The Week After leaving the Hospital: Eight not so fun things you might not expect after giving birth

1. You still have a touch of the pregnancy brain.

The lack of sleep will cause you to be forgetful and absent minded. I took a nice long hot shower my third day home and it felt wonderful, about ten minutes in I realized I was still wearing my glasses. You might forget which boob your baby just nursed on. (yes another personal absent minded experience of mine.)

2. Those crazy pregnancy hormones ain't got nothing on emotions post birth.

I thought that my emotions hit rock bottom when on the day before my induction I threw a book at my fiance for eating the last cookie. (To be fair they were homemade and he knew that I had set that cookie aside for myself) However they don't even come close to emotions after birth. In the past two days I have praised my fiance for being an amazing partner and father, Also I have also accused him of not being attracted to me anymore and called him names for always saying the wrong thing. To clarify he is the amazing partner and father I was just being super sensitive.

3. You might lose your appetite and gain nausea.

I love food especially the unhealthy tasty kind. After giving birth I had no appetite and nothing tasted satisfying to me. I forced myself to eat three meals a day because I knew I had to take care of myself but it was not as enjoyable as it had been to me in the past. Another fun side effect was that anything I ate made me nauseous so not only did I not desire to eat but I knew that once I did eat I would be hit with a not so pleasant wave of nausea immediately following it. 

4. Your stomach wont just look fat it will look weird.

They say you will still look 6 months pregnant when you leave the hospital, this is true. In the days and weeks that follow your stomach will change and look like a deflated basketball. The weird part is the transitional period between the bump and basketball. The half preggo half deflated stomach is disturbing looking. On day 8 I had the bump up top and deflated basketball on the bottom. Not the kind of curves that make you feel sexy.

5. Your hands and feet will be huge.

I figured that once you give birth it would take awhile for the swelling to go down. What I didn't expect was for my hands and feet to be more swollen then they were my entire pregnancy. It seriously looked like I had elephantiasis, the only shoes that would fit me were my slippers and even they were snug. The swelling took about a week to go down to somewhat normal size.

6. Your bathroom trashcan will be overflowing with giant pads.

You will go through tons of pads and will not have the motivation to empty the tiny bathroom trashcan every time its full. I recommend either getting a medium sized covered trashcan to use for the first few weeks or hiding a bag where you can dispose of your icky pads under the sink. Since you will most likely be having people stop by the last thing you want them to see is THAT kind of trash.

7. You pretty much leak from everywhere.

Not only will you have to deal with what feels like a never ending period, but you will have other fun leaks too. You might still be leaking pee or feel like you are doing a pee dance just holding it in long enough to fill up your peribottle. You might wake up with a shirt soaked in your own milk or better yet when you get out of the shower your boobs just start leaking all over your clean body like a faucet. You might also have menopause like sweats where one moment you feel like the house is an oven and the next your in the arctic.

8. You may not recover as fast as you thought.

I thought I had done a lot of research prior to giving birth about what to expect. I went out and bought tucks and extra long pads and thought I was prepared. However my labor wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, there were a few complications which lead to a 2^nd degree tear. When you think about pregnancy you think about pain during labor but not so much the pain after labor. During labor at least you know that once the baby is out the majority of the pain will stop. However when you are recovering from a tear or labor in general you just have to be patient and hope you heal fast. I am not patient, I do not like “taking it easy” and I hate having people wait on me. So try to mentally prepare yourself for pain when you sit, stand, walk, pee and poop. When you get out of the hospital all you want to do is take care of your beautiful baby and enjoy your time with them, but doing this while in pain takes away a bit of the joy. So I gotta say recovery after labor STINKS.

Just try to keep in mind that eventually things will get better and you created a beautiful baby who you get to spend your life with. For every not so fun thing there is a wonderful moment such as watching your child sleep.