Recovery Sucks

Before having a baby I thought that the labor would be the hard part. But honestly, my labor was great. I had barely any pain, thanks to the epidural. I would definitely go through labor again if it was as easy as mine was.

What I was NOT prepared for was the recovery. At the risk of TMI, it felt like I had poop sticking out of my butt all the time. And walking hurt a lot. I had to walk so slow everywhere because of the pain. Even just standing during those first few days was painful.

When using the bathroom I felt like I was trying to poop but I honestly couldn’t tell, so I would have to look in the toilet water reflection to see if anything was hanging out of my butt. And everything was a bloody mess down there so I couldn’t really see what was going on.

Using the peri bottle to clean myself after using the toilet was a pain. I would have to fill up the bottle with water that wasn’t too cold but definitely not too hot. It took me many days to figure out how to regulate the water to the right temperature. Thinking to pour a little on my wrist to check the temperature was a game changer.

But I would have to run the water a while to get it hot enough and I already had to pee pretty badly. Running my hands under water while needing to pee was less than ideal. I would be standing there with my legs crossed telling the water to hurry up so I wouldn’t pee my pants. But there were a couple times where I just couldn’t hold it. Thank goodness for wearing heavy pads during this time…

Sometimes peeing would sting, but usually it wasn’t too bad. And I would feel pressure in multiple areas. When patting myself dry I would feel this large bulge that I have no idea what it was. I think this is the part that was making it so painful to walk. I hated going to the bathroom.

The pain made it hard for me to move around and I mostly just wanted to sit or sleep all day when I was home. But there were things that needed to get done around the house too. Thankfully my boyfriend took care of me for that first week at home.