Real Life C-Section Recovery @ 12 weeks

12 weeks past surgery. Due to this little chunker being born 5 weeks early, we are not yet out of what some people call the 4th Trimester. This is the period where new babies are still working on adapting to being outside babies and tend to want to just be held and cuddled all the time. The trimester should be ending around Sept 29th for us, so we'll see how that goes. 

Recovery has been what feels like a disaster to me. Everyone else seems split into two camps. There's a vast amount of people who tell me I'm doing great. They usually haven't actually timed out though how long it's been and how limited I still feel. There's a second group that have assured me from day one that by 3 months out (which is less than a week away!) I should be at about 97% of normal and will get the rest back shortly and seem to be surprised that I'm not, but try to make me feel better with statements like "everyone heals at a different pace." Ok, yes that's true. That being said I'm generally young and healthy and I was in fantastic shape for pregnancy and stayed active and have always healed quickly before. I don't think I'm being a baby about pain as I certainly know a thing or two about what I can and can't handle. 

So here's the before shot, June 4th, two days before surgery:

Considering this is supposed to be 5 weeks prior to birth, I think I look huge here, but in a good way. There's also no stretch marks and I'm in general feeling alright when he's not abusing my ribcage - with the exception of my pelvis feeling like it's trying to rip itself apart. Next came my "delivery" from hell. I still prefer to call it the surgery - I didn't give birth to my son, he was forcibly ripped from me. 

So here's 3 days later. Pluses: incision looks fabulous. Minuses: I still look much larger than I expected and I now have stretch marks.

Granted, I didn't think I was going to be tiny immediately afterward, but I have good core muscles and have had many young in-shape friends give birth and shrink back pretty quickly. Apparently that's only a thing for vaginal delivery. Surgical delivery majorly distends your abdomen more than it would otherwise be (though still smaller than pre-delivery) due to trapped air, damaged core muscles, surgical swelling, and overstretching of tissues beyond pregnancy amounts. At this point, I was still in hospital #2 but as a guest as I was not patient. I was still bleeding like crazy and not able to get myself in and out of bed unassisted. Getting down onto toilet was a mostly upperbody workout and pumping overnight with no assistance was awful due to having to lean forward.

6 days afterwards:

Here we are at Ronald McDonald house. Still bleeding, but not as heavily. In the bottom photo I'm sucking in my stomach as much as I can. I don't feel like there was a whole lot of change in the previous few days. My milk is in, so breasts got larger, and aren't those pads SUPER sexy?! I'm managing to get out of bed in the middle of the night by myself though it's super painful and hard. 

And here is 12 days. At this point, I'm at least able to regularly hold him, and sometimes feed him a little. So emotionally I'm in a better place. Physically I'm starting to come around.

In both of these sets, the left photo is natural while the right is sucked in/flexed.

I'm now able to pick up some things off the floor if they're super light and easy to grab - have to have handles about a foot off the ground. This is taken just after we moved back into our own house, I've just started driving just a little, so I can turn and look over my shoulder. 

These are at 18 days out, showing off the girdle I wore for the first 6 weeks, during the day only for the most part, I was WAY too hot to sleep in it.

There's nothing empowering to me about these photos here. The girdle was itchy and pinchy and rode up every single time I moved or sat down - which was a lot. At this point, we're preparing for Legan to come home and my boobs were starting to get fed from - thus acquiring their now customary mis-matched sizing.

Two days later, this is the day he came home, 20 days past surgery:

I'm starting to be able to lift him comfortably most of the time, but even picking him up from the bed or his bassinet is hard and uncomfortable. Nursing him does involve weird positions to avoid pressure. I am having to figure out laundry at home which means carrying stuff up and down the stairs - I feel like I'm in my 70s, but I'm managing. Letting the dog out during the day is a huge chore - 6 steps down and back up. So tired of bleeding by now. It stopped right about here, just to start back up again - 2 more times.

