I recently gave birth to a baby boy! Yes! Thank you. Baby Owen Raine Bettger was born by vbac at 5:40pm on Jan 8. It was an incredible experience which I intend to share in a later blog post but for now here are 10 (direct and real) tips for postpartum bliss.
- Have a meal train set up, have house help set up, have shows and movies ready to go, have snacks prepared ahead of time, pack your bag, your partner's bag and you're other kids bags.
- Get together the following items: "padcicles": frozen maxi pads soaked in healing tea - camomile and comfy are great Tucks brand medicated pads Dermablast pain relieving spray A peri spray bottle Sitz bath salts comfy pants and snap front shirts
- Sleep, sleep, sleep, hydrate and carbo load in the weeks leading up to your due date. Exercise and eat well in the months leading up to your due date.
- Mentally prepare for the hardest work of your life. Know that you can do it! But, also know how you will deal with strong strong sensation (aka pain). Take classes on how to birth - your pranamaya and yoga practice will only take you so far. If you want to birth your child naturally without drugs be sure to know i.e. really educate yourself on how to manage pain. Side note: I labored naturally without drugs with my first born, my cervix swelled and I had a c-section. With my second, I labored with an epidural, dilated and effaced with no issue and had a vbac. The vbac was by far the superior birth experience. It was the hardest work of my life.
- Have pictures taken and journal about your birth experience soon after birth. You may not remember anything.
- Consider a 40 day sacred time to heal and bond with baby. During this time let the housework and things - even diaper changing to others (preparing and asking for help ahead of time helps a lot), your job then is to heal, rest and feed the baby.
- Forget about a birth plan. One nurse said that "a birth plan is just a recipe for a c-section" - this was true for me.
- Smoothies! (Pre-package and freeze smoothie ingredients).
- If you use a smart phone, get the Total Baby app to track baby's rhythms this will help ease the family into a schedule. I believe in a fluid schedule for sanity.
- Get a gadget called Baby Plus (in your 2nd trimester). It's a learning tool, but I think it's a magical spell for easy babies.
