on my boobs.

Random-yet-related thought: I find it odd that when I had what was, in retrospect, a decent body, I was self-conscious to the point that I was sometimes embarrassed to be naked in front of my own husband. Now that my stomach is distended and sliced up with stretch marks, my skin is sagging and loose, I have dark circles under my eyes, and my boobs look like something straight out of National Geographic, I don’t give a flying fuck who sees me naked.

Here’s a cute picture for making it this far. 

I finally explored my post-partum body for the first time.

I’ve been so afraid to look at it, to touch it. Every time I’ve brought my hand to my stomach since giving birth, I’ve broken down in tears with longing for my pregnant belly. You see, despite the excruciating pains and incessant complaints, I loved my pregnant body. The feeling of having my babies inside of me, so safe and warm and cared for, made me feel alive. Whole. Feminine. Purposeful. Attractive. Freakish, even, in a way that I liked. The babies’ kicks were never annoying. Even toward the end, when the girls decided to stretch completely straight so that I couldn’t bend forward whatsoever, I loved every bump and kick that emerged . . . yet was held within . . . my pregnant body.

And yet . . .

And yet, I was afraid. Over the weeks, I saw my body change. I saw the unmistakable zig-zags of stretch marks come forth and multiply. I’d push my skin together to get a glimpse of what I was in for once my uterus emptied. I was scared that I’d hate my new body and that I wouldn’t be as loveable.

Then, I had my girls. The most difficult physical challenge I’ve faced by far. But I did it. I did it. My body did it. And along with two new daughters, I had a new body to embrace.

It’s tough going 30 years with one body and getting a whole new one in just a few months.

My stomach is a strange landscape now. The skin is loose and lined with stretch marks. It sags and hangs low over my pelvis. The dark linea nigra is still there, dirt brown and crooked as the day I delivered. Over my now-wider hips are short, sharp gashes, purple stretch marks spread like train tracks over the plush padding of maternal fat. Notches on the belt for all the weeks I carried my babies. My breasts are full and engorged with the milk that nourishes these two tiny beings.

Elise and Althea. My daughters.

Pawing at the soft, crepe-y skin, running my fingertips over the grooves that line and encircle my stomach, I cried. I cried hard. I grabbed at the paunch that once held my babies. And instead of hatred, I felt love. This strange new skin once held my daughters. For that, I must love it. I have two healthy babies. This body accomplished something tremendous and indescribable.

My stomach will never again be taught with youth. My nipples will never again be pert and pink, virgin. I have a mother’s body now, scarred and ravaged with signs of life.

Baby pretzel

Turns out my maternity pillow is good for making baby pretzels, too.

The girls are doing well, with plenty of hiccups (both literally and figuratively) here and there. Nursing gets a tiny bit easier every day, especially now that I tandem nurse for most feedings. Let me tell ya, having one baby at each boob is pretty difficult. But thanks to my ever-patient and helpful husband, it’s getting done. The time savings alone is worth it. Nursing the babies back-to-back takes about an hour and a half, maybe more. So with feedings about every three hours, you can imagine it pretty much sucks (pun intended, of course). But by nursing at the same time, we get both girls fed, burped, changed and swaddled in about an hour. 

How long can I keep this up? I don’t know. I’ve been pumping to get a stash of milk saved up. I’d been looking forward to the two-week mark to introduce expressed breast milk in a bottle to save even more time, but now I’m feeling reluctant to do it so quickly when we’re just getting the hang of tandem feedings. 

I’m already starting to get anxious about going back to work. It seems so deeply wrong to go back after six or eight weeks, especially with two babies. I haven’t talked to my doctor about how much leave he’ll write a note for, and I haven’t talked to my boss at work yet to see what my options are. I hate that I have to worry about this at all. 

Physically, I’m feeling pretty damned good, aside from the fact that I’m randomly passing bloody jellyfish in the toilet and my vagina hurts sometimes. My hips/back/pelvis are starting to figure out how to walk a little better these days. I still haven’t gotten up to a decent walking speed, but I’m working on it. I also can’t squat down without screaming for help back up either, thanks to my totally f’d knees from the pregnancy. My belly pooch is smaller these days, but definitely still looks like something between a beer gut and a very low-lying early prego belly.

My boobs, meanwhile, are ROCKIN. After we’re done having kids and I cut my self to bits in an attempt to regain some youthfulness to my body, I’m so getting these boobs put in. They are spectacular, even if they do leak like milk faucets.

My first post-partum belly pic. Looks an awful lot like my 20 week pic, doesn’t it?

I’ve been getting lots of requests for an update. As you can imagine, things are very hectic around here. So here’s my update in list form:

• Yes, I have gone to the bathroom multiple times without incident. I did not have any tearing or stitches, so it hasn’t been an issue.
• The girls are doing awesome. We’ve had to supplement with formula because they lost over 11% of their body weight within two days, but they’re doing great.
• Nursing is going well, though it is a challenge. Luckily, I had a militant crazy nurse on my last day who set me straight and showed me how to REALLY nurse. She saved my ass, seriously.
• I miss being pregnant. A lot. I have seriously lost my shit on several occasions and I hope I can keep my head about me. Longer post on that to follow.
• My pelvis still hurts like hell.
• I still waddle and my back and hips haven’t figured out what to do with a heavy but empty uterus yet.
• I can reach all parts of my legs now.
• I can sit upright on the toilet like a normal person.
• My house is a fucking disaster.
• I am jaundiced and have a tough time staying on my feet for very long because my iron’s low.
• My legs have shrunk down from their tree trunk-like state, but my feet are still really swollen.
• Someone told me that when you have a baby, you go to the hospital with a husband and leave with an idiot. I feel sorry for them. Chris has been nothing less than totally amazing. Thank you, babe. Over and over. Thank you.
• I am curious about the state of my vagina, but am too scared to look.

I’m sure there’s more. If you have specific questions, leave a comment!