My Story: Wishing I Knew More About the Postpartum Process

MS talks about a few things she wishes she would have known before giving birth.

Transcript: 

OBOS Today: Is there anything you wish you had known before like not, not necessarily before giving birth to twins but before giving birth at all, like the first time? 

MS: Um, I mean, I think I felt pretty prepared, you know I’d done a lot of reading and I, you know, and I had friends who’d had babies and we talked. I mean, I think, you know, knowing how like just how messy it is. Like you sort of think, you know, you see it on TV, like the women might have a baby and they’re wearing this like frilly little nightgown and their hair looks beautiful and they’re like breastfeeding their baby. Like it just doesn’t look like that. Like you are drenched, and your hair is a mess, and you, you just, it’s like so physically intense. And I think, you know, just being realistic about that was number one. And I think the other thing honestly that I just, no one really tells you, is just how much bleeding happens afterwards. Like you sort of, like I actually remember I packed, because I guess I’d heard that, so I packed like this little box of like, like little panty shields, like the little, teeny tiny ones that you know you buy and I was like oh I’ll have these you know, like, just in case.

The truth is, they give you pads that are like the size of a shoe box that you basically need these pads for a very, like you don’t get your period for nine months when you’re pregnant, and then basically your body makes up for it afterwards, you get like nine months’ worth of periods. It’s, you just bleed a lot, and no one really tells you that. And I think if I had known that, I mean not that I would have done anything differently, but it probably would have just not been quite as distressing if I’d sort of known to expect that, just that much bleeding because, you know, you’re just you’re doing so much right after you have a baby, your body’s healing, you’re trying to like, for me, I was trying to breastfeed with twins, I was trying to breastfeed twins, you’re exhausted. And then, you know all the bleeding on top of that, I think, if I had sort of known ahead of time to expect it, it might have just, you know, I’d have been able to take a little bit more in stride.