A blog about miscarriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period that talks about everything no one talks about. Input WELCOME, email me at Swedishskier@gmail.com with suggestions, additions, or guest post submissions.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Getting Pregnant Again

The second your first baby is born, you think "I'm never doing this again."  You know the pain.  You know the trauma.  You're so happy to not be pregnant anymore. But then sex feels all good and you like your partner again and you get a lil lazy with the birth control and BAM! You're pregnant again. 

The second pregnancy will be completely different than the first.  Everyone tells you this.  This is the reverse of the shit no one tells you.  It's the shit everyone tells you but you don't believe a single one of them.  It was so different, I was shocked to find that this baby was also a boy.  I was completely convinced that since I had so much more energy and felt so much better, it must be a girl.  Nope.  The second pregnancy is just different.

So is the second birth.  Totally different.  I'm telling you.  But you probably won't believe me.  Or you'll be the exception and be all, "My pregnancies were totally the same." 
So I had another baby, I know, I know, shocking.  Why, wasn't it just two years ago I was writing this blog and deathly fearing the idea of having another one?  Yes, yes it was.  Nature and biology and sexytimes are neat like that. I found out I was pregnant three days before I started grad school.  So it goes.  Onward and upward! 

So I had another baby.  Another boy.  At home again.  And it was rad.  It went way, WAY better than last time.  I didn't get quite as huge.  I still have thirty pounds to lose but hey, it's not 60 like last time so that's good.  I didn't push for two hours.  I pushed once.  And the whole danged baby came out, which was cool. 

I will swear by two things about childbirth and they are: red raspberry leaf tea and orgasms.  Each should happen daily and if you need to masturbate to make that happen-- do it.  If you don't, you're a bitch who is obviously married to some pornstar-grade-piece-of-man-meat and you'll probably have some flat, perfect stomach four weeks after labor too.  I mean, you're a lovely woman and we should have tea some time.  Or something.

It never occurred to me that I could get a uterine infection.  I had a short labor.  I had NO cervical checks.  Which is not normal unless you're at home, and I was.  Which also lowers your risk of infection.  Yet, five days after I had Gavin, there I was feeling like I had the flu.  It hurt to move my eyeballs.  My stomach was distended, which was hard to see since it just looked like it hadn't gone down from getting fat and having a baby yet.  And it hurt like balls to touch my belly anywhere.  A uterine infection is no joke.  It's one of those things that used to kill women.  It can go systemic and kill you pretty quickly actually because it's an organ in the middle of your stomach that is connected to a lot of blood supply.  Which means your whole body can go septic quickly.  No joke.  Thankfully it's 2013, so I got on some antibiotics and was ok pretty quickly. 

I did NOT get hemorrhoids this time though.  Neat.

I did have hot flashes like a middle aged lady- perfectly normal at the end of pregnancy and immediately following birth.  Hormones, of course.  Interestingly, my doctor confessed that she had had this exact problem and that in all her years of practice and training, no one had told her about this possibility.  There's always some shit no one tells you it seems.