Third Trimester & Postpartum Update

Hi everybody! It’s been a minute since I’ve blogged but we’ve been busy loving on our newest and final family member, our angel boy Louis. Since the last time I wrote my pregnancy progressively got worse, I was sick almost constantly and I wasn’t leaving the house unless it was to get food (that I wasn’t eating) or to my mom’s so she could help me entertain Lavender while Liam was in school. Needless to say I was anxious to be finished, find out the gender and above all feel better. 

I thought it couldn’t get any worse..but then it did. 

At exactly 34 weeks 6 days my water broke and as many of you read in my birth story on Instagram I wasn’t aware of this at all until it was too late. A lot of people joke about not being able to control your bladder when your pregnant, and on top of that it’s my third baby. To me at the time it seemed like I was just peeing uncontrollably but now I realize how severely wrong I was and am embarrassed of myself. I still wonder if I had realized, would I have been able to receive care that kept him in longer? How could I have thought that in a matter of one day I would lose complete control of my bladder? I really don’t know.

After two days of “peeing myself”, I went into full blown labor at 35 weeks 1 day. My homebirth plan definitely went out the window and we went straight to the hospital. Under no circumstances was I okay with having a preterm baby at home. Four days of nicu stay, countless anxiety attacks and a visit from social services (because of the unusual circumstance and since he was early) and we finally got home. It was the most glorious homecoming I could ever imagine. I’ve never missed my bed and bathroom so much in my life. We spent the next week and half as a family, not having anyone over, nurturing both Louis and I back to health and truly enjoying the peace. Our perfect boy is here and we could not be happier. I still remember the dream I had of him in February of last year and although I wasn’t correct about being able to have our homebirth, the fact that I was holding a piece of a dream that I had and prayed for, was and still is simply mind blowing.

It took me the longest amount of time to stop bleeding this time (almost 6 weeks) but I’ve had no pain since the day I gave birth. I had no tears and my labor was extremely fast again (3.5 hours). It felt like my body went immediately back to normal after he came out, I had so much adrenaline and oxytocin running through me I felt like I could run a marathon. Being sick became such a norm for 8 months that being able to function and eat is amazing to me even still seven weeks later.  It also gave me an even deeper respect for those going through terminal illnesses that experience that kind of torture on a regular basis for even longer. It truly was torture.

Breastfeeding has been off and on challenging this time. Louis has an upper lip tie that’s not severe enough to need correcting but still it causes problems. At times, especially at night when he’s sleepy, he has a hard time latching and it almost seems like he forgets how to nurse. Sometimes it can take 10-15 tries before he successfully latches and it wears on both of our patience, some nights in my worst moments I think that’s it I’m doing formula. I’m not sure why he sometimes has such a hard time but we continue to work hard at it. He’s a trooper and I love this bonding time so I will never give up on him.

Having three very small kids is hard like I expected, Liam and Lavender have very strong personalities and require a ton of attention still because they’re still little but they’ve taken to Louis amazingly. They really love him and love calling him theirs. I know it’s cheesy to say but I’ve never been able to give them a gift like the gift of each other. They have such a special bond and I adore how much they look alike.  

As for Dylan and I, we manage most things like we did before however I won’t pretend like two to three hasn’t been the most challenging jump for us. I’m very tired all the time so we don’t have much time to ourselves but we plan on working on that. Everything in time.

Postpartum has been overall perfect and I’m so grateful to my husband, family and friends for helping me after his traumatic entrance.  Louis Michael, you are everything I was missing. I’m so happy you’re here, I’m so honored to be your mama.