Thursday, May 14, 2009

4 weeks


In three days our little girl will be four weeks old. My, how time flies when you are zombified and half asleep! It took me about a week to get out of my really thick postpartum funk, during which I'm not entirely sure what happened. I was so glad my mom stayed for a couple of weeks to help us! What a blessing!


What they don't tell you about being a new mom (Do NOT read this section unless you really want to know the awful, terrible, disgusting truth.):

1. You will not feel human again for 1-2 weeks postpartum.

2. You will likely run around in pajama pants and a nursing bra for several days and not even notice.

3. Around day three, you will cry harder than you've ever cried before. You are OK, but you need to cry for some reason. You might receive a phone call, go into the closet to take it, and wake up in the closet 20 minutes later wondering where you are.

4. Your brain will not function properly for awhile. Even the simplest of questions will be too difficult for you to answer. Do not attempt to get any academic work done during this time.

5. You will dream that you are nursing the baby only to be awakened by the baby, who wants to nurse. This will confuse you, but you'll figure it out.

6. Your nipples will hurt like hell for a couple of weeks. Read llli.org for helpful hints you didn't get in the hospital. Sleeping through nursing sessions is a bad idea, but sometimes you and the baby will both be unable to help it.

7. For a few days, you will not be completely aware of the passage of time. You need your mommy so you can get at least a little sleep.

8. Nothing goes as planned. Ever.

9. You will bleed like you've never bled before for what seems like forever.

10. Your first post-partum bowel movement will be a long time in coming, will be painful and will be difficult, especially if you've had stitches.

11. Things will be incredibly, painfully wrong for a couple of weeks. At about the two week mark, you get a little better. You will stop wondering "What have we done?" and "What were we thinking?". At three or four weeks, things are really looking up and you start to get into a good groove. You can do this mommy thing!


Do not let the above fool you into thinking I am not totally in love with my little girl. I am so happy to have her. Samantha sure is different four weeks later. She's taller and thinner and her eyes seem to be turning brown, though there is still a hint of dark blue in them. She has more strength in her neck and can lift her head up even more than she did before, though she's always had exceptional head control for a newborn. She has a few more sounds in her vocabulary: some squeaks and a couple of vowel sounds that aren't crying-related. She gives off adorable little single-syllable "warning shot" cries when she's about to get fussy.


She lost her cord just shy of two weeks and the last of the scab came off at the two week mark. She didn't like her first bath, but I made the second one warmer and that seemed to be OK with her. She seems to like having her hair washed.


We started cloth diapers when she was three weeks old and still have her in 'sposies at night because all the CD stuff is upstairs and I don't want to attempt to navigate stairs while half asleep and holding the baby. The CD's are working well and the laundry is not any more trouble than running to the store for a new package of 'sposies. I like it. It's going to save us a lot of money and it's going to save a lot of wear and tear on our homeworld.


Life is good.

1 comment:

  1. congrats on making it to the 4th week of things! you're right, it does get better as time goes on. i had to laugh about the pj pants and nursing bra cause that's where i've been these past couple of weeks myself. i have managed to get up get showered and dressed on a couple of occasions, but my incision area still doesn't like wearing real pants yet. i think i'm able to function a little better, on very little sleep, this time around than i was the first cause i kinda feel like i know what i'm doing more... but i've only been out of the house twice this week, so feeling human is still kinda hard. i have slept through nursing sessions... woken up in the middle of the night unsure of where/when i am... but the fog clears a little quicker now i guess. glad you're starting to get into the swing of things.

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