When you’re pregnant and awaiting your bundle of joy all you can think about is how excited you are to meet them. You are counting down the days and can’t wait to not be pregnant anymore. And let’s be real, you are ready to have a few cocktails or two (you deserve them). You have read all the books, you have heard multiple advice (mostly unsolicited) about newborns, and you even took a class. I must tell you nothing can quite prepare for the fourth trimester. After having lived through it and have come out on the other side, I realized that I never quite processed what happened and was reflecting how crazy it is to go through. But, I am here to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly of the fourth trimester.
THE GOOD:
So let’s kick it off with some positively great things that happen in the fourth trimester. HELLLOOO, the obvious one, you get to finally hold your baby, cuddle them, and smell them (the newborn baby smell is incredible). They are real and here in your arms finally. Your family just grew bigger, and this is the next chapter of your life. It is a very exciting moment.
You get to watch them grow into this tiny baby, to a bigger little baby. Developmentally there is a lot of things that just happen within the first 3 months of their life, and it is pretty rad to see. You finally get to use all the products and stuff you got that is cluttering up your house. I was excited to dress my baby in the tiny onesies, use the swaddles, and start being a mom to this precious baby.
The best part is seeing your spouse hold your babe for the first. You have been carrying them for 9 months, and your spouse hasn’t physically endured any hardships or been able to really help the baby, it has all been on you. But now that your baby it living outside your body now, your spouse can carry the load, literally and figuratively. It was amazing to see my husband get to become a dad, hold my daughter, and take care of her. My heart was bursting those first three months on just how much I loved them together.
THE BAD:
Your body just got rocked. It takes time to heal and be fully functioning again during this trimester. I had a c-section which basically felt like my body got ran over by a semi-truck. So walking, sitting up, or doing much movement really sucked. I couldn’t use the bathroom without bringing a pillow in with me on the toilet to lean against. I was taking stool softeners and was on Vicodin. I could count on my hands the number times I showered those 3 months. I could barely keep any shirts clean from breast milk leaking through my nursing bra and pads. I rocked sweat pants and nursing shirts all day, every day. I rarely left the house. There just isn’t time to take care of yourself.
Your little newborn will most likely wake you up every 2 to 3 hours day and night, they really have no chill. They also might not want to go back to sleep right away and so you might not get to sleep, at all. You will do everything in your power to make this little baby go to sleep, rock them, hold them while walking back and forth (I would achieve my 10,000 steps every day without ever leaving my house), and hold them for hours on end. Honestly, if someone told me I had to do a handstand while holding my daughter to get her to fall asleep, I would have. You will live by the eat, wake, sleep cycle and no I am not talking about yourself. Eat, wake, sleep cycle for your baby, it will become the code to live by.
You become obsessed with poop. Yup, you chart it and tally how many poopy diapers they’ve had. You make sure their poop is “normal.” You deal with poop explosions, blowouts, and my personal favorite, you’ll get pooped on while trying to change the last poopy diaper. Sometimes your little darling will go on a poop hiatus, and you’ll have to make it come out (I’ll let you google that one yourself).
THE UGLY:
The ugly isn’t so much the physical demands that the fourth trimester takes on you. For me, it was the mental and emotional changes. I found myself thinking about how lonely I felt. It was the most alone I had ever felt, and it made me feel so helpless and sad. I didn’t know anyone who understood me or could relate to me. It could have been the lack of sleep, lack of food, with a mix of post partum depression that made me feel like I was alone. It is like the first time that you learn motherhood can be a very lonely place. Your life just changed drastically, and many of your friend and family don’t understand it until they go through it themselves.
I didn’t allow myself to feel and became numb to the routine of what was happening around me. I was just trying to make it through hour by hour. Because if I stopped to really think about how crazy it all was, I would have probably had a mental breakdown. Trust me a few broke through, it was inevitable. But, the exhaustion weighs heavily and emotionally I was barely hanging on by a thread.
I want you to know, despite, all the good, the bad, and the ugly of the fourth trimester, is that it is only a season. You will survive it and make your way out of it. It will pass, and you are going to make it out on the other side. You might look back on it one day, like me, and think WHOA, I did that and I am still standing. There will be a day, so so soon you are going to desperately be missing that your baby was that small and little again. Keep going strong mama for the days are long and the years are short.
