Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “postpartum”
Dear post-baby body,
To everyone else in the world, you probably look pretty much the same as you did three years ago, before pregnancy and childbirth ran their course. But you’ve changed. We both know it. I didn’t mind the changes so much during the first year of motherhood when breastfeeding melted off the pounds and moved me up a bra size, but now that the baby is weaned and things are back to “normal,” it’s quite a different story.
With pregnancy, I expected certain changes to happen to my body. The nausea, the fatigue, the hunger, the weight gain… these were all part and parcel of growing a baby. What I was surprised about was that a year after giving birth, my body was still undergoing changes. Sure, I might look the same to the casual observer but I’m really not inhabiting the same body as I had pre-baby.
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Dear Brand New Mom,
I remember feeling like I was semi-equipped for the first three months of my baby’s life. Beyond that, it was a big, blank mystery. Maybe I wouldn’t have been ready to hear about what came after those first weeks, but in retrospect, I think I would have appreciated if someone had given me a heads up or some pointers. Anyway, as one who’s only had ten months of motherhood experience, I’m not that far ahead. But hopefully what I have to say will be helpful to you. Here are some things I wish someone had told me:Read More
When I was pregnant, I suspected that having a child would profoundly impact the way I functioned and cared for myself as an introvert. Having less or virtually no “me” time was a given. I prepared myself for that. I told myself that it would just be a season and that in time, I would be able to find a new rhythm. I was right on that count.
Being the idealist that I am, before I had Alena, I imagined our feeding times to be like this: myself as a gentle, nurturing mother looking affectionately at the sweet babe suckling at my breast as we nestled together in the rocking chair. A week after we brought her home, that picture could not be farther from reality. Well, everything except for the rocking chair. It was 6am in the morning, she was thrashing about and crying, I was hysterical and crying, and milk was everywhere but in her tummy.
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Brightening a new mom’s day can be quite simple. As I’ve gone through the experience of having a baby and the fogginess that accompanies it, there have been several things that people have done that have blessed my heart. I thought it might be good to share these things since many of our friends are either expecting, are new parents or know someone who is one of the above. Want to bless a new mom? Read on.
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This is a preview of a guest post I wrote for my friend Daisy Go‘s blog: My Journey Into Motherhood.
Living life with an infant, I feel like I am learning afresh that love is often a discipline. The word “discipline” might come as a surprise to you. But what I mean is that love is made up of all the little choices I make throughout the day. Some of these choices are easy (like dropping everything to play with my smiling baby) but many times the choices require more effort.
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