Post-Pregnancy: Recovery Process

*Warning: Once again this post contains explicit information. Pls leave the site if you are not up for it*

One thing I forgot to ask every mother about their birth is the post period after the delivery. What happens to their body? how do they feel? any more pain etc?

So since I only have very limited information, I was to go through post pregnancy not knowing much at all.

The night of Zach's birth after the spinal shot had worn out, I was in so much discomfort. Surprisingly there wasn't much pain however because my rectum was pushed down so bad, my anus was badly bruised & swollen up not to mention all stitched up. I was on pain killers as well as ice packs for a whole week. That night though was the worse feeling of my life. I couldn't even walk properly, let alone getting up from the bed. Every time I wanted to lie down & go to sleep, I just couldn't because the swelling in my anus gave the sensation of wanting to poo which of course was only a false alarm. So you can imagine the whole night I tried to sleep with this feeling of wanting to poo but I just had to force myself to sleep through it. That night, I had nightmares of the birth all over again. I would jump every time I dreamt of the doctor or midwife doing any intervention to me down there. Luckily my nightmare ended on day 1 & never did I have to go through dreaming or re-living the whole labour ordeal again.

Moreover, since colostrum is very nutritious for newborns, baby Zachariah was also placed in our room to sleep with us for the first time. We had the choice to put him in the nursery but the naive us thought it would be fun to have him sleep in the same room with us on his first night in the world... Boy was that a bad mistake. He woke up every 2hrs so that meant poor mummy who was very very sore down there had to struggle to get up with what's left of her energy to nurse & breastfeed her little one.

Anyway, on top of this, trying to pee or poo is extremely difficult especially during the first 48hrs. I remember tears started to trickle down my cheeks just trying to pee cos it was so difficult (not b/c I was crying but b/c it was an automatic reaction from my inability to pee).

Next, your knuckles & feet are all swollen to the point where it feels like arthritis because your body has just gone through a traumatic experience (ie. vaginal birth). I also noticed that my face was swollen after the birth. Oh and coughing & sneezing are a dread too cos every time this happens, it hurts every muscle down there!

After I gave birth, I thought I would lose weight automatically. This is not the case either. I only lost 4kg automatically (ie. 3.4kg = baby, placenta bag = 500g, water = 100g). The other 10kg is taking a long time to go... I'm so impatient! My tummy took at least a week to go down (and it will never be as flat as pre-pregnancy). My thighs & bones are still bigger than pre-pregnancy & this means I still can't wear any of my jeans... sigh...

The other major thing about post pregnancy recovery is the 3-4weeks of bleeding. I always thought this was period. However, the doctor said this bleeding is actually all the junk/leftovers from the placenta bag in the uterus that needs to be expelled and hence why it takes such a long time. One interesting thing I found was that when you are breastfeeding, the hormones sends a message to your uterus to contract back to its normal size. No wonder I kept on having bad period pain every time I breastfed (bad period pain occuring post pregnancy means uterus is contracting back to its smaller/normal size). Another interesting thing I found out from my doc is that your normal period may never come when you're breastfeeding. Yay!

I must say despite going through all the pain of labour & post pregnancy, it is still very worth it every time you see your darling baby's face...