I have tried and tried to sit down and put into words my experience with my second pregnancy, but again and again I have found myself at a loss of words to describe. If anything I have come to realize just how fast time passes us by. I am already heading into my 7th week of postpartum with this new little human and almost 7 years with our first born. As I say 7 years, I literally get choked up inside. How could it possibly be that my son is almost 7? A true blink of an eye and life has passed me by.
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| DECEMBER 6, 2017 and then there was two! |
I sit here and watch my daughter become her own little person and my hopes are that I will be as in tune with her years as I was and continue to be with my son. My hopes are that while in the midst of watching this new little person grow and develop, I will not miss the continued growth and development of my son. Having two children truly is different than just having one. Not in a bad way what so ever, just different. And maybe it feels so different because Nick and I waited some years in between having our second child, maybe it feels different because of gender, or maybe it is different because as time passes we all become different. Life is ever changing in so many ways and in those ways we decide who we are going to be or become. We make new decisions, different choices ever single day. Some of these decisions and choices effect the growth and development of each of us. Well actually all of these decisions and choices we make or are made for us, effect the growth and development of each of us. I no longer head upstairs to read my son a book goodnight for bedtime without first checking to make sure my daughter is calm and relaxed. If she is crying and needing my attention, the process of putting Whistler to bed isn't as smooth as it used to be. Sometimes I have to interrupt the bedtime routine to tend to the needs of Hutson. These choices may not seem like a big deal to some, but to me I like to keep things calm and routine. I don't want to create any form of chaos for Whistler during this time, I want to try and keep things as close to the norm as they can be.
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| Sibling Love |
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| My favorite nurses Ever! Tonya on the left and Andra on the right. |
I am not the same person I was when I was pregnant with my son and post pregnancy with my son, is not the same as it is with my daughter. I can already see the difference between the two personality wise. My son at 6 weeks would not allow anyone to hold him other than Nick and myself without creating a crying fest, whereas my daughter at 6 weeks allows almost everyone who wants to hold her, hold her. She is willing to explore the arms of others. My son was not willing.
I have to mention that the two of these humans resemble one another when you look at them. I would never have imagined that Hutson being female, weighing less than, and almost 7 years younger than her brother, would look so much like her brother. Their physical appearance is so similar, that more than once I have referred to my daughter as "he" or "little guy" and even "bubba boy". I cannot believe I am admitting this to be true, but I am. When I hold Hutson, many many many memories of my son appear in my mind. She looks so much like her brother it is almost too crazy to be true. Her eyes, her hair, her features, her smell all remind me so much of when I first met Whistler almost 7 years ago. Again it is way too crazy!
Okay so lets try and talk about my pregnancy. I was pretty much not feeling the best with lots and lots of headaches, heartburn from hell, and the smell of food sent me to the toilet more than I would have liked. I barely could eat anything good for me throughout most of the pregnancy. My love for broccoli went out the door within the first few weeks of knowing I was pregnant. Why is it that the body rejects certain foods during pregnancy? I eat broccoli ever single day unless I have run out or am eating out, but as soon as I got pregnant I could no longer stand the sight or the thought of broccoli. Now here I am post pregnancy and I am right back to eating broccoli every single day. I craved it while I was still in the hospital a matter of fact. Pregnancy can have strange effects on a woman. Hmm.
Aside from not feeling my best during pregnancy, I am happy to say that I never missed work. My goal was to maintain myself enough to continue teaching yoga, spin, and all my other fitness classes for as long as my body and baby would allow me too. Actually, I did quite well with teaching most classes up until just a few weeks before birth and teaching Gentle yoga right up to the night before I actually did give birth. That was fun for me! What was not fun, was giving Nick a much harder time during this pregnancy. Sorry honey! Nick was well beyond supportive and attentive to my needs during my pregnancy. He picked up the pieces where I was unable too and he kept things running as smooth as possible for all of us.
Again thank you Nick for everything you do! Thank you for helping me create these two humans.
