What No One Told Me About Recovery

During the months leading up to delivery I had been told over and over again that my body will need time to heal. 6 weeks to heal, to give a rough estimate. However, nobody was specific about what exactly was going to happen. If I asked, I'd usually get a "Trust me. Just use the time to relax if you can."

So I'm not going to do that here. I'm going to outline what my experience has been so far with recovery.

Part 1: In the Hospital

You'll have lost some blood during labor and delivery. In me, this affected blood pressure and energy levels. So when you first get up to go to the bathroom, you might be pretty unsteady on your feet.

While you're in the bathroom, you'll probably notice that you're pretty swollen, um, down there. If you had any tearing or an episiotomy (or, like me, both) then you'll probably have stitches and a bit more swelling. For example, I was swollen out to about the size of a golf ball in the week or so after delivery. This made walking extremely difficult at first, and urinating was pretty uncomfortable. Also, with all the foam and pads and sprays and what have you that they gave me to use it took about 3 times as long to get in and out of the bathroom. As for showering, I didn't have the energy or the stomach to stand up long enough for even a quick shower in the day or two after delivery.

Most of my day was spent cooing over my newborn while sitting on an ice pack.

Part 2: At Home

Moving around was still quite difficult for the first two weeks or so. As the swelling (slowly) went down I could feel the stitches every once in a while poking into still-tender skin. Changing positions in bed or in chairs was challenging because the soreness was pretty bad; but staying in one position was also pretty painful.

But things were definitely feeling better than they had in the hospital. I was taking pain killers, iron supplements, pre-natal vitamins, and a stool softener. I could get to the bathroom OK and was able to stand up long enough for a shower. By the 4th day after the birth I thought I was well enough to fold some laundry and vacuum the stairs.

Much bleeding, cramping, and acute fatigue later told me that even those "easy" activities were a bit advanced. I didn't quite learn my lesson, though, and attempted to go to a street fair in town the next day. I ended up laid up in bed for the rest of that day and most of the next.

The day I passed a bowel movement (Oh, TMI? Oops, sorry) was truly momentous. And painful. I would put it on the same level as delivering the placenta (ewwwwwww, I said "placenta."). There was some bleeding. I spent about 20 minutes in the bathroom all-told. It was not fun.

That's pretty much the story of the at-home recovery for me. I rest, I try to resume activities, and then my body lays the smack-down on me. Each time it happens it gets slightly better, though. A bit less recovery time. Nearly 5 weeks out from the birth and I'm now able to cook, do most of my regular cleaning, take short walks outside, and ride in the car to go on day trips to visit family. I'm still bleeding a bit, though, especially if I try to over-exert myself. Carrying the infant car-seat is a little trying, but do-able. My poop-schedule isn't quit on track (Oops, TMI again. Oh well), and it's still kind of painful. And I've been working on my kegels to get things back in shape. The gas incontinence is the worst thing at this point, but that's starting to get better.

So with one week of recovery left, I'm just now getting back to feeling mostly normal, physically. I didn't even touch on the emotional recovery in this post; I'll leave that for another day. But at least on the physical end of things that six week window does seem to be critical for getting rest and focusing on healing the body. It went through a lot!