Usually when I get a song stuck in my head, it's because I've heard or thought a phrase of its lyrics. In my sleep-deprived and preoccupied state of mind, that's been happening more often, and the small handful of songs are surprisingly consistent. In fact, they paint a pretty accurate picture of my life lately. Let's explore—and keep in mind that just because a song gets stuck in my head doesn't necessarily mean I like or recommend it 😂
"Beautiful Letdown" by Switchfoot
Trigger Phrase: "It was a beautiful letdown when you found me here."
If you breastfeed, you know why.
"Dear Agony" by Breaking Benjamin
Trigger Phrase: "Dear agony, please let go of me."
This one was really just during the first few days of nursing where Elle's initial latch was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced, every time. So 8–12 times a day.
"Breath" by Breaking Benjamin
Trigger Phrase: "You take the breath right out of me."
Another one we can thank the pain of breastfeeding for.
"It's Ok I'm Ok" by Tate McRae
Trigger Phrase: "It's okay, I'm okay, had him in the first place."
There are a few phrases that automatically come out of my mouth when soothing a crying Elle, and one of them is "It's okay, it's okay!" which triggers this little ditty 😂
"I Can Only Imagine" by MercyMe
Trigger Phrase: "I can only imagine."
Another phrase that pops out when Elle is losing it during a diaper change is "Oh I know," but then I realize that I might not. I can't actually remember my diaper being changed, and it's not like that's been an experience I've had lately, so I switched to saying, "I can imagine," because that feels more accurate and respectful. And it also sends me right back to early 2000s contemporary Christian radio.
"Last Friday Night" by Katy Perry
Trigger Phrase: "But this Friday night, do it all again."
The thing that threatens to drive me insane the most about the newborn stage is the relentless, inescapable repetition. So you got her to stop crying, great. But she'll cry more later and you'll have to do it all again. So you successfully breastfed her, great. In 2–3 hours you'll do it all again. So you changed her diaper, great. In a few minutes she'll poop and you'll do it all again.
"Shake It Out" by Florence & the Machine
Trigger Phrase: "But it's always darkest before the dawn."
Gabe and I have tried lots of ways to get sleep, and what's working for us right now is for him to have Elle and stay up from 10pm–4am, and for me to get up and start my day at 4am while he sleeps until 10am. It's the best system we've found so far, but MAN is that morning stretch tough on me. There is no feeling quite like being nap trapped in a nursing pillow, milk running down your body, shoulders aching, thirsting but unable to reach your water cup, frustrated and worried that the feed wasn't as long as you thought it should've been, staring at the dark world outside through the slats of the blinds. In both literal and metaphorical ways, I find myself counting on the phrase "it's always darkest before the dawn."
"Wasteland" by Dead By April
Trigger Phrase: "Is there something wrong, inside my head?"
I'm always worried that there's something wrong. What if Elle isn't latching well, what if her gas is due to something in my milk, what if her spit up was too much, what if she stops breathing while in the swing, what if she NEVER stops crying this time. "Is there something wrong?" goes through my head a million times a day.
"Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons
Trigger Phrase: "I'm waking up to ash and dust."
And as often as Elle naps, she wakes up. Sometimes she just wants to hang out, sometimes (usually) she wants to eat. Either way, the simple phrase "she's waking up" that drifts through my head sets off this Imagine Dragons song.
How's newborn life? It's...well, it's kinda bad? Elle is the cutest and we love her so much, but we're so tired and those feelings of ENDLESSNESS and paranoia and entrapment threaten to swallow me many times a day. But we have an incredible village and I am living the life I have long prayed for and I know I'll look back and miss these days when Elle is big 💚
~Stephanie
I gave up TikTok for Lent and haven't been back, but last time I was in the world of BookTok there was a trend of holding up a book and simply saying whether you thought it was under-hyped, over-hyped, or appropriately hyped. I've been thinking about that a lot in terms of postpartum experiences, so let's play Under-, Over-, or Appropriately Hyped: Postpartum Edition.
