Hi Mama,
Have you already given birth? Or are you still waiting for your little one to arrive?
Today I wanted to dive deeper into the overwhelming emotions I had right after I gave birth. I had no idea that I would have so many crazy emotions after baby girl entered the world and since she came a few weeks early I felt so caught off guard. Those first few days (and even weeks and months) were filled with a lot of tears. Not all of them were sad though. Some were brought on by joy as well.
This is the third post in my five-part birth story series.
My birth story in chapters:
- Deciding between the ECV and a scheduled C-Section
- Being surprised by my daughter’s early arrival
- Emotions in the hours and few days after birth
- Recovering from my C-Section
- My birth plan went out the window (and I’m okay with that)
And so, the story continues….
The Overwhelming Emotions I Had After Giving Birth
“You really don’t know what true love is until you have a baby.”
As I laid in my hospital bed I was surprised by how much I was crying. I had just given birth 2 days prior and was so happy, yet it translated to tears. I knew I wanted to remember my feelings and look back on them later, so I got my phone and wrote out a little note to myself.
Reasons why I’m crying:
- I love my baby and feel like even if I can spend every single waking second with her it’s not enough.
- I’m sad to sleep because I will miss her!
- I feel like my heart is exploding with love when I look at her!
- Pain from the surgery and how it affects my mobility and ability to care for baby girl
- Breastfeeding in the beginning, latch and positioning problems resulting in her crying which made me cry
- Pain from breastfeeding
- Getting lots of support from Huy, family, friends and hospital staff with lots of positive enforcement and validation that I’m doing amazing as a mom
As you can see, a lot of the tears came from the crazy amount of love that I felt for my baby. It’s so true, you really don’t know what true love is until you have a baby. I literally didn’t want to sleep because I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Everyone kept telling me to sleep and I would just cry because I didn’t want to miss a single second of her life. Crazy isn’t it?
Looking back now, I think one of the reasons why I was so afraid to miss out on any time with her is because I had missed the chance to hold her right when she was born. If you read the last post where I discussed my c-section experience, you’ll know that I didn’t get to hold my sweet angel baby for nearly 2 hours after she was born.
That really took a toll on me and I was still crying about it more than 2 months after her birth. Even now at 15 weeks postpartum I can’t believe how much sadness that little detail has brought me. I will never get that moment back. I hold her tighter and tighter and yet I still miss her.
Breastfeeding also ended up being a lot harder than I thought it would be. Because I had a c-section I had to be careful about which positions I was using to feed Mia because I didn’t want to put pressure on my incision. I could not get the football hold to work for the life of me and Mia didn’t know how to latch just yet. I had nurses who could help me but since I would be alone at home, I tried to feed her myself.
After failing again and again I finally called in the nurse to help. Whenever they would help me she would be able to eat right away! This really made me feel bad. I was her mother and yet I could not figure out how to feed her myself. I knew in the back of my mind that I just needed practice (and so did baby) but I still felt awful. And the pain of her sucking was terrible too!
The pain from my c-section also affected me a great deal. On the second day a nurse asked me what my pain level was. I told her it was only a 5 because I didn’t want them to think I needed stronger medicine. She came to help me in and out of the bed and when she did I was wincing. She took one look at me and said, “your pain level is way more than a 5”.
It was as though I was waiting for someone else to care for me but realized that while the hospital staff was there to do just that, the only person that could gauge my pain level was me. And the only way I would feel better would be to be honest with them about my pain level. So I stopped being quiet and started to let them know more frequently to keep the medicine coming.
Once I did this things got a lot easier. I was able to get up and down from the bed alone, feed the baby with a higher success rate, and let daddy sleep through the night so he could help me the following day. It was as though I was afraid to ask for the help and medicine because I was trying to put up a brave front to show how strong I was and that I was healing fine. I found that it was hurting me more than doing me good because the only way I can take care of Mia is if I’m taking care of myself first.
After finding my voice and asking for help, I was also able to sleep more because I sent the baby out to the nursery between feeds during the night. This was the real life saver because having more sleep equals a much happier mommy!
Lastly the thing that made me cry was how much support I was getting during my recovery. Even though I was struggling I was constantly being praised for how well I was doing. I was getting up and walking. I took a shower by myself (with Huy in the bathroom because I was nervous). I tried my best to push through the pain and even though I spent a ton of time crying I was still being praised for being STRONG.
I wanted to share this post because no one really talks about how HARD it can be in the first few hours and days after giving birth. They make it seem like it’s so magical and you just lay there happily breastfeeding your baby and smiling because of how blessed you are. Maybe that’s true for some moms. But I’m pretty sure most of us have felt a lot of emotions that we didn’t expect.
If you’re a mama I want you to leave a comment and share what emotions you were feeling after you gave birth to your sweet babe. Were you happy, sad, angry, scared, nervous, or a mix of everything?
xo
Mother of Fawn