MY PREGNANCY, LABOUR, DELIVERY, AND POSTPARTUM JOURNEY - Part 2
And Why I Decided To Start New Mums Room As A Mother Of Two Under Two
Pregnancy
I got pregnant with my daughter four months after I had my son. I found out five months postpartum. This pregnancy was much smoother. I think I had about a week of mild pregnancy symptoms, nothing as intense as my first, and that was it. I had diarrhoea, my sense of smell increased a bit, and I ate less. All this happened within one week, and I was back to normal. I kept forgetting I was pregnant until I got heavier.
Labour and Delivery
Labour and delivery were also much smoother. I prepared mentally this time. I was just worried about my son. We had moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil, at this time. There was no village living with us, and my contractions ramped up at night after he had gone to bed. I didn’t want to mess up his routine, but I had no choice. I wasn’t going to make it till morning. My husband packed our things, booked an Uber, and carried our son.
Prepared or not, the pain is still unimaginable, but my breathing technique was better this time. I worked hard to remain calm.
I sang many worship songs, as singing in high and low tones helps with breathing. The hospital ward heard the name ‘JESUS’ a lot that night, haha. I still got an epidural, but one that allowed me to walk around. I rested and walked around with the nurses. By this time, my husband and son were asked to go home because of my son, so that he could sleep. My husband wasn’t with me this time, but I felt so much love from the doctors and the anaesthesiologist that I didn’t miss him, and things were much calmer this time. The doctor broke my waters, and I walked around again. The doctor checked and could feel the baby’s head. They asked me not to push, but I was already pushing; I couldn’t help it. I was pushing so calmly, bearing down using breathing techniques, that I don’t think they noticed. The doctors rushed me to the delivery room, and with a few calm pushes, my daughter was born.
Postpartum - The Fourth Trimester
I barely tore and didn’t feel any pain even when the epidural wore off. I was on my feet soon after, and I felt great. The nurse helped my daughter latch, and breastfeeding started well. It wasn’t painful, and I was encouraged. Somewhere along the line, it did become very painful, and I ended up with severely bruised, cracked, bleeding nipples. I would cry every time I had to breastfeed. It took over my life, and I struggled to mother my son, who was already struggling with the transition.
Adjusting to two children under two was not the easiest. My son hadn’t seen me for a couple of days and was keenly interested in this new addition. I was too tired to give attention to both initially, so there was a lot of banging on the door from him while I was in the bedroom breastfeeding. There was one time he smiled at me, and it was minutes later after he had moved on, I realized I hadn’t smiled back.
Brain fog is a real thing.
This incident with my son bothered me, and I eventually switched to combi-feeding and exclusively pumping. The transition from 1-2 can be emotionally draining in the beginning. My son and daughter are 13 months apart. They were both babies when she was born and although my son was well taken care of by his father, he still needed me and it broke my heart when I couldn’t be there for him as much. I also missed the closeness parenting one child brought my husband and I. We were still parenting, but separately. My husband got to ‘hang’ with my son more and I secretly envied that, got a little resentful even. I felt like I was missing out and that was hard to deal with.
The Village
I didn’t have a live-in village with my daughter. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Thankfully, apart from excess gas, I didn’t have much healing to do, but I was exhausted in every other way. My daughter was breastfeeding round the clock. It just seemed like she wasn’t getting enough milk. My husband was my village, but it saddened me that we didn’t have a live-in village because I knew he was also exhausted. We needed one. He had become the default parent to my son while doing other things around the house, and I was the default parent to my daughter.
The contrast between caring for my son alongside three other people and caring for my daughter alone was HUGE. We got a babysitter for my son, but this was her first job as a babysitter, so she struggled. Thankfully, our local church sent us a lot of food to keep in our freezer before the baby came, so we didn’t have much cooking to do. We had a cleaner come in every ten days. In the early days in the hospital, my pastor, bless her heart, would come and stay with my son in the hospital garden so my husband could stay with me because children weren’t allowed into that part of the ward. These were all the ‘village’ we had.
I didn’t have an emotional, mental, or spiritual village, apart from the times I would chat with my mum. I think that was the toughest part of the journey. I felt abandoned and I really needed a community of women in that season. A few months postpartum, I started checking on other new mums I know, and we all had a lot to say. We all just felt better after ranting to each other. I didn’t want any new mum to go through ‘Matresence’ alone. So New Mums Room was birthed. I put up an Instagram post inviting new mums to an online meetup on Zoom, a no-judgment zone, where we were free to rant, chat, laugh, and pray together. Several new mums signed up and from there we opened a WhatsApp group where we could check in on each other in between meetings.
A few things I learned from this journey:
New Mums need Postpartum support
It may seem obvious, but I didn’t realize that it wasn’t that obvious until I had my daughter. Postpartum support isn’t only physical support. It can come in various forms,
a text,
a scripture,
a funny meme,
encouraging words,
a video or a phone call allowing her to rant.
If she rants, don’t be dismissive, preach a sermon, or make her feel she’s ungrateful. Just listen. You don’t love her kids more than her, but motherhood can be stretching and hard. She’s allowed to feel the way she feels.
Set an alarm on your phone to remind you to check on her daily.
If you can visit, ask her if she’s ok with you coming to visit first. When you visit, try to pay as much attention as possible to her needs. She may be too overwhelmed to tell you what she needs so you can make suggestions or take a mental note of what needs to be done around the house. Finally, bring food.
If you desire a village, start planning for one when you get pregnant.
In my Nigerian culture, it’s quite normal for mothers to do ‘Omugwo’ which means giving a new mummy postpartum support, alongside a Mother’s helper. If this isn’t available, be prepared to pay for your village. There’s nothing wrong with that. Work it into your finances. No matter the type of mum you are - Working Part-time, Working Flexibly, Working Full-time, or Stay-at-home, you deserve support. Every new mum deserves support.