Breastfeeding, General: Appropriately Hyped
People said that breastfeeding was really challenging, but magical. I would concur...although it is way more challenging than I could have imagined. My friend Caitlyn told me that she read a study saying that a week of breastfeeding is the energy equivalent of working a sixty-hour work week.
Breastfeeding, Nipple Pain: Under-Hyped
People said that your nipples could get sore at first, but no one told me that for days I'd literally be biting a rolled up rag like a Civil War soldier having surgery without anesthesia every time Elle latched.
First Postpartum Poop: Over-Hyped
Everyone made this out to be terrifying, but in my case, it was not. I think it's probably because I only had a first degree tear, I took all the stool softeners offered me, I elevated my feet when I went, and I had braced myself for the experience to be an ordeal.
Sleeplessness: Appropriately Hyped
People say the lack of sleep is bad, and...it is XD There was one night that I was staring at the clock and I couldn't even get my eyes to focus. It was 44:4444 o'lock. Fortunately Gabe is a one-in-a-million partner and takes the first night shift (like 10pm–2am) all by himself so that I can get sleep at least at the beginning.
Postpartum Peeing: Under-Hyped
The first postpartum poop is discussed a lot, but why are y'all not talking how it BURNS TO PEE every time, even three weeks in?! This is way worse than pooping. Yeah, I tried the peri bottle trick of spraying while you pee, and IT STILL HURTS. The only time it doesn't hurt is if I pee in the shower, so...there's that lovely little tip for anyone currently pregnant.
Breastfeeding Hunger: Over-Hyped
I have a theory about why I haven't experienced the notorious ravenousness that comes with breastfeeding: I've been stuffing my face every since I got back from the hospital XD I don't think I've even given myself a shot at being ravenous.
Postpartum Hormones: Under-to-Appropriately Hyped
I was told that I would cry a lot and that there would be moments where I would loathe my husband. Days 6–10 were the most emotional for me (might do a post on all the things that made me cry during that span 😂), but I haven't LOATHED Gabe yet. There have been a handful of times when I was really annoyed at him, but I was able to acknowledge that they were hormonal feelings and didn't make real sense.
First Postpartum Nap: Under-Hyped
We came home with Elle on a Wednesday night, "slept" that night, and Mom came over the next day to help us settle. That afternoon, I took a two-hour nap.
Oh. My. Gosh.
When Gabe woke me up because Elle needed to nurse...for the first five seconds, I had no identity. I had been called back from a region of such deep Nothingness that I genuinely could not have told you my own name or species. It was like being raised from the actual dead. I've never slept that deeply in my life, and probably never will again.
Secret Moms' Club: Under-Hyped
Ever since I had Elle, mom friends have been checking in on me and encouraging me and it's been the most beautiful and humbling thing. I had no idea that all these women my age were in the trenches together and that having a baby would initiate me into such a special pocket of my village. Y'all are such a bright light in what can sometimes be a dark and lonely season.
I would say that overall, postpartum comes out to be appropriately hyped...but also under-hyped. And it's no one's fault, I just didn't understand what people were telling me. It's kind of like marriage: everyone tells you that it's really hard, and you're like, "Okay, got it, I hear you, it's really hard," but then you DO it and you're like, "Oh JEEZUS, it's like HARD hard, in ways I didn't even have categories for before."
Since everyone was right about postpartum and the newborn stage being tough, I will hold out hope that they're also right in that it doesn't last forever, and that it will be worth it ;)
~Stephanie
I don't know when I took the eye mask off, but suddenly Baby Elle was on my chest and I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe I had done it. I couldn't believe it was over. I couldn't believe she was real.*
Gabe was right next to me, crying joyful tears.
After a few minuets of sheer...awe, I felt some more contractions, but more of the period cramp variety, if I remember correctly.
"Here comes the placenta," the doctor said, and I remember being like Oh, right.
