Why dear Lord must the last few weeks of pregnancy suck so dearly?! Jesus knew that the only way for humankind to be saved was for him to give his life for them. So my question is – whyyyy then do women have to endure this kind of suffering?!
Everything else aside, I’m so grateful for this pregnancy and how smooth it has been…. until now – mind, body and soul – as when I fell pregnant for the first time (It was planned and I wouldn’t change it for the world!) I was still recovering from a horrific accident and nobody knew how it was going to go. It was quite nerve racking to say the least – nobody could really answer any questions we had, we pretty much had to wing it.
8 months & 2ish weeks later, along came a healthy little boy who has turned into the prodigy of his mother! Really – it’s scary. At just shy of two years old he is super cheeky, hard headed, knows exactly what he wants and when he wants it and god help you if he doesn’t get his way. Just like – ME!
At 4 weeks of snuggling up with my little prince, we started back at gym. The doctors told me to wait for my six or eight week check up (I can’t remember when it was) before starting back but I couldn’t resist, plus it boosted my energy levels and at that time a bit of a boost is exactly what I needed to say the least.
I decided to go in guns blazing with my approach to become a healthier mother, I figured with my impairments, Loosing a few kilos and changing the way I ate, drank, slept would all work out to be a massive plus for myself and how I was right! I lost over 30kg – during that time our whole diet changed, we ate a lot of chicken, salmon and fish, I started my day with a massive cup of black coffee – no sugar, 1L of water infused with lemon in my first hour awake, along with another two during the day, very little processed foods and all meals/snacks were portion controlled.
With gym, I went and did 30 minutes with a personal trainer three times a week and would go walking for at least 45 minutes everyday, 7 days a week. I allowed myself to have a cheat day every fortnight, instead of every week, and instead of eating whatever I wanted for a whole day, I would allow myself to have a cheat meal and a cheat snack.
The first ten months with bub was a massive shock to the system! As I couldn’t breastfeed due to there not being enough research at the time on the nerve medication I am on, my biggest downfall was Pepper Jack Shiraz, I would have a few vino’s most nights just to get to sleep – which made my quality of sleep even worse! A big plus was never waking up with a hangover.
After about ten months, I started to get this whole mum gig, I stopped drinking unless I was at an event – and even then, I would keep my head on my shoulders. I submerged my head in ‘The game” – reading about nutrition and anything else fitness and implemented what I thought would work for our family (much to my husband’s disgust!) there was a few months of trial and error but we finally created a system that worked for us.
Now, I understand that not every baby comes out as a textbook baby, but mine was close to it – we were very, extremely lucky the first time around! Even if getting him on the right formula was a complete nightmare! And being a stay at home mum I had lots of time, motivation and resilience when it came to lack of sleep to create this new healthy lifestyle for my family and myself.
So now, I’m at 37 weeks and 3 days at the time of writing this, it’s currently 5am and I haven’t been able to sleep from 3.30am (cheers husband for making so much noise snoring 😩😩😩) and last night I thought was going to be ‘The night’. Contractions started than stopped – damn!
Our second son was born on 3rd May 2019 at 12.57am – he made an extremely fast entrance into this world. We arrived at the hospital 6 minutes before he was born! The whole show wouldn’t have been four and a half hours long. He was born as I was standing in the shower, the midwife caught him – it was pretty epic! In all honesty – it’s about time things started to become a bit more straight forward for me!
I guess every mum finds having more than one baby a lot easier because they already have had the practice. You know little tricks to make bub happy and it’s just so much more crusier. With your second child there’s not really any such thing as rest, especially for a cane farmer’s wife.
This time I was able to give birth in my small home town rather than having to travel 110km to the closest city. I’m no longer classed as high risk like I was for my first pregnancy as doctors didn’t know what to expect the first time around. I really hate hospitals now – you would too if you have been through what I’ve been through! But not having to leave home, it wasn’t so bad.
This time around I wanted to remember the birth, I haven’t got much memory of my first birth – probably because it was so traumatic. This time around I remember everything! I was opting for a water birth this time around as I couldn’t last time, being high risk and all. I wanted to be more relaxed and just let it happen.
And boy did it happen! I was at home in the shower for a bit, it was so relaxing! I didn’t want to leave. I’m so thankful I was able to be able to remember everything this time around, and I will remember that forever. I do wish however, fathers were more understanding of child birth. When we are in active labour, don’t stand there winging at us, we can’t focus on what you’re saying and it’s just going to piss us off. We will go to the hospital when we’re good and ready (even if we are cutting it extremely fine!) Yes, it is your child too, but we know our bodies better than anyone – have a little faith in us.
Aquo Xx