Here's 31 days - that's a month post surgery. 

Still feeling pretty large and squishy. Incision is now bothering me - it looks nicely healed but not only is it creating a pooch above it but if I touch it I can feel the layers and layers of scarring underneath. I'm just now starting to be able to touch my toes if I move terribly slowly. Still doing all of my lifting with my back specifically - so definitely only light items. Laundry is getting easier thankfully, but bleeding is ramping up. I'm starting to take super short walks outside, but they bring on more bleeding. No other exercise.

One week after those, this was 5 weeks post-surgery and the day of my final regular postpartum check up. I was cleared for any and all physical activity I wanted though I have to admit, they didn't really ask me what my abilities were or how I felt about that.

The bottom photo I'm sucking in/flexing again. It doesn't look that bad if you don't know how I started. My boobs are still much larger than they started at. Also, my lower abdomen was usually significantly smaller than upper and/or ribcage area and it still is slightly larger. I'm still taking tiny short walks because I'm still bleeding. Still struggling with laundry and I managed to take out the trash once, but it was really really hard. I feel like a total failure. If Legan had been healthy and come home with me 4 days post surgery at the latest, I would have had to hire help or something. I don't know who could have helped me out during the day but I absolutely would have needed some as I'm barely managing it by myself 5 weeks later...

I laugh at my midwife suggesting I could have sex...uh no. I still struggle to put pants on without pain. 

This is 49 days post-surgery, that's 7 weeks. Still bleeding a little on and off. Finally starting to feel somewhat capable. I am now taking longer walks, though if I'm babywearing at the time I move slowly.

Pelvis is still unstable so I'm still working on comfort. I decided that walking is my only real exercise for a while still, though I'm taking time to start stretching my core some finally.

Here is almost 2 months after surgery. Finally got pre-pregnancy jeans on for the first time. Happy about that, but they are my "fat" jeans and they look and feel terrible still. 

The muffin top is just not something I think I'll get used to. I'm feeling well enough at this point to take mile and half walks. Picking up Legan or Barley from the floor is a slow process now but not painful anymore. I'm lifting the stroller in and out of the trunk. Bleeding is just now stopping. I'm still not really ready for any further workouts but tightening my abs several times a day. 

Here's 12 weeks out. I'm refused to take anymore sucking in or flexed shots. Even those still aren't showing me flat like I once was. I'm 5 lbs heavier than pre-pregnancy, but I'm actually comfortable with that as I'm breastfeeding and I think my body could use the extra reserves.

I took the bottom photo in my outfit from my weekly pregnancy shots. I still look at about the 8-9 week mark here if not slightly larger. I find that pretty depressing. In the last month I have at least made some fitness strides. I'm comfortable walking 4 + miles, and I can do it while wearing him or pushing a stroller. Picking things up from the ground isn't an issue. I was able to ride my horse just a little bit about 2 weeks ago. I felt alright, but it did put some pressure on my pelvis that still doesn't feel right.

I started a small exercise program just this week. I didn't think I was going to ever need to follow my own advice, but here's my plan for now. I'm still working up to this. I've had some time spent with Legan held up on my shins while I'm on my back. That's really challenging for me right now. I can do push ups, but only from my knees and only 5 at a time. I'm doing squats, but 15 at a time is my limit. I feel really really weak still. 

I tried to run just a few steps the other day. It was a no-go. My pelvis is not quite stable yet, but on top of it I felt pulling and discomfort behind my incision. I guess my organs and stuff just aren't altogether healed up yet. It's really difficult for me to embrace this. I went into pregnancy feeling young, thin, strong, and hot. I now feel old, fat, ugly, and weak. I'm trying really hard, but I'm starting to feel that my body will never fully recover - I'll never be back to where I was - and that's hard as an athlete. Just doing 3 yoga positions and 3 sets of 5 push ups from knees leaves my core painfully sore for hours and still mildly sore for a day or two. I have tons more gray hair, and I still have to be careful. I can't roughhouse, and even some of the cuddling I was did with my husband is physically uncomfortable for my lower abdomen (and sometimes my too full or too chewed on breasts). I'm not sure what I have to do to get back to running other than wait - I don't know how to get my pelvis back to functioning. 

