My 3 Month Postpartum Update and Baby Update
If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that in early October I delivered my daughter Pearl.
As this was our first child, my husband and I weren’t sure what to expect in terms of postpartum. Gabe worried much less than I did about the physical aspects. I watched a lot of YouTube videos while pregnant about the postpartum period, and some were encouraging while others were horrifying.
I saw everything from moms bouncing back very quickly with no lasting physical problems to moms who gained a ton of weight while pregnant and hadn’t lost it years later.
Here I’ll be giving you my postpartum mental health and body updates. I’ll follow that up with an update on Pearl!
How My Body Has Changed
While pregnant, I went from 125lbs to 167. All of this was a combination of amniotic fluid, baby, placenta, blood volume, and weight to turn into milk.
After her birth, I had dropped 10 pounds by the time we got home from the hospital (she weighed 8lbs 8oz at birth, so most of that weight was her). In the 12 and a half weeks since then, I have dropped an additional 23 pounds.
My incision is about 6 inches across, and immediate postpartum had staples in it. They took the staples out on the 3rd day post-surgery. Since then the stitches have dissolved and a red scar has been left behind.
The scar is still tender if pressed on, and sometimes internally there is some pain. I had an appointment last week to address that and was told this is totally normal. It’s just the feeling of the inner layers healing, according to my Ob/Gyn.
My breasts have definitely gotten bigger, too.
Overall, not a whole lot has changed. And nothing has really changed for the negative. People can’t even tell that I’ve been pregnant!
How My Mental State Has Changed
Mentally, I struggled a lot postpartum. I mentioned and explained that in my other post, How My First Pregnancy Almost Broke Me.
Since the events of that post, I’ve been doing a lot better. I am still on one medication, lithium, for the time being. I’m on a super low dose that I’m comfortable with.
And every day that separates me from those events helps me to not think about them so much.
My hormone levels seem more evened out, and while I am irritable sometimes, it makes a lot more sense given that I’m up at least twice a night every night to feed Pearl.
At this point, I don’t really have a whole lot to say other than that as time passes, I feel better and better mentally. I’ve heard that a lot of moms feel completely themselves by the 1 year mark, so we shall see if I am one of them!
Baby Update
Pearl has been a joy since the day she was born. While the first month was a bit chaotic, the last 2 months (she’ll be 3 months old on the 6th!) were a lot easier.
She eats twice during the night, and usually needs just one diaper change. Her and I go to sleep anywhere between 7 and 9 at night. Her feeds are usually around midnight and 2:30AM, and we get up for the day around 5AM.
In my opinion, super easy schedule for sleep!
Gabe and I have come up with a few nicknames for her, including Pearly and Pearly Girl.
Her personality is very bubbly and sociable. She is the most cheerful little person in the mornings! I always get lots of smiles, happy gurgles, and squeals. She makes it worth getting up early!
We’ve started bathing her more often, about twice a week. I don’t see the need for any more often than that, especially since babies aren’t up and running around getting dirty.
I do wash her hair more often, about three times a week since we’re still dealing with cradle cap. I use the Mustela Foam Shampoo and FridaBaby Cradle Cap System for this. It works really well!
All in all, Pearl is doing great. I worried while pregnant that I wouldn’t like being a stay-at-home-mom. I now know that I worried for nothing. My review of motherhood so far: 10/10, would do again!
Originally published at https://marthajohansson.com on January 5, 2022.
