Of course, we are sleep deprived, but we are unbelievably lucky to have our family so close by to help us. I don't know what I would do without the Grandmas. Grandma Erlyn (my mom) comes over every other morning to bathe Lauren and lets me take a nap. At least once a week, I drop Lauren off with Grandma Linda (Peter's mom) for a whole afternoon so I can run errands, do some shopping, or just have some time to myself. My sister also spends at least one night a week at my house to be our "night nurse" so I get to have at least one night of uninterrupted sleep.
Healthwise, I'm pretty much back to normal. My incision is still numb which is pretty weird but I've heard is normal and both sets of stitches are healed up. My abs sometimes feel really sore as if I've just had a serious workout. which I don't understand because I haven't done a sit-up in, like, 15 months.
As for emotional health, I didn't experience post partum depression but I did suffer major hormonal mood swings for the first few weeks after delivery. I didn't talk about it much then, but for the first month I had pretty awful anxiety attacks brought on by scary delivery flashbacks. It was so bad that I couldn't sleep alone for a while, even for a nap. My throat would close and I had trouble breathing. Peter had to coach me to breathe a couple of times like he did during labor. Thankfully I haven't had any episodes recently. Oh, and some of the skin discolorations due to pregnancy...I'm still waiting for those to go away.
Peter and I are settling into our routine and our new specialized roles, which I'm afraid will be moot since I'm going back to work soon and we'll have to set up a new routine. I think we've adjusted nicely with our marriage intact and stronger than ever.
Parenthood is the BEST. But what could make it better is if Lauren can sleep through the night...
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