Let's see how fast I can type. I really feel like blogging, but Isis isn't really keen on me doing things that aren't giving her attention. Right now, I'm playing music for her. Every time a song stops she starts fussing. Least the girl has good taste.

I wanted to thank everyone again for the massive outpouring of support and loves, and the positive feedback for my birth story. I didn't realise so many people read my crap o.O But thank you xx I'm seriously touched.

So, now you all know what birth's like (from my P.O.V anyway) I want to share with you the days after.

The days after... are a lot worse. In the days after I wasn't sure I could ever face such an event again, and I was sad... disappointed in myself because I never wanted Isis to be an only child. But I could not fathom for the life of me ever voluntarily going through that again.

The weakness and the pain were shocking. Now, I don't know how much of that was the result of my bleed fest at the end there. I can assume a good portion was from having my uterus manually crushed, and from the lack of iron in my system. The lack of iron was so obvious even Obi picked up on it. He's like "I don't mean to be offensive, but your skin looks a bit green. Is that normal?" Green is not a good colour on me.

Anyway, my stomach muscles were destroyed. I couldn't seem to access them. I couldn't sit up unassisted. I couldn't stand alone. I couldn't look after my baby, I couldn't hold her if I wasn't sitting down... but other people could. The jealousy was terrible. I felt some of our early bonding deteriorate a bit.
I was very dizzy, every move seemed to make my blood pressure drop.

One thing I'm told happens to all women, is this feeling that your guts are all going to fall out when you stand up. Seriously. You'll stand there with your legs clamped absolutely convinced that if you move there will be organs on the floor. It's a bit horrifying. What doesn't help is your belly. A day ago it was hard and round... and now? Well there's a reason women don't post "after" photos. It's weird. I don't know what it's like for other women, but there was this vast emptiness, like partly set jelly. And then right at the bottom is this little pouch. In there you can feel the hard cricket-ball of your uterus. I didn't spend any time touching it though, except to support it when attempting to walk, it freaked me out. It took me a week before I could feel safe washing my belly and began putting cream on it to tighten the skin back up.

I don't think I can do justice to how shit I felt in the three days after giving birth, but it was far far worse than labour. After labour, well even before the placenta came out really, I developed a deep seated fear of any pain. I'm not usually such a soft cock, but I'd reached my fill, and anything that seemed even potentially uncomfortable I sought to avoid.

Luckily I had lots of help. Obi did practically everything in those first few days. Secretly, I was a bit disappointed in my sister. She came around to see the baby, which is fine. But it was like the longest visit ever and not once did she offer to help with anything.

Anyway, we had a few strategies in place to get me on my feet as quick as possible. One of which was a small steak of placenta left in the fridge. Obi turned it into a.. er... something similar to a steak sandwich. It wasn't too bad. But! Don't think you can hide the flavour under steak spice - that seems to really bring out the flavour rather than mask it. And well, I wasn't eating it because I wanted to. I just wanted to recover as fast as possible. Sonja bought the rest of it over as placenta pills the next day, and I'm still taking those. Much more palatable! She also bought me a bottle of tea... to spray my lady parts with during/after peeing. It actually helped, who'd have thunk it?

Luckily, the bad parts pass quickly. It's two weeks later, and I feel ready to go again. I can't of course. There's the six week rule. But I'm not scared for life by having gone through it. Two weeks on, my body looks almost normal too. When I'm dressed, I look like I'm the size I was before pregnancy. When I'm naked... well.. my belly does need a few thousand sit-ups. But I have no stretch marks You have no idea how much of a relief that is!!

And! If I thought my boobs were huge before... oh I had no idea! Haha.

So, what's breastfeeding like then?

Challenging. And painful. It's no wonder many mums never try and those that do don't make the six month mark. (They say you should breastfeed as long as possible, but that the first six months are crucial.) The first few days all you make is colostrum. This sticky yellow shit. The baby only needs a few mills a day to survive. Of course, there's a day or so of overlap when the baby is hungry and wants real milk but your body isn't making it. So nature designs that the baby just stays latched onto your nipple, sucking away at nothing until your body gets the hint.

Latching isn't easy either. Isis found my nipple as soon as she was born. But we went through a night of hell before she figured out what to do with it. It was night two. She kept asking and asking for food, and I'm like "It's here!!" and doing everything the books say to do, you know, squish your nipple a bit so she can get it in her face, express a little so she can smell it... But she'd just lick it off and cry. Or hold my nipple in her face and cry. Or, dig her fingers into my nipple and then we'd both cry. The next day I'm messaging Sonja at the crack of dawn asking for help with this shit. And when she came around, she checked Isis for tounge-tie and then watched me attempt to feed. She's like "You're doing everything right, just keep at it" which was not helpful. If I was doing it right, why wasn't it working?!

Sonja stuck her finger in Isis's mouth - and she started sucking immediately. My nipple just wasn't getting far enough in to trigger the reflex. "You can force her a little" Sonja told me. And so I did. And we got an instant strong latch and OMG THE PAIN I thought Obi was a rough bastard but I'll never complain again! Of course, once Isis figured out how to latch it wasn't long before I wanted her to let go!

The fourth night was terrible too (bad nights tend to be every second night I'm finding). She had sucked so long and hard I had blisters and dried blood on the ends of both nipples, but I wasn't making milk so she was still crying with hunger. For hours and hours. And I knew that I had to let her keep at it, so my body would know what to do. But it bought me to the limits of how much I could handle. And in the end I passed her to Obi, and ignoring his questions and her hollering I got a bottle, put two ounces of warm water in there and stuck it in her face. I know it's the wrong thing to do, but dear lord the silence was bliss. And then she was full and went to sleep. And that's how I didn't drown my daughter in a bucket.

Over all though, Obi and I agree that parenting is a lot easier than people made out. Maybe that's because we're such a good team. We're both falling over ourselves to help the other out and make the other still feel loved and desired. We've had more good days than bad ones, and for that I'm grateful.

I love my little girl. I was born to do this.

Anyway, I think she might let me have a shower. So I'm going to turn her butt vibrator on and go do that.
*Carrots*