There’s a lot of books out there regarding pregnancy and what goes on with a woman’s body. However, there is hardly anything written regarding post-pregnancy. Sure, there’s jokes about the pregnancy brain (aka scrambled eggs) and how exhausting it is to have a baby (i.e. no sleep). But there’s hardly anything out there that tells you EVERYthing from head to toe what’s going on with a woman’s body. So here it is for all of you who ever thought “what is it like to have a post-baby body?”.
WARNING: The following does include crude, and explicit details of the woman body that might disturb most from ever having a baby. You have been warned!
1) The head and feelings
a. Some women get thicker hair during the pregnancy. Some even have their hair fall out. As for me, my hair was pretty much the same. Semi-thick and luscious!
b. As for what’s happening inside the head, that’s another story. Forgetedfulness, irritability, moodiness. All types of emotions (good and bad) come out throughout the pregnancy, but especially afterwards. Extra sensitivity to being touched, irritable with everyone around you. That is what happened to me. Karl gets most of it. There’s many reasons why this happens: no sleep, tired of everything around you, all new things happening and you have no control over it, body chemicals affect your mood, etc. I love company and talking to a lot of people, but by the end of the first week, I was so tired of repeating everything three hundred times that I just wanted to be quiet. Can you believe that? Me Lulu wanting to be quiet and not be bothered. All these feelings do subside, though they stay there for some time.
2) Arms/fingers
a. I had and still have at times gotten “pins and needles” feelings in my arms and legs. This occurs mostly while sleeping when I’m laying down in bed, but also when I’m holding something for some period of time (like a cell phone). This is slowly going away, but still exists.
3) Chest/breasts
a. Oooo the breasties. The boobs. The Lu-lus. Okay, before giving birth they increase like triple in size in preparation for the golden liquid (aka milk). After birth and a few days later, the milk arrives. How do I explain this? Hmmm…. It’s like filling up a balloon with water. Attach it to your chest and there you go. The breasts add 5-7 pounds to your weight (so you lost roughly 20 pounds after the birth, but added on 7 pounds for the food supply). If you are breastfeeding, you ideally start right away feeding your baby. I was unable to do this, since Luke is in the NICU, so I started pumping. After 3 days, your true milk supply comes in. Now here comes the fun times. If you don’t empty out those girls, they get very painful, sometimes sending a sharp pain to your upper back. You get clogged ducts, which may lead to infection if they are not flushed out. I had this for a while. You have to just work it out with your friend, the pump, and rub that duct out and try to get that milk flowing out of the areoli (newsflash to everyone: milk does not come out of the nibble but the areoli). As for me, I rented a hospital grade pump to have at home because my Medela pump wasn’t doing it enough for me. I sleep with a bra on (i.e. no underwires ladies) and pump every three hours. The hospital grade pump has better suction than commercial grade. So just imagine being hooked up to a milk machine, similar to ones used for cows and there you got it. The fun enjoyment of the post-birth breasts. Ooo one more thing.. they start heading south VERY quickly and don’t return north ever. So enjoy them when you can, because they won’t be the same after becoming pregnant.
4) Abs/stomach
a. The type of birth you had (i.e. vaginal or C-section) will influence how your abs/stomach turn out. No matter what for the first week you will look like you are 6 months pregnant. Your uterus starts contracting back to its normal size right away, so you have constant cramps (ladies it’s like your menstrual cycle cramps). If you are breastfeeding (or pumping), this whole process goes faster but is still painful. Every time you pump/feed, your uterus contracts, so you’re getting a double whammie from the top to the bottom. After two weeks, most people wouldn’t know that you gave birth unless they saw you naked, but you do see yourself nake. You see the flab hanging there. You see the scar from the operation (if you had a C-section). You feel the stretches from anything you had happen and you want to scratch them (but you can’t because they are located too low on your body).
(Are you OK so far? If you are getting a little queasy, you might want to skip the next two parts—to number 6, because it’s about to get very explicit).
5) Genital/butt
a. Inside your body, your intestines are trying to work so you can go to the bathroom. This is a crude joke nature put on us women. You have to wear a pad for several weeks, first for the bleeding and next for the pee that escapes. No matter if you had a C-section or a vaginal birth, going to the bathroom is the worst experience. Take stool softener to help you get it on. Not the sexiest thing to know about, but it will help out greatly when you are trying to do number 2. Pissing is hard too, sometimes getting sprayed all over your legs or dripped because your vagina is recovering still. Timeline on this: unknown. After two and a half weeks, I still use stool softener and have to piss every hour. I wear a pad for those loose drips and left over residue. O the fun of being diapered up just likes a baby.
6) Leggs/feet
a. pins and needles still exist. You reserve some water during the pregnancy and afterwards, so you blow up and look like a tree stump. Only solution is to put your feet up and drink plenty of water. But that’s’ the catch -22. You ‘ll have to go to the bathroom more often and if you read my above comments, you know that’s not fun. So you’re daned if you do and damned if you don’t. Luckily this is the one area that does get fast relief and is the least of your worries.
I think I have covered the entire experience of the post-pregnancy body. Really why do we go through this over and over – because no one tells us and our brain plays a funny trick called forgetness. But it is worth it all when you have that baby in your arms and you watch them grow into little and big people. Besides, it makes for a great story for any party you throw your kid just to embarrass them.
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