Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Postpartum Life

Lucy was 2 weeks old yesterday, and as of tomorrow we will have been home with her for 2 weeks. I felt suprisingly pretty good the first several days, which turned out to be kind of bad because I think I overdid things. We had my mom and dad, and Rich's mom and stepdad here and we did a lot of packing for the move and got out of the house and went to dinner a couple times, to the beach for a walk, to the farmer's market and shopping in downtown Charleston. It was a lot of fun, and Lucy slept through it all, but after they all left (except my mom, she's still here) I got really really sore and tired. I think everything finally caught up with me, and I ended up spending most of last week on the couch. My dad drove a Uhaul load of things back to Arkansas with him when he left, and they got a lot of work done around the house which is a huge relief. We have it listed for rent now, and are hoping that Rich will find out something about a job sometime this week so we will know a more firm moving date. We are going to be moving in with my parents for a couple months while we figure out exactly where we're going to want to live, if we'll be buying or renting, etc. Yes, we're 30 and 32, married with a baby and moving in with my parents...don't be jealous!

I got a mild case of mastitis that started at the end of last week, but luckily I got started on antibiotics quickly and it's better now. Nursing is going well, but it is even more all-consuming than I expected. The vast majority of my day is spent nursing or thinking about how it's almost time to nurse again, and of course changing countless diapers a day. We're about 40:60 disposable:cloth diapers at this point. I'm really liking the cloth and will do a more thorough review of some diapers soon.

Emotionally it's been tougher than I anticipated as well. The emotional long labor and delivery, followed by the typical new parent sleep deprivation, packing up our house that we love and preparing to leave a city and friends that we love, trying to get motivated to job hunt when thinking about leaving this baby girl to go to work makes me instantly cry, hoping that Rich can find a job and that we can find renters for our house, feeling like I'm neglecting the dogs by not being able to walk them and give them as much attention as normal, feeling flabby and out of shape and not being able to work out, plus postpartum hormones all add up to a very emotional Mama. But...I just remind myself that this is temporary and in a few months hopefully we'll be a lot more settled.

Ok, she's fussing, gotta go feed her. Hope you all had a fabulous Tuesday!

4 comments:

The Shepherds said...

Wow. I've been there. Really there since we moved in with my parents for a couple months while we figured out what we our next step was too. Will was 3 weeks old when we moved. It was tough, but I survived!

MCM Mama said...

Hang in there! It does get easier - she'll start sleeping longer and nursing faster and your energy will start returning. Congrats again on Lucy's arrival and good luck with all the move craziness.

Anonymous said...

Hang in there girl!!! You're going through a lot of changes all at once!

It's the Soaring Wings Half Marathon. It's in Conway at the end of October. It benefits the Soaring Wings Ranch. Here's the race website: www.swhalf.com

I ran this half last year - my first and only half - and loved it!

Kristin @ The Southern Summer said...

Keep your chin up lady, it's tough, but it will get easier! She is beautiful and I can understand that you must be just exhausted. Email me the deets about your house, we're potentially looking to move... chasrunner at gmail dot com.