I found this old post from just after I had Benjamin. Was nice to remember those first days with a newborn. May I never be there again.
The weeks after having a baby is a bit like being a teenage girl.
Your body goes through all sorts of changes that you don't really know how to deal with.
I thought I would be wiser the second time around, with the help of my Graeme -who is pretty much not scared of anything (anymore).
He has watched the worst labor-ever, with Noah. He endured all sorts of verbal-almost-physical abuse. He has seen things that I never wanted anybody to see. I can honestly say that he has seen me at my absolute worst, and then some.
I am shy. When I say I am shy, I really am. And I hate medicine. I'm the girl that asks you to crush up her Panado on a spoon with syrup before I will go near it.
Sometimes I knew something was coming, and I had the luxury of chasing him out the room (he really doesn't need to see a nurse give me an enema) for the sake of our sex life and my dignity. After a whole hospital staff and just random passers by have seen your private parts, it's pretty hard to maintain any kind of false pride. Really, you get over it really fast.
Most of the time I don't know what was going to happen. I didn't know that he would see me throw up / have a pipe put up my spinal cord / see me cry in pain / see my membranes ruptured. Hell, I didn't even know all those things would happen to me. I am still rightly traumatized.
It doesn't stop at labor. Or the c-section. Of course, it carries on and continues to become even more embarrassing and invasive.
I'm pretty quick to recover after birth. I man up and get on my feet and try to behave as if nothing had happened. You may call it strong; I call it naive. So with a one-week old newborn, I wanted to go out. We packed up the whole family, collected my mom too, and went to the Lifestyle center. They have this awesome play park that is ideal for Noah. Me? You've seen one jungle gym, you've seen them all. Eventually you show preference to the kiddies jols that have liquor licenses.
We were there about twenty minutes. I wore my white denim shorts. They are baggy shorts.. please don't think that I fit in to my old clothes right after having a baby. Really.
Graeme was playing with Noah in the park. As I walked toward them, I felt my pants go wet.
Really wet.
Like maybe I had actually wet my pants.
This would have been OK.
I (carefully) walked over to my husband and inquired about my "pants situation". I did a little full-circle so that he could get a good view. My white shorts were now red.
I thought he was kidding. I really did. I really hoped he was, because we were surrounded by toddlers and other parents and lifestyle-center-goers.
When I realized he was not kidding, I made a (very) swift exit to the ladies. Well, I ran as fast as a person with wet pants could.
All I had was the nappy bag. I was SO delusional about the whole situation. I dug so deep in that nappy bag hoping to find a set of spare clothes that only responsible/mature/organized mothers would have thought to pack. Turns out, I am not one of those. I am always the mother that leaves the house without breast pads or a spoon for the purity.
All I knew was that I had to throw away the underwear and pants I was wearing, and that I did not have anything else to wear.
I stood half naked in the cubicle for a while just staring at the nappy bag.
I phoned my mom (also in the play park) for a consultation on the whole thing. We agreed that I could not wear the clothes I was originally wearing. I had found breast pads to use as pads in the interim. The conclusion was that I had to wear a baby blanket (like a sarong). My mom suggested wearing a newborn nappy as a pad but I thought that was a bit extreme.
After some time I phoned Graeme and told him that I actually didn't know what to do, and that I thought I would be in the bathroom forever. After some convincing and reasoning, I emerged wearing the baby blanket (that did not even fit completely around my waist) and a handful of breast pads.
The three of us, plus Noah and Ben in the pram headed for the exit. Noah was really bummed that he only had like 7 minutes to play on all the awesome things, and was giving us a mouthful about it.
I kept my eyes to the ground and concentrated on balancing the swifting pads between my thighs.
We had to stop a few times, and eventually I sheltered myself between some cars in the parking lot and shouted to Graeme to run and get the car.
My mom further sheltered me with the pram and out came the nappy. NOT comfortable.
The poor car guards were so confused. There was my mother and I hiding in the parking lot and Graeme running for his life like we'd stolen something.
He came speeding along (the wrong way of a one-way, the car guard pointed out) with the car and shoved all 4 of us in like we had just robbed a bank and were making our getaway.
You would think that I would know better, being a second-time mother.