I did have to push it out, but it was like one or two pushes. Incredibly minimal. You know what wasn't minimal though?
The placenta XD That thing looks like a heart crossed with a liver. It is very much an entire organ that my body grew for Elle. And it was connected to Elle by the umbilical cord.
Someone (the doctor? Gabe? Me?) reminded everyone that I wanted delayed cord clamping.
"Until it turns white or stops pulsing," I said. I don't know/remember if that was respected, but I don't have a reason to think it wasn't.
When it was time, the doctor asked if Gabe wanted to cut the cord. This was something that had actually been up in the air for months. We'd talked about it, but Gabe wasn't sure. However, in the moment, he said that yes, he wanted to, so when the time came, Gabe did the cutting.
At some point, the doctor asked if I wanted him to see if I tore. I said yes. He looked and said it was a first degree tear, the smallest kind. He asked if I wanted stitches, I asked for pros and cons and he gave them to me (something like if it heals on its own, it'll always be a little fragile, whereas stitches would virtually repair the tear). I consented and got three stitches.
During all of this, time was such a fluid, elusive concept. I can't tell you how long anything took or how long passed between things. I know our skin-to-skin time was uninterrupted for the first hour before they took her (just across the room, with Gabe) to weigh her (6lb 1oz) and measure her length (20in) and stuff.
Oh, this picture reminds me: I had labored in a sports bra, which meant I couldn't just pop it off for complete skin-to-skin or breastfeeding because of all the IV bullcrap in my arm. Pregnant ladies: labor in a bra that you can easily remove or pull down, cuz I almost had Gabe or Cass cut this off with a knife until one of the nurses intervened and helped me get the bra off around the IV cords.
Eventually, a nurse (Kim and Noelle were the labor nurses and they were incredible) asked me if I could or wanted to try to pee. I looked at the clock and was pretty alarmed that I hadn't peed in like seven hours. Very unlike me XD
While the nurse helped me walk to the bathroom, Gabe got his first skin-to-skin time with Elle :) He tells me he cried the entire time. I love that man with every fiber of my being. He is already an incredible father.
I couldn't pee, which wasn't all that surprising since my body had been through a lot and I'm super pee-shy on a good day.
Eventually it was time to move from the delivery room to a recovery room. I think I went basically from the toilet to a wheelchair, and was shaking. Gabe asked if I was cold, and I said maybe, but that I thought it was mostly hormones. Some people get labor shakes; I got post-labor shakes.
I loaded up in the wheelchair and was given Elle. I don't think I stopped smiling for the whole trip to the recovery room. Every staff member we passed said, "Congratulations!" and it made me feel so special and seen :)
Gabe asked me a day or so later if there was anything about the birth experience that I would change. I thought about it, and said no. I stand by that.
As I lay in a hospital bed, I remember thinking, "I don't know if I'd be willing to do it again. That was really intense," but a couple of days later, I checked in with myself and found that I would TOTALLY be willing to do it again. Now, nine days postpartum, I'm actually thinking that the labor experience was super interesting and I love the power of letting my body do its thing. I would not be scared to labor again, but would actually kind of...look forward to it?
Hormones and memories are weird.
Postpartum has honestly felt more annoying than labor (but again, hormones + memories = weird conclusions), but maybe I'll blog about that another time.
Baby Elle is...magical. Perfect. A dream. A promise fulfilled. I'll never get over the goodness of God or the kindness of our village.
~Stephanie
*Like, really really couldn't believe it. Throughout the rest of the evening, I would semi-panic that it was a dream and Baby Elle would be gone and I'd have to do labor all over again for real. Cass asked if I could really dream that much "pain" and I said yeah, absolutely. She asked if there was anything I couldn't do in a dream, and I realized that yes: I've never been able to taste things in my dreams. So I clung to the fact that a nurse had brought me a juice cocktail, and that Mom would be bringing me muffins soon. After I ate the muffins, I would know it was all real.
