The Post-Partum Body

So since my post on weird pregnancy symptoms is by far and away the most popular post ever, on my wee blog (50% of all traffic, thanks to accidentally hitting on a popular search term), I've been meaning to write a bit about what's happened since.

• Regarding what I wrote about hair loss: during pregnancy I may or may not have stopped losing hair. About four months after I gave birth, WHOMP out went half my hair. Seriously, there was so much hair falling out of my head that DH and I were worried I was going bald. The hairstyle wasn't noticeably affected, to me at any rate. Ask my hair stylist if you want to know for sure.
• All that stuff I mentioned about darker body hair and moles: no change. Ahem.
• Belly: still no stretch marks, but poochy and jiggly. I haven't done a lot to try to change it. I've been exercising intermittently and eating like I'm still pregnant but with the addition of a moderate amount of wine... so... no change expected.
• Breasts: fourteen months of breastfeeding and every once in awhile, I look in the mirror and say 'hey I've finally got the cleavage I've always wanted. Meh.' 
• Lady bits: the small tear took longer than I expected to fully heal. And by fully heal, well, I'm not going to explain that. But it was six months or so before... I was going to say back in the saddle but that's not quite right. Sad face.
• Behind the lady bits: also, the side effects of my intestinal slow down took a long time to heal. I wouldn't say things are totally back to my pre-pregnancy state even now but thankfully a lot better. 
• Birth control: around one year post-partum, menstruation returned for me (thank you lactational amenorrhea!) so we gave up the condoms (yay!) and I went back on the pill. Or rather, I thought my period had returned. So far she's made only one appearance. At any rate, being back on the pill has changed my...
• Skin! Nasty old adult acne that I used to get while on the pill, if not using retinol, is back with a vengeance. Ah well.

A couple notes on the post-partum mind:

• I was never much for horror and suspense genre entertainment. I find it totally unwatchable now. I am writing this with an episode of Bones running in the background. The storyline involves a kidnapped 8 year old boy. I can barely tolerate it and it helps to be distracted by writing this and watching the twitterstream flow by. I'm just watching for the shots of DC. I should watch Legally Blonde or something instead. Blog posts about miscarriage and sick children are pretty much guaranteed to get me bawling.
• Don't get me started on long distance commercials. I will cry at the drop of a hanky, or the sound of a kid saying 'Mom?'
• Pre-birth, I gave myself a manicure every Sunday night, and a pedicure every two weeks. I think I've half heartedly painted my nails three or four times in the past year. I miss it but I often can't be bothered. 

Poor kidnapped kid in Bones had a finger cut off. I want to throw up.

Speaking of nauseated, after almost a year of unplanned bedsharing with the baby, I love it. It made life easier and mornings are so snuggly and delicious with the baby right there. She wakes up in such a happy mood. Oh right, on nauseated: I just feel sad for the babies being left alone to cry themselves to sleep every night. I wish I could snuggle them all. 

Some of these things have been a surprise, some not so much. All of them, I hardly notice, especially when I'm schmooshing my baby girl!

What has your post-partum or post-adoption body, mind and life been like?

Out so soon?

Update: so I wrote and briefly edited this, shut down my machine and went to bed. I immediately started worrying about how this post would be perceived. So after the one am feeding, I'm adding this update to address: would someone read it and feel like I was suggesting postpartum depression doesn't exist or isn't debilitating? Nothing would be further from what I believe!

I was really concerned that I was a moderate to high risk for PPD and I've read a good deal about how terrible it can be. I have been taking evening primrose oil as it is supposed to be good for helping to prevent PPD and to ease the baby blues in general. I'm delighted that I seem to have escaped the worst of it - I've definitely been intermittently weepy and irritable - just ask poor DH who has had to absorb the worst of my weepy/cranky.

At any rate, I intended this post to celebrate how well my postpartum time has gone so far, and to wonder at how many people feel it's comment-worthy that we're out and about. As my dad pointed out, at Em's age, I'd already been flown from Vancouver, British Columbia to San Antonio, Texas.

Back to regularly scheduled programming...

So, with a lot of help, I gave birth to my huge healthy little baby 17 days ago (birth story, yes, still to come). We were kept in hospital for two days, and then were sent home, with a prescription for a painkiller I didn't want to delay in filling. So we stopped at a pharmacy to fill it on the way home. It was while waiting for the prescription to be filled that we made that momentous first trip to Starbucks with little Em.

Since then, we have left the house every day. Some days, it's just to the neighbourhood Starbucks and then the park - both within a few blocks. But often, and within the first week home, up to ten or fifteen blocks away to grocery shop or run small errands - like the big trip to the pediatrician's office on her fourth day. Ok, we drove to the ped's office for the first visit, but the subsequent two visits, I walked with her in the stroller. I'd tell you how far it is but I can't seem to coax Google Maps to show me the distance measuring tool. It's probably a kilometer (just under half a mile).

On one of those subsequent visits (she would have been 6 or 8 days old), a guy walked up from behind me and remarked "small enough baby!" I was so stunned, I didn't think of anything to say until he was blocks away (we were out but moving slowly). I wanted to say "she's huge - just very new!" or "you push nine pounds of baby out your ass and we'll talk about small!" But I didn't. And now, after talking to a lot of other people, random people on the street, friends and family and whatnot, it seems that it's weird to be out and about with her so young.

No one has any specific concerns they're sharing with me, and most, unlike Mr Small Enough, have communicated themselves differently, saying things like wow,I'm impressed you're out and about already, or I was such a mess at that stage, I didn't leave the house for weeks.

I don't get it though. I feel fine - tired from a lot of interrupted sleep, sure, and sore in some special places, and anxious about breastfeeding - but fine, overall. Em is healthy and gaining weight. She may not be breastfeeding directly, but she has eaten only breastmilk, so she should have my immunity to things in the environment, which I think is pretty good - I tend to be pretty healthy.

So I don't know why I'm supposed to be stuck at home? I don't feel like being at home. Maybe we just have a weirdly small apartment for new parents - that could be part of it. I think it does contribute to my feeling cooped up. But I don't think that's all. I can't quite place my finger on it, but it feels like maybe I'm supposed to be at home fainting or weeping?

Anyway, I'm good. Thanks for asking!

Anyone else have an apparently atypical recovery?