I feel like all c-sections should come with in house physical therapy starting at 8 weeks postpartum. I don't know how I could possibly get to and participate in a PT visit outside of my home as I wouldn't have anything to do with Legan, but if someone could come to by home once a week for a couple months maybe we could make some headway. 

Instead I'll just have to figure something out myself and hope that my pelvis tightens up. Until then I'm a walker only, and I have to stay away from horseback riding and climbing. I feel pretty well beat up still. I'm maybe at 80-85% of normal abilities.

I'm also trying to figure out how to cope with the visual of my floppy, scarred, and stretch marked abdomen. I can't accept the visual as me. I'm not ashamed to have other people see it, but it almost disgusts me, so I don't want to look. 

Wondering if getting my belly button re-pierced (it apparently closed up in the last 6 months) would help me feel more normal, or horrify me because it emphasizes the difference. 

I haven't yet decided.

Either way, nearly 3 months out and I'm still feeling the affects strongly. The recovery here is a bitch.

Next episode coming up: the ridiculousness of postpartum birth control

In the meantime a couple of cute baby photos!

My Love-Hate Relationship With Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding was a choice I made years ago. I made it for so many reasons the biggest of one was naively loving the idea of doing everything as "natural" as possible, because that's the right and correct thing to do. Well I've since decided that it's downright shocking that the human race has even survived this long considering how difficult it is to feed your baby. I will continue to hope that not everyone has such a rough time. I can try to assume that most of my issues came from the artificial means of his birth and initial feeds. Maybe it all would have worked out better if he had been able to start by breastfeeding immediately, instead of all of the time I spent with the pump. But I digress. Let's really nail down the nitty gritty.

I exclusively pumped for Legan for the first two weeks of his life. The third week I spent nursing him 2-3 times a day, but mostly having to supplement those feeds with either tube feeds or bottles. The rest of his 8 feeds were done fully by bottle or tube. Once we got home we immediately jumped in to exclusive breastfeeding. I thought about easing in, it might have been easier on the both of us for many reasons, but in the grand scheme I was just entirely fed up with being a slave to the pump.

So here's my loves of breastfeeding:

I love the perspective here, it's from my view. Look how little he was and how HUGE that boob is. It's surprising he wasn't scared off, squashed, or drowned.

1. The money! I LOVE not spending the money on formula. Right?! Why spend any dollars on something you can make for pretty much nothing. If you ignore all the extra food I'm eating of course.

Even from his first week finally latching, he had to hold on to this for dear life, way better than an impersonal bottle!

2. Bottle washing! I love NOT having to wash so many bottles everyday. Granted, I'm still pumping into bottles so we're washing a few, but not like 10-12 a day, and yes that's how often he's eating.

Nothing like a picnic on a park bench overlooking a river...except I didn't get to eat.

3. Food on the go! I don't have to bring any food with as long as he's going to be hanging out with me. I do have to think ahead a little if I'm leaving him with someone else, but we can leave the house together and even if we don't end up coming home, food is taken care of. Granted...we'd run out of diapers pretty fast but that's a different story...

You can't tell, but we're nestled on the couch here, probably watching a telenovela.

4. Bonding and cuddles. There is something great about knowing that I'm still 100% providing for my little man. Watching him get chubby and only eat from me is a great feeling.  Plus I have the perfect excuse to steal him away from people, and to sit on the couch with him for hours. He's always hungry, so I can pretty much just have an excuse just for taking him all the time.

He's got his drama hand going here. He's AMAZED just thinking of the health benefits of his meals.

