What I wish I knew - the first five days
When you are pregnant there is no shortage of information about do’s and don’ts’ - between your own research from books, courses, googling and chatting to other Mums (for solicited advice) - you also have everyone providing their unsolicited advice.
Well through all my preparation, there was things I wish I knew or someone had prepared me for that I hadn’t done - I have compiled a list below so hopefully these aren’t things that will catch you out like they did me.
Also… since you clicked this link, I will assume you are after someone else’s advice and I will call this ‘solicited’ :P
I wish I had prepared for things to go wrong for the baby, not just me
I absolutely loved my obstetrician- still do - he is amazing and have total trust in him. He looked after me so well during my ectopic pregnancy, and I knew he would do the best for me and my baby to be born safely.
What I hadn’t really prepared for was he is an obstetrician… not a paediatrician. Sounds obvious I know, but when Tate was born he was suddenly in the care of a paediatrician I had never met before (let alone chosen carefully like i did my OB). My OB was MY doctor for MY recovery. What
I had a long labour and reasonably complicated birth (that’s another story), but due to his birth, Tate ended up being taken away from me and put in the neonates in the hospital so he could recover for 48 hours. There was none of the ‘first cuddles, skin to skin, first feed’ etc that they had prepared me for in all the classes and books. I missed that ‘gazing into each other’s eyes, connecting and bonding’ time straight after the birth.
This experience had a profound effect on my mental health. Before this i thought the worst would be going in for an emergency caesarean, I hadn’t even considered not being with my baby for the first tine in 9 months!
I wish I had considered this and mentally prepared myself for this.
I wish I expressed more colostrum
With doing my own research, I decided I wanted to express colostrum - that ‘liquid gold’ that provides so much goodness for the little ones. My OB is very medical so felt it was unnecessary because if they need a top up feed they can just have formula. I am not against formula at all (in fact I did end up giving Tate some formula in those early weeks), but I thought that if i could have some colostrum on hand, why not!
I had gestational diabetes during my pregnancy, so my OB agreed that in my circumstances he would agree it could be a good option.
So, I managed to express about 30ml over the weeks leading up to the birth. Everyone was telling me how much it was, and it was amazing that I could collect that much! I really could have expressed more, but didn’t feel the need to given everyone’s response.
Well, again, because Tatey was in the neonates those first few days, I wasn’t able to feed him. Even when i tried, being sat up in a chair in a room full of these little prem babies with machines beeping etc wasn’t exactly the best way to learn to breastfeed for either of us. So the nurses used all of my colostrum to feed him - which he went through in the first 30 hours! Hence the further top ups of formula from there.
Now that we are all home sick with Covid, i wish i had a little of that liquid gold in the freezer for a little boost for my wee man.
I wish I had prepped my husband more
I wont go into too many details here without his permission. But post natal anxiety and depression can hit the partners just like it can hit the mother. I had tried to prep him, but i wish i had set up some quick resources to turn to for us.
I wish I had research the ‘fourth trimester’ as much as I did through the actual pregnancy trimesters
Oh boy, that fourth trimester is ROUGH. I had heard of it before but hadn’t really done much research into it. Everyone’s experiences are different, some people are able to ‘glow’ into their experiences as a new mother. Not me. My first 3 months were filled with anxiety, sadness, loneliness, pain and dare i say, in the darkest moments, regret. What i soon realised was this is COMPLETELY NORMAL. It is a cosmic shift becoming a parent, and all those hormones, sleeplessness, confusion all adds up. Of COURSE you feel overwhelmed and have moments of ‘wtf have we done to out lives’.
One day i will write more on this experience.
If you want to chat about this more, please reach out through instagram dm - now that i am a Mum, i am passionate about helping other new Mums.
I wish I had a doolah
This I NEVER thought I would say. Seemed a bit ‘loolah’ to me. I had my husband as a fantastic birth partner in my husband, so why would i need someone else in the room?
Well… your poor birth partner is going through just as much as a ‘holy fuck’ moment as you are. SO when it comes to making decisions in the moment, and being level headed, having someone not emotionally connected to challenge what is happening around you, or just being an advocate with a clear head would have been well appreciated. Next time, i will have someone in the room who can challenge the decisions being made around me so I do not miss out on the important psychological stuff - like holding your baby once he is born!
I share this as a brain dump for myself, but also as a new Mum to help others - because this is what us Mummas do, we just want to help. I hope this helps even one person out there prepare for the arrival of their little one.
H xx
“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.”
- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh -
(yeah i know, its a good quote though)