Has anyone ever developed a rash after giving birth? Never have I ever had or heard of a rash like the one I developed towards the end of my pregnancy. Towards the end of pregnancy I noticed some reddened tissue under my breasts. I thought is was sensitivity from the growth of my breast during pregnancy (they got so much larger than I remember getting when I was pregnant with my son.) Three days after giving birth to my daughter I noticed the redness began to spread and became very itchy. It only seemed to progress with each day. It eventually got so bad, I went to my Ob and asked her for her opinion. She ruled out it being related to Thrush and instead thought it looked more like an allergy to something. She told me to try taking Benedryl (after taking it for 3 days and absolutely NO change in the rash, I quit taking it.) A couple of days later the rash was so severe to the point I literally wanted to tear my skin apart. I woke Nick up one Saturday afternoon from his nap and asked him to please take me to the Urgent Care. This doctor, well this doctor at the Urgent Care responded when he first looked at me with the thoughts that I had Scarlet Fever. WHAT THE.................. my thoughts exactly! He ruled out Scarlet Fever because there was no signs or symptoms of me having Strep. So he told me to start taking Vitamin D3, probiotics, and drinking Kefir. He also prescribed me amoxicillin just in case I over the next couple of days did indeed develop Strep, than I could go get the prescription, but only if I did develop Step. I never did! Good thing I never did because my Ob said not to take amoxicillin. Another couple of days went by and I thought just maybe the vitamins and probiotics were helping until I noticed the itching got again worse. I ran into a wonderful friend in Target who had similar rash under her breasts and she used this type of dandruff shampoo which she recommended to me. I tried it too! It was feeling better for another couple of days until it was no longer feeling better. To my doctor I went ( he told me it was a yeast overgrowth/ fungus and long story short prescribed me to topical creams: one antifungul and the other a steroid cream.) Do you think it worked?
It did for a little bit of time, it helped relieve the itching, but the downfall was it had potentially harmful effects to children. F*ck!!!!!! So here I am nursing my newborn daughter, but if she touched these creams that I had to rub all over my breasts (except the nipple/aureola area) it could possibly stunt her growth. It seemed like every time I applied the creams, she would begin to cry for a feeding. I was beyond frustrated and would have to jump into the shower over an over again to rinse the cream. Do you think I continued using the cream. Nope!
After all of this I finally calmed myself down and stopped taking anything given to me for these diagnosis given to me. The rash sucked!! I finally just quit with everything and went back to using my normal soaps and lotions. I stopped worrying about the rash and accepted it as if it were going to be there for the rest of time. I couldn't use my nursing pads, so I leaked boob milk everyday though my shirts. I couldn't wear a bra of any kind, I was naked around the house as often as I could be. Again long story short, I am doing so so so so so so much better and if you were to look at all the spots where the rash spread ( my breasts, my ribs, my stomach, my eye, my back, under the arms, and near my underwear line) you wouldn't see anything. It finally faded and barely itches anymore. I can wear comfortable clothing again, but not the nursing pads because it creates too much warmth. Thank Goodness I am finally feeling normal!!!!!!!
And I never did take pictures of the rash, but I should have because unless you actually saw it you probably wouldn't believe me on how horrible it really was.
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| Only hours after my second c-section surgery. This is the real deal! |
My incision is healing (looks much better than the picture above.) It seemed to be doing as well as expected. I think my first c-section healed a bit quicker than my second however. This time around I seemed to be a bit more sore than and irritated by it. That was another thing that we thought my rash could have been due to was the incision. I read that a couple of women had developed a rash due to an allergy from the glue the doctors use to mend the incision for the c-section. My area around the incision never seemed to appear as though there were any signs of infection or irritation of that kind. I am beginning to wear my normal clothing and even buttoning my shorts now, well most of my shorts!! lol!
I look forward to the rest of my healing to take place and my adventures back into fitness with running too. I cannot wait to run with Hutson in the same Chariot we used with Whistler. I am excited to see if Hutson will be interested in practicing yoga with me or go biking instead with her dad and brother. Many many things to look forward to as a family of four...............
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