On The Mend

The past week has been a little rough for me physically. For some reason my legs always swell after I deliver. I was hoping this time since it was such a quick labor this wouldn't happen, but it did. I knew I was in trouble when I went to put on my black sweatpants to come home from the hospital and I could barely get them over my thighs. They were tighter than when I went to the hospital in labor! At least this time I came home from the hospital and weighed 5 lbs. less than when I went in. The first day home I did gain a pound - obviously all the swelling. With all my other babies I've come home heavier than I went in - not a good thing!

With all this swelling it makes it extremely difficult to walk since my feet will hardly bend. I can also feel the water moving around on the top of my feet when I walk - a very weird sensation.

A close up of my sausage feet - pretty gross I know!

Bella thinks it's funny to wear my tube they gave me at the hospital to sit on. (I actually found that if I sit on my boppy it works a lot better than this tube!) I somehow managed to really hurt my tailbone during the delivery. Once the epidural wore off I couldn't believe how much pain I was in. Even the pain medication was not doing the trick. In fact I had a little break down in the hospital before we came home. It was killing me to sit because my tailbone hurt so bad, I couldn't walk very well because my feet were so swollen and baby Jenna was having an extremely hard time trying to breastfeed. The sweet nurse on duty at the time came into my room as I was wiping the tears away and she must have felt sorry for me because she stuck around for about a 1/2 hour trying to help Jenna suck and telling me how painful it was with a hurt tailbone. Just her little touch of sympathy made me feel so much better!

One blessing about coming home with a lot of mending to do was getting the opportunity to spend a lot of time in my rocking chair holding my beautiful new baby girl. I'm so grateful my mom has been here to help take care of the other kids so that I could focus on taking care of myself and the baby.

Can I just say I LOVE my chair. We bought it just before Samuel was born and I have so many memories of rocking, nursing, reading and singing to each of my precious little ones in this chair. It is also great for sleeping in when there's no way you can imagine actually climbing into bed because your body is so beat or when the baby doesn't want to sleep, but just be held and rocked during the middle of the night.

Over the past few days I have lost 14 lbs. of water - thanks to my husband for reminding me that this is almost the equivalent of 2 gallons of water! YEAH! Now my legs and feet are back to normal size and I am feeling so much better. My tailbone is still hurting and I can't sit down unless I'm on the boppy, but I am feeling so much better than I have in months.

Samuel the other night told Chuck he didn't think mommy was ever going to get better. The next night during family prayers Samuel prayed that mommy could be healed. It brought tears to my eyes as I heard my little boy pray for me. And I'm sure our Heavenly Father heard his prayer because it usually takes me 2 weeks to loose the water, but this time it was just a week.

The amazing thing about having a baby and then starting to feel better is that for some reason you convince yourself that it really wasn't that bad! I've already felt that way and when I told Chuck that he looked at me like I was going crazy. It must be because holding and loving that little baby is worth every price we pay to get them here.