Now that Prim is 6+ weeks, I feel like I’ve fully settled in to being a mama. The other day I was reflecting on my pregnancy and the first weeks with little P, and I thought it would make a good blog post to talk about some of the things that have happened that I wasn’t expecting (y’know, aside from accidentally losing like 1/3 of the blood in my body).

1. I get nostalgic about pregnancy. Pregnancy is long, and physically (and at times, mentally) exhausting.  Especially by the end, it really takes a toll and you reach this point of feeling ready to give birth. Oddly though, I miss being pregnant sometimes now, and get excited about the prospect of being pregnant again and having a second kiddo (don’t worry — I’m not going to be getting pregnant anytime soon.  I’m not that insane.)

2. Post-baby weight loss isn’t as easy as I hoped it would be. There are people who lose all the baby weight in 2 seconds with zero effort, but this is not the case for me (unfortunately).  I had heard stories about the weight just “falling off” while breastfeeding, which it certainly did the first two weeks, but since then it has stubbornly been stuck at the same number. For some reason my body feels the need to cling to 18 pounds, despite the fact that I exclusively breastfeed, eat healthy, take walks and do Bar Method. I’m trying to be positive and focus on “feeling” healthy and not worry too much about the weight (assuming that it will come off eventually), but sometimes it can be a little tough — especially because basically nothing fits at the end of pregnancy and I dreamed about being able to finally wear the rest of my clothes after giving birth. Um, not so much.

3. Breastfeeding is more complicated (and emotional) than I was expecting. I exclusively breastfeed Prim, and feel very lucky that I’m able to do so. I am lucky that I come from good breastfeeding genes (my mom, sister and I all have a pretty insane milk supply — I basically am one in a long line of dairymaids). So while I don’t have a supply issue (my biggest problem right now is that everything I own ends up covered in breastmilk — I basically leak all over everything all the time), getting the hang of breastfeeding was anything but easy. Prim had latch issues from the beginning — because she was early and has a small mouth and high palette, breastfeeding was very difficult and painful. I ended up scabbed due to Prim’s bad latch, and she ended up losing too much weight while we were in the hospital due to the breastfeeding issues. I was determined to continue breastfeeding (though I totally see why people give up on it — especially in the beginning), and so with a combination of pumping, a lot of lactation support and a fair amount of tears (mine, not Prim’s), I got Prim’s weight back up — but breastfeeding hurt almost every single time for the first two weeks. Luckily it turned a corner two weeks in, and it’s now (mostly) easy and painless.

4. There’s a lot I didn’t know about pumping. Did you know that pumping is not always a good indicator of your actual milk supply? It actually takes practice to get “good” at pumping. In fact, some people can breastfeed but can’t pump, because their body just doesn’t respond to the pump, or they can’t relax enough to get their their let-down reflex to kick in. And even if you’re practiced at pumping, you can totally have an “off” day. (I really wish I had known this when I came home from the hospital after my hemorrhage — I pumped and had a complete meltdown because I thought my milk supply was drying up. In reality, I think I was just so stressed and physically worn out from the whole ordeal that my body couldn’t relax enough to get a good output while pumping that night.)

5. Being a mom is so much better than I ever imagined. I’ve always known that I wanted kids, but even so, I had a lot of moments during pregnancy where I worried that I wouldn’t take to being a mom. I feared I wouldn’t be able to calm my baby if she was crying, or that I would be stressed and exhausted all the time, and even worried that I wouldn’t like being a mom and would miss my old life. Luckily these fears were totally unfounded. I was surprised by how calm and confident I felt with Prim right from the beginning. I feel like I know what she needs and can interpret her cries and signals, and the connection I feel with her is just indescribable. I love being her mama in a way I’ve never loved anything else, and now can’t imagine a life without children. (I keep telling KC that I’m going to have as many babies as he’ll let me. He likes to pretend I’m joking. 😉 )