5. Health. All joking aside I really do think that the nutrition provided from mom's milk is the healthiest option for babies, especially when they take it right from the breast. I love helping out his immune system and giving him the best chance of a happy digestive system.

However, these last 5 weeks have been full of many other moments too.

Typical morning, feed him, then pump while he rolls around half milk drunk.

1. The evil pump. There are no words at all to express my hatred of that thing. However, because I started pumping, and then overproducing him, I'm now stuck in an awful cycle of pumping and producing more. Short story long: now I don't know how to stop without being in a lot of pain AND drowning him. So for now the pump stays.

Yup I feel ridiculous, but he eats with a bib on, in order to make sure my white shirts don't go see through in Target...

2. The leaking. It has slowed down from the milk showers I took in the first couple of weeks. However the other night I found myself on the toilet, enjoying being able to take a dump by myself for a minute...and then there's milk running down my crotch. Oh yeah, and nothing I could do about it.

He said no thank you...

3. The Nope Face. This is what happens when Legan either has a huge gas bubble or is just done feeding. Now it's all fine and dandy when he gives me the nope face when I offer him the boob and he declines. But when I suddenly get the nope face mid-nursing session it means I get bit. HARD. IF I'm extra lucky, it comes with a side of head twisting so that he resembles a lion tearing flesh off of an antelope. Minus the fur and the teeth but still. I squeak. On another occasion, he gave me a different nope face - instead of clamping his jaw shut and pursing his lips he just stuck out his tongue and licked the nipple slowly. I mean, he got his point across, it was definitely NOT latching. My mother-in-law got a kick out of it as well.

3 am on no sleep when he's been attached to me more often than not for the last several hours. I'm sore and exhausted and feel like I can't make him happy.

4. Cluster feeding. This is what happens when he takes too long of a nap (or overnight sleep session) and he needs to make up for it by feeding every 45-90 minutes, for about 4 hours. This is specifically engineered to make sure that I can't get a pee break, a shower, or a meal of course.

They're awfully cute. But I still sometimes hate them.

5. The Pacifier Effect. This comes in two parts. 1: He won't take a pacifier from me. He smells or sees or uses his 7th sense (his 6th sense is related to being hungry at the precise moment that every meal of mine is ready) that I have the real thing and he won't take silicone for an answer. 2. Therefore he uses me as a pacifier. Usually this happens after a long day of biting me with the nope face and cluster feeds, so I'm starting sore with a full bladder...and then he insists on latching on and sucking for another hour, even when not swallowing. On days where it's extra special there's still milk in my boobs when he decides to this, and he gets ANGRY that he can't use me strictly as a pacifier. This leads to crying without the boobs and then crying with the boob. The only answer is to give him to daddy so he can take an actual pacifier.

Even after he's done eating, he still wants all of the boob cuddles. It's like his favorite bed that also serves him his favorite food AND he doesn't have to get up to go to the bathroom ever. He never wants to leave.

And my one final note, what I love-hate about breastfeeding. I'm the only one that can do it. I provide ALL of the food and frequently I'm the only one that can give him what he wants. I mean, he won't starve to death if I'm not home (because I have GALLONS left over anyway and I'm still pumping out an extra 10-16 oz a day), he WILL take a bottle, but honestly he doesn't like it. He gives the bottle the nope face. It doesn't squeak at him though, so it's no fun at all. But when he's hungry and wants cuddles, he's definitely looking for his mommy. So that part is great SO MUCH of the time. Except when I'm totally exhausted or starving or have to pee...and I just desperately wish that he was formula fed so that I could leave for hours and not have the pump or anything. That's not most of the time, but it is some of the time.

This was our last day in the hospital!

Honestly though, I think if I didn't have to do any housework at all and all of my food was provided to me, I could manage to find time to use the bathroom enough that I would love being at home and nursing him all the time. If only he didn't try to tear my boob off.

His mid feeding burping face. Also 3 am....

 

He's lucky he's so darn cute! Just fed and for once content to cuddle in my lap!