Baby Star Light has been home now for a week. As I’m sure most of you can relate, it has been a whirlwind. Here are the top surprises – both negative and positive – that I’ve personally experienced over the past seven days.

Let’s start with the bad; I’ll call them dim Star Light moments!

– Most difficult for me, and certainly most surprising, has been the challenging road to recovery. When we were told at the very end of the pregnancy that Baby Star Light was small and were warned that she might need to be admitted to the NICU immediately upon delivery, all of our worries and concerns went to her. We never considered that all of the post-delivery complications would instead be with me! I am generally a healthy person, and I can honestly say that I have never felt worse in my life than I have felt over the past week. Every day it feels like I take two steps forward but one giant step back. With portions of the placenta still stuck in my body, we were warned to watch out for increased bleeding and signs of infection. While the bleeding has remained under control, I seem to have developed an infection that results in horrible spikes in aches and pain and chills about 1-2 times a day. Yesterday, an emergency run to the doctor resulted in the introduction of yet another antibiotic to my medication routine. We are so hopeful that this will improve things on my end, and fast.

Photo credited to James Currie.
Photo credited to James Currie.

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– Another big challenge has been breastfeeding. Because of all of the medications that my doctor had to put me on for my own recovery, I had to switch from breastfeeding to pumping starting on day two because of all of the requirements to “pump and dump.”  I have been diligently pumping, and have been lucky that I’ve had no major complications (save for a frustrating incident this afternoon where I lost half my pumping production due to my failure to get a tight seal with one of the breast shields!). But I have to majorly salute all of you devoted mothers who exclusively breastfeed. Every single time I turn on the pump, I wince with those first few tugs. It hurts! And in the beginning, it is so discouraging. I would pump and pump, and when only a tiny little bit of colostrum came out, I felt completely defeated. I’m glad I soldiered on, but I’ll be honest that I’m still struggling with this.

– And for my final point on dim Star Light moments, let’s talk about sweating. Holy cannoli, I have never sweated so much in my life! I wake up these nights and my sheets are usually soaked right through. It’s been so bad that a couple of times I’ve had to move to a different bed in the house because my bedding is so wet. This was also something that I had heard about from others, but never really appreciated until I had to change my pajamas twice a night!

Photo credited to James Currie.
Photo credited to James Currie.

While the first week has certainly had its share of setbacks, there have also been a bunch of highlights. I’ll call these bright Star Light moments.

– I am honestly completely torn in deciding if Mr. Starfish or Baby Star Light has been the biggest highlight. Thinking about both of them over the past week brings me to tears immediately. From the moment we walked into the delivery room, Mr. Starfish has been my rock and my anchor. He has supported me through every last setback, every single tear shed, every gross and icky thing that my body has presented to us. He is an amazing partner and I am so grateful to have him. He has taken on way more baby care than either of us ever expected due to my own setbacks, but he has done it with joy and patience. He is kind and devoted and strong. I am so proud of how we have handled the first week of parenthood, and I give most of the credit to him.

Daddy and his baby girl.
Daddy and his baby girl.

– Now on to Baby Star Light. Oh my goodness, she is just about as perfect a baby as we could ask for! She is showing a reserved and quiet personality like her mom, but she looks mostly like her dad. She is a very well-behaved baby, rarely fussy and sleeping for nice stretches of time. She is eating like a little piggy, which we are thrilled about since she was so small upon delivery, and she is taking her assignment to eat and sleep and grow very seriously. She has gotten nothing but good and healthy progress reports at her pediatrician check-ups. She is sweet and loves to snuggle, but also a big mover and we can rarely keep her in a swaddle with all of her movements.

– The unconditional help that we have received through family and friends has also been a huge positive. From friends who texted short words of support and understanding, to both of our mothers who stayed with us and selflessly took on partial night shift duty so that I could get some sleep to aid my recovery – I can’t even begin to explain how loved and cared for we feel through all of these actions. And to think that all they want in return is a snuggle with Baby Star Light or a cute picture – it’s amazing! While a few of our friends had recommended saving the first few days home from the hospital without visitors or helpers, I could never suggest that myself. Having our mothers here truly saved us, and I’m not sure we could have done it without them.

Daddy walk

– My last pleasant surprise is completely vain, and it is that my body is returning to its normal look much quicker than I expected. I dropped 20 pounds in 10 days and am only about 13 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight, and my stomach is relatively flat. With the engorged boobs, I look in the mirror and feel pretty good about things these days! Maybe it’s all the sickness, the infection, or maybe just good luck, but it’s certainly been a welcome surprise.

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Tallying everything up over the past week, I just can’t bring myself to say that the good outweighed the bad. That just feels too trite to me, and the bad has been too bad to make that an honest statement. But what I can say is that the first week home has been a major roller-coaster, filled with the highest highs of my life and the lowest of lows. It’s true that they say you can’t understand the first few days home with baby until you’ve lived it. While I can’t bring myself to say it’s been a fully positive experience, I can definitely say that it’s been an experience that I’m grateful to have had. It’s nice to be a member of the new mommy club, and here’s to more highs and lows to come!