- As we prepared for me to push, I told the doctor that I didn't want to push on my back and I didn't want to tear. He told me that pushing on my side was usually an effective position, and that they would put a warm compress on my perineum to help it not tear.
- I agreed to push side-lying. I'd always figured that I would want to push on my hands and knees or on my knees and gripping the headboard, but I found that I didn't. My body actually wanted to be some form of lying down.
- In fact...my body was so...focused? on contractions that it didn't feel like it could do much of anything else, like even hold up my top leg while side lying to give space for a baby to emerge. A nurse pulled out one of the bed's stirrup footrests and I braced my right foot against it. Gabe held my left/top leg up for me. I remember being frustrated because I felt like he wasn't supporting it well enough. I wanted to support my leg ZERO.
- Gabe's back acted up and Cassidy took over holding my leg. She made me feel a lot more stable and I remember telling Gabe to ask her what she was doing and replicate it. (Remember, eye mask. I saw nothing.)
- When it was really really time to push, I told the doctor I wanted to let my uterus do it. He said that he thought I was going to need to add active pushing if I wanted the baby to come out. I told him that I genuinely didn't think I COULD push harder than my uterus was pushing. Like, my uterus was contracting my absolute guts out; I couldn't imagine having anything to add.
- For the record, I still believe that my uterus could have done it on its own, that I could have "breathed out" the baby, BUT here's the thing: I also wanted this to be over XD So I decided to try to push with the contractions, as impossible as that sounded.
- One nurse asked me to take off the eye mask so she could show me something, and I did. She mimed and explained pushing/breathing DOWN with each contraction. All my energy and breath should be driven down and out my body. I replaced the eye mask and pushing began.
- It was...hard. All the animal noises. But it wasn't...painful. It was—even in the moment—interesting. My body was doing its thing. I was helping. It was HARD. I was NOT in control, but I could assist.
- The baby's head began emerging, and I felt the infamous "ring of fire." I thought it would be a ring of fire that the baby moved through, but it turns out if your baby pauses IN the ring to wait for another contraction, the fire stays with you.
- That hurt. For a little bit.
- But then it was all head-head-head-ears-shoulders-WHOLE BODY BLOOPED OUT. After twenty minutes of me pushing, Gabrielle Ember was born at 7:21pm on May 5.
- And...I actually—and this is wild to me because I deliberately tried to record EVERYTHING in my mind—can't remember if it stopped hurting?
- But she was suddenly on my chest, all goopy and still attached to me with the umbilical cord.
- "That was inside of me," I said, awed. Everyone chuckled.
- And everything else is After.
~ Stephanie
Memories of active labor are dim and dreamlike. Here's what I can tell you:
- Room was too bright and I asked for the eye mask from my hospital bag.
- I would wear the eye mask for the end of early labor, all of active labor, and all of pushing. In the movie adaptation of my labor, the eye mask will be billed and compensated just below the actor playing me.
- I labored on the bed on a hospital yoga ball: on my knees, forearms on the ball, rocking back and forth. Gabe rolled the ball with me and kept it from rolling off the end of the bed.
- Cassidy started filling the room's labor pool. It seemed like the hospital staff didn't know when or how to do it? There was discussion between Gabe and Cass about how to get the temperature right or how to fill it or something, and Cass told me the other day that apparently I said to her and Gabe, "Stop talking about the tub." I don't remember 😂
- Laboring in the tub felt better...but it was still bad. Really intense. Really, really intense. The contractions started to scare me. I started to dread each one. I told Gabe I was scared, and he continued to talk to me and tell me that my body was doing exactly what it was supposed to do, to listen to my body, to surrender and breathe, that I was doing an amazing job, that I was strong, that God designed my body for this.
