Saved by the Baby

I hit my lowest point last wed. After almost six weeks of sleep deprivation and intermittent pain from the c-section, I was exhausted. Adding hormonal roller coaster to that, I felt really overwhelmed last Wed.

I know "baby blues" are normal and in fact, I cry about 3-4 times a week when I have surge and start feeling overwhelmed or trapped. most of the time, it goes away in 20-30 min and I am fine again. Last wed however, my baby blues were quick significant and I started getting a headache all day and felt soooooo tired.

You would think this means I just collapsed and slept a lot. Actually just the opposite. I couldn't sleep even when Isabel was napping or taken care by Jaime's parents. The pressure from my head, the pressure to sleep according to Isabel's schedule, and the pressure of constantly having to breastfeed her all led me to have insomnia. I was so tired I couldn't tell if I was hungry or tired any more. I don't know if you ever experience that - the forever "in between" feeling.

Well, by night time, Isabel was sleep at 10, I was still wide awake exhausted and couldn't sleep until 1:30 and that was with a lot of soothing from Jaime (thank God for him). Luckily I was saved by my baby because Isabel slept until 4:30 that night, so i still got 3 hours of sleep. After feeding her, she went back to sleep for another 3 hours, so I got almost 6 hours of rest all together.

I feel extremely fortunately that our baby is so good to us. Her sleep pattern is improving so much. She is now not even 7 weeks and she slept 8 hours last night and the one before. So despite my minor meltdown, I recovered quickly as she allowed me to sleep 6 hour that night. It will only get better from here, I hope...

-Lei

The "Fourth Trimester"

With so much excitement with a new baby, a new mom often forgets about herself and the incredible change the body is still going through after birth, which I call the "fourth trimester". I think I was also hoping that somehow my body would miraculously just go back to my pre-pregnancy shape in no time.

Well, reality is a little different. Here are what I am experiencing in the "fourth trimester" as a new mom
- I gain almost 40 pounds during pregnancy and lost only about 10 pounds after birth (7.5 pounds of Isabel and the rest are the placenta and fluids): so literally, I still looked 6 months pregnant. I hear it takes about another 9 months to lose the baby wait
- I have the "baby blues" due to hormone roller coasters that happens to every mom after birth, so I would cry for no reason or all of a sudden. Luckily my mom and Jaime have been very supportive when it happens
- I use to sleep 8-10 hours a night, now I am happy if I can get 2-3 hours of sleep at a time
- Hormones makes me sweat every time I sleep and soak my t-shirt. good thing I have over 25 t-shirts to wear. I go through 4 or 5 a day
- my day is completely filled with breastfeeding: Isabel feeds every 2-3 hours. You would think that's should gave us plenty of time, but not when the breastfeeding, burping, diaper changing each time take almost 90 min each time. This means it actual only leaves about 30 min - 90 min or so for eating, sleeping, showering, etc for myself before the whole cycle start again.
- I eat about 6 times a day and sometimes get instantly hungry after feeding. I guess Isabel is getting all the good stuff from my milk.
- I still can't sleep sideways due to the c section stitching and can only go out/walk a few blocks before getting so tired. Doctors says it will take 6 weeks to recover and before I can exercise.
- None of our friends can visit right now since Isabel hasn't gotten all her immunization shots yet. We are following the Asian tradition of being hermits the first months of her life

- Lei