Since I had such rough baby blues with Ryden I was nervous of this happening again with Oaklyn. It’s traumatizing not feeling connected to your baby. If you haven't read my Baby Blues journal go read it and if you haven't read Oaklyn’s Birth Story, go read that too.

 

I ended up going to counseling right before I had Oaklyn, like 34-38 weeks pregnant before. We worked on the trauma timeline of the baby blues of having Ryden and how we could try and minimize it happening after having Oaklyn. She helped me realize that it was my own expectations that were a big part of the issue. I felt like I had to immediately bond with my baby and know how to take care of him. She said you are/just had a baby, you don’t need to focus on anyone but yourself, your only job is to have the baby and I added and to feed the baby since breastfeeding was very important to me. She said "you just had a baby, of course you are tired and hungry, your body just went through a huge trauma, you don’t have to do anything" and it was only in my head that I had to.

 

This helped a lot so I went into giving birth to Oaklyn with the expectation that my only job was to give birth and feed him. Someone else could change his diaper, someone else could hold him and I could when I was ready. 

 

When I gave birth to Oaklyn and they put him on my chest, my reaction was “OMG I did it!, he is out and I never have to do it again.” I've been asked if I felt an immediate connection with him but it wasn’t about him, it was about me. I was obsessed with him but more of an accomplishment versus a person. I was looking at him and thinking, “ I did it, I have my baby, my baby is so cute and I just want to cuddle him because I earned it, I did the work, no one else did.”

 

I cuddled him for 50 minutes and then I was ready to get up. I remembered that it was about me and I was ready to stand up for myself. I told the nurse I was ready for a shower so Josh took the baby and my mom helped me shower and get dressed. After I showered and got dressed, I got back into bed, held Oaklyn and ate a lot of pizza! Pretty sure I ate half of it. I took Oaklyn back because I wanted him, not because I felt I had to and when I had enough I gave him back to Josh. I tried feeding Oaklyn and I think he ate a bit but he had really low blood sugar so they had to give him glucose gel. Once everything settled down and the nurse had all her notes we went to our room. We were up for a bit trying to get Oaklyn to eat enough to get his blood sugar up. Once everything settled down again we went to sleep, Oaklyn woke up and I kept sleeping. We learned from Ryden's birth just to take turns sleeping in the hospital, it's way less stressful. 

 

I didn't feel baby blues at all, I was obsessed with him. I held him and fed him whenever I wanted, not because I felt I had to. We went home and I was still good, no baby blues. What helped a lot was Josh being home, he was home for the first month and whenever something was too overwhelming I gave him to Josh. I would sit there about to change his diaper and it was so overwhelming, I asked Josh to do it. I didn't push myself at all and it really helped make it a positive experience. 

 

This time I felt something different though. I didn't like my body at all, I was huge. I didn't fit any of my pre pregnancy clothes but I refused to wear my maternity clothes. I had 1 or 2 outfits I actually felt good in and I wore those everyday. Everytime I looked in the mirror or got dressed I just felt awful and broke down crying on multiple occasions. I went shopping 2 weeks postpartum, I knew I'd lose a lot of weight right away and they wouldn't fit me for long but I just needed something to feel good in. Also Josh wasn't touching me very much, and my love language is touch. When I asked him about it, he said he was scared to hurt me but when I told him I was fine and not broken he started doing little touches and snuggling and kissing me and it made a world of a difference in how I felt about my body. Slowly but surely I have been losing the weight and feeling better and better.