Bringing Aria Home – #blogcember day 5

Today we’re going to take a stroll down memory lane, back to the first few weeks of mommyhood. It seems like it was a lifetime ago, but at the same time it feels like just yesterday! How is that possible?

We brought Aria home on December 23^rd around 4:30 p.m. My story is a little different; I chose to spend the first three weeks after having Aria, at my parent’s place. I guess even though I was a mom now, I still needed my mommy to take care of me. I am SO glad I made this decision because I really had underestimated postpartum recovery, and life after having a baby.

Those first few weeks I had a rollercoaster of emotions, likely because my body was trying to adjust to a huge change once again.

I am so incredibly lucky and grateful that I had my whole family there to help me. I am generally a sensitive person (I can cry at a drop of a hat) so it wasn’t a surprise when I was a tad emotional in the first few weeks. Actually emotional doesn’t feel like the right word. I was just feeling my emotions REALLY STRONGLY. So if I was mad, I wasn’t just mad I was FURIOUS. If I was sad, I wasn’t just sad, I was BAWLING. It was a couple weeks before I started feeling like myself again. I wont lie, I had of course read about post partum depression during my pregnancy, and I was scared to succumb to it, I am thankful that I didn’t, and I think being surrounded by family had a lot to do with it.

It’s important to know that it’s normal for women to feel sad, cry, and/or have a lot of emotions after delivering their baby.

I mean you probably:

Just spent 10 + hours in labour

Are exhausted unlike you have ever been before

Can’t move around like you need to be moving around

Have a new human being depending on you

So give yourself a break, allow yourself some time to heal physically and mentally. If you have family around, accept their help, even a 5-minute power nap will do you wonders!

Aria was and still is a little angel. Her temperament is quite calm (thankfully, just like mommy…Ali will tell you otherwise, but don’t listen to him) so she spent her days, eating, sleeping, pooping and repeating the process again. I had told myself I would try my best to breast feed, which I did for the better part of the day. At the end of the day, I would give her a bottle of formula to keep her full for most of the night. Over all, the first couple of weeks went by pretty smoothly. I loved spending my days cuddling her, feeding her little belly, and taking naps together (because let’s be real – nobodys taking a shower, cooking or cleaning while the baby sleeps – and if you are, I bow down to you!)

Around the third week I noticed Aria was breathing pretty heavy, her nose was really congested. Of course one of the first things I did was ‘google’ her symptoms, and then proceeded to freak out over what Google told me. The two weeks that followed were an absolute nightmare. If you’re a parent, you know that having a sick baby is the absolute worst. I wont go into too much detail now but join me tomorrow for #blogcember day 6, where I’ll talk about how a very sick Aria pushed me on the fast track to Mama Bear Mode.

Thank you to all of you who are following #blogcember, hope to see you all tomorrow!

Hugs and kisses to all,