- I asked for water. I needed it through a straw. Funnily enough, Mom had given me a little portable straw in a keychain for Christmas, so Gabe whipped that out and stuck it in my water bottle. But pretty soon I was drinking ice water from a hospital cup. I would just say, "Water" and Gabe or Cassidy would stick a straw in front of my eye-masked face and I'd sip.
- My moaning and humming were crazy loud and desperate sounding. I was surprised that I didn't care who heard me.
- I know I said I couldn't do it anymore a few (quite a few?) times. Gabe assured me that I could.
- The hospital staff did a ton of SUPER annoying things to me (taking the baby's vitals via some kind of band wrapped around my stomach, drawing my blood?!), some of which required me to be out of the tub, which I did NOT want to do, so everyone figured out how to get me out of the water enough to make it work. I hiked my right leg up and put it on the rim of the tub and fully leaned over the side while Gabe supported my whole body. I remember the immense relief I felt when I could just flop all my weight back and have him take it.
The anesthesiologist stopped by to talk about epidurals, but we (Gabe, maybe?) asked him to come back later, basically as a stalling tactic because we knew we didn't want that. He did not come back XD
- I was surprised at how easy it was for me to stay in my "labor flow." Prep classes talked about how if a laboring woman is disturbed (startled, embarrassed, asked to make rational choices when she needs to be all up in her instincts) it can slow or reverse labor progress. Well, that did not happen to me. I was in my labor flow and would not be coming out.
- I remember the transition into proper active labor. Instead of intense period cramps, a contraction actually felt like me and my uterus were throwing up in unison. You know the feeling of throwing up, that involuntary heaving pressure in your chest and throat? That happened to me (sans vomit), but it also happened in my lower abdomen. My uterus was trying to throw up a baby.
- At first, those throwing up contractions were every once in a while. Then they were consistently every other contraction. I HATED them. I hate the uncontrollable feeling of throwing up, and having it in my uterus was no different.
- All through this, Gabe was talking to me. He was the voice in my head. I had nothing else. I let him be my thoughts, and I focused on being my body. When he would tell me he loved me, I would feel my heart squeeze and my shoulders relax and the contractions' intensity literally receded like an ocean wave being drawn back into the sea.
- A nurse asked me if I was feeling pressure during contractions, similar to having to poop. I said yes. She asked if the pressure stayed between contractions or if it was only during. It was only during, but the nurse still thought I was close to the pushing stage. She wanted me to get out of the labor tub and into the bed. I remember resisting because I didn't believe I was that close to pushing. I didn't think the baby was really down there. I guess I thought I'd be able to feel her coming down, like toothpaste getting squeezed out of a tube. So far, she felt like she was in the same place and I just had some pressure down there for...some reason. But I got (well, was walked with HEAVY help from Gabe) to the bed.
- I was cold because I was wet. And pantsless (when had I taken my shorts off?). And maybe also getting some labor shakes. They brought me a warm blanket or something.
- Pretty soon, ALL the contractions were the the throwing up kind. No more period cramps. Only CONTRACTING and not contracting. And even the not contracting was, like...intense. All of it was intense, all the time, but a contraction was on another level that took me to another plane of existence.
- I was making ANIMAL sounds. Or really, my body was. I was a helpless passenger in the mech of my body. I could hear myself grunting, groaning, sounding like a gorilla or a boar or something, but I was not choosing to make those sounds. All I could do was choose to keep my jaw and shoulders as relaxed as possible and wait for my uterus to stop throwing up and my mouth to stop bellowing like a beast.
- Eventually the "pressure like you have to poop" wasn't just with contractions, it was all the time. They called in the doctor. Someone (Cass? Gabe? Nurse? Doctor?) said they could see the baby's head. I did not believe them.
- I consented to a cervical check to confirm that it was time to push. I didn't want to push before my body was ready, because I really didn't want to tear. The cervical check was hands down the most painful part of the entire experience. I was not able to keep my moans low in my body, my jaw open, or my shoulders relaxed. I heard myself actually SCREAM.
- But it was time to push.~Stephanie
