Numb the whole area and then bring on the intercourse

Posted on August 19, 2016 by Good Times with Jess

Baby Bop is 6 weeks old! And I’m 6 weeks postpartum. Yesterday was my doctor’s appointment that was hopefully going to give me the all clear, open for business, hello Captain. It did not.

Captain, Baby Bop and I all head to the doctor. The doctor comes into the exam room. She asks,

“How’s it going?”

“Good, but I’m still bleeding.”

“Ok we’ll check it out.” She turns to Captain and Baby Bop. “Will you step outside for a minute?”

Both of them have seen every part of my body very intimately, so what’s one more vaginal exam?

The doctor gets her exam on. She declares,

“You are still bleeding.”

That’s right. I’m not making it up. She continues to poke around.

“You look great. The doctor did a great job with your stitches.”

“Thanks.”

“It looks really nice.”

That’s a relief. I am curious about what a good job versus a bad job looks like, but I’m very glad I got the good job.

The doctor finishes my internal exam and tells me,

“You’re stitched up nice and tight. You might be tighter than before, but it’ll stretch out. If it doesn’t stretch out, we can always cut it open a little and restitch it.”

WHAT?!

“We need to schedule you for an ultrasound to see why you’re still bleeding, so no intercourse for now.”

She hands me several packets of lube.

“When you do have intercourse, you’ll need these. Also because you’re tight you might want to take a Motrin ahead of time and use some topical anesthetic.”

Numb the whole area? I’ll be defeating the entire purpose of why I’d want to have intercourse in the first place. Aside from that one time when I wanted to make a baby and I am NOT ready to make another one of those.

Mom fight #1: small children are no match for me

Posted on August 14, 2016 by Good Times with Jess

Baby Bop is 5 weeks old and I’ve been a mom for 5 weeks. I was overdue for my first mom fight.

Getting out of the house is an Olympic hurdle. I’m waiting for my gold medal for walking around the block.

I head out to meet family for lunch. It’s hot and Baby Bop is fussy. We survive. On our way home I swing through South Station and stop at the water fountain. I lean over for a drink while Baby Bop is asleep in her stroller next to me.

Out of the corner of my eye I see something flying towards my baby. I swing around. I throw my arm out to stop the projectile object reaching for her. It’s a 3-year-old child.

The mom of the runaway child shouts at me,

“Don’t push her.”

Adrenaline is pulsing through my body. All I know is that I didn’t have an eye on my baby for one second while I took a drink of water from the local watering hole and a small animal tried to come eat my baby. I swung around and my animal brain saved my baby.

Yes, I may have pushed a small child. Not hard. She’s fine. So is Baby Bop.

Second blog since Baby Bop was born, the struggle is real

Posted on August 2, 2016 by Good Times with Jess

Baby Bop is 3 weeks old! Or she was when I started writing this post almost a week ago.

I told her she’s carrying it very well and doesn’t look a day over 2 weeks. She groaned. Mom jokes. Either that or she was pushing a poop out. That takes real effort. For both of us. I’m on stool softeners for 6 weeks and if I forget to take them, my butt reminds me very quickly.

Postpartum recovery is no joke. I know gazillions of people do this, have done this and will repeatedly do this, but at 3 am with spit up drying on my chest and poop pieces everywhere, it’s hard to imagine surviving until daylight.

I’m still bleeding. That’s normal. I used to sleep naked. Now I sleep in underwear with a giant pad and then shorts so I can look in the mirror and pretend I’m not wearing a diaper. I also sleep with a bra or nursing tank top because my girls are heavy, tender and leaking if I even look at Baby Bop.

Baby Bop is doing well. As far as I can tell. She eats, sleeps, poops, farts, spits up and cries to make it clear she doesn’t like getting her diaper changed, sometimes. She also doesn’t like to get dressed, which is hard because I’m a big fan of trying on multiple outfits a day. It’s her fault she’s cute.

We got home from the hospital when Baby Bop was 2 days old. When she was 6 days old, her umbilical stump was looking weird and her belly button was really red. We call the pediatrician. The nurse asks us,

“Is she acting normal?”

“What’s normal? I’ve known this person for 6 days.”

Now I’ve known her for 26 days. I have a better idea of what’s normal, but she’s still surprising me. Will she wake up at 3 am, 4 am and 5 am? Probably. Is there a chance she’ll also wake up at 4:30am? Definitely, but not every night.

My mom asks me,

“Is she a gift every morning?”

I’m not sure what hour of the morning Baby Bop becomes a gift. I do fall more in love with her everyday, so that’s in her favor.