Too tired to search the internet for possible explanations – I used my excellent reasoning skills to give me reassurance: I am a smaller person; I gained 50+ pounds with my daughter; she was an unplanned c-section. My abdominal muscles must not be strong enough to hold this baby from protruding my midline when I do a crunch-like motion. It will go back into place after he’s born, I told myself. And I am doing a really good job of moderating the weight gain this go around! I’m really good at self-reasoning.
Written by Martha Yazdani, co-owner of The Birthing Tree Hang on, what is that bulge in my stomach? I thought to myself one night when I lifted my head while lying next to my 3 year-old-daughter as part of our normal bedtime routine. Of course, my belly was big - I was 7 months pregnant with #2. But this was different. I relaxed my head back down, and lifted one more time. There it went again. It looked like my still growing baby was a cone-shaped bulge in my belly – with a peak – like a hill peak vs. a mountain peak. To humor myself, I did it again of course.
Too tired to search the internet for possible explanations – I used my excellent reasoning skills to give me reassurance: I am a smaller person; I gained 50+ pounds with my daughter; she was an unplanned c-section. My abdominal muscles must not be strong enough to hold this baby from protruding my midline when I do a crunch-like motion. It will go back into place after he’s born, I told myself. And I am doing a really good job of moderating the weight gain this go around! I’m really good at self-reasoning.
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What do I need to prepare for exactly? Feeding my baby will just be instinctive right? Those are the kinds of things that people say to me all the time in Childbirth Preparation classes and what I always say is that the only thing that is instinctive about breastfeeding is that the baby is hungry and you want to feed them! Nursing a newborn can be very straightforward and easy but it is not uncommon to need some help to get in to the groove of breastfeeding your little one.
You won’t know what challenges you might face until your baby has arrived but I like to prepare parents with some basic concepts to help you identify potential issues and help navigate the first weeks. "Breastfeeding my daughter was the hardest thing I've ever done."
This was a bold statement coming from a nationally renowned theater coach who is commanding in her poised stature. I would have thought making a living in theater would have been the hardest thing she'd ever done, but to her, it was more difficult to sit down and nurse. I made the choice to go back to work after I had my daughter. "Some mothers are better parents because they work," our First Born visitor told me before I gave birth. I really enjoy working and it seemed like I was going to be that type of parent. Since I had my daughter nine months into my first job after finishing grad school, I didn’t want to take time out of my career at the very beginning, but I also really appreciate my job and was eager to return.
I had a compassionate boss, a fellow parent, and he allowed me to come back to work doing three days in the office, two days at home, for as long as I needed. In addition, my husband was able to stay with our daughter for the first eight months because he worked from home. In The Baby Book, by Dr. and Mrs. Sears, I came across this advice which really helped ease any further qualm about being a working mom: "The issue is not the working mother, the issue is attachment with your baby. Separating mothers into two camps (working moms vs. stay-at-home moms) does nothing but provide judgmental material for magazines and devalues one side or the other." With that advice, I began to figure out how I could be a working mom still connected to my baby. Here are five tips I can now share with you:
Caring for yourself and your baby in first 40 days postpartum can dramatically improve your healing process and increase your bond with your child. We made an easy to follow infographic that shows you how to ask for and receive the help you need in this exciting time.
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AuthorThis blog is collaboration between co-owner Shabd Simran Adeniji (BA, BM, MPH) and guest bloggers Categories
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