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Postpartum Essentials List

01.13.20

Postpartum for the first two weeks was quite rough for me. Once I hit the two week mark, I felt completely better and would go on to say I was ready to get back to my normal routine and was itching to start working out again. There were a few products and things I prepared ahead of time that really helped me out during those first two rough weeks that I would say are absolute essentials. My sister told me to prepare most of these items and today I’m going to share them as my postpartum essentials list.

As mentioned in Partaap Singh’s birth story, I had a third degree tear that was really quite painful. I’m not sure what an episiotomy, second degree, or any other degree tear for that matter feels like, but the third degree tear really restricted my movement and my sleep. These items in my postpartum essentials list really helped me ease the pain and possibly even allowed me to recover faster.

Postpartum Essentials List

Padsicles

The number one item on my postpartum essentials list has got to be padsicles. I made a bunch of these when I was 38 weeks pregnant and they proved to be super useful postpartum. They are easy to make and provide instant relief when you use them. My only suggestion would be to use smaller pads. I thought I would bleed a lot, but you bleed the most at the hospital for a day or two and they provide you with huge pads and padsicles that you can take advantage of there.

When I came home and started using my homemade padsicles, I found that they were a bit too big and bulky. Regardless, the pain relief was amazing. You can make them by opening up a pad, adding two tablespoons of Witch Hazel and 1 tablespoon of Aloe Vera Gel and applying it all over the pad. Close it up again, and keep the padsicles in a ziploc bag in the freezer for when you get home from the hospital.

Mesh Underwear

I absolutely loved the mesh underwear that the hospital gives you that I wanted to purchase more from them. However, with the postpartum kit that the hospital sells, they only provide one of the mesh underwear. I had to get my hands on them, so my sister found them online on Amazon and bought some fore me. They are amazing and you must purchase a few for your postpartum as well.

Sitz Bath

I had purchased a Sitz Bath along with some Sitz bath salts from Amazon as recommended by my sister. However, I didn’t realize that the hospital gives you a Sitz bath as well to take home with you. So, I returned my Amazon one and used the one the hospital provided. I tried the Sitz bath with Epsom salts as well as with these Earth Mama salts I found online, however, my favorite way to use the Sitz bath was just with some regular warm/hot water. It felt amazing just sitting in the Sitz bath and it provided so much relief to my stitches that I tried doing it twice a day until I hit the 2 week postpartum mark.

Peri Bottle/Bidet Attachment

The hospital also provides you with a couple of peri bottles, or you can purchase this highly recommended one by FridaBaby. I personally just stuck with the peri bottles but also decided to purchase a bidet attachment for our toilet. I thought it made a great tool for postpartum but also for future use.

Tylenol and Advil

For the first two weeks postpartum, I took 2 Advils and 2 Tylenols every two hours to help with my pain. By the second week postpartum, I was at 2 of each daily and by the end of the second week, I didn’t need them at all. They were great at easing my pain and I highly recommend you keep a bottle of each handy for when you get home from the hospital.

Stool Softener

I’m not going to lie, but you will need to have a bowel movement and when it comes, you will be in pain, maybe even a lot of pain. I remember the first few bowel movements for me were incredibly painful, but I got through them. A stool softener will help, but it will still be painful. I can’t imagine the pain if I didn’t use the stool softeners.

Well there you have it, if you want to have the most comfortable postpartum recovery period, I would suggest using this postpartum essentials list and getting all these items ready ahead of time. The first two weeks after you have your baby are a blur and you won’t have any time to go to the store or make padsicles. So, stock up and use these items to take care of yourself so you can focus on taking care of your new bundle of joy 🙂

Bekaming a mom

Partaap Singh’s Birth Story

01.10.20

Partaap Singh’s Birth Story

For the past 9 months I’ve been listening to a lot of birth stories, and now that Partaap Singh is here I can share my birth story as well. Partaap Singh’s due date was December 18, 2019 and this little guy came just a day later and the days since have been flying by.

Now on to the birth story.

On December 18, I had my 40 week midwife appointment and my midwife gave me a membrane sweep making me 2 cm dilated (I was 1 cm dilated at that point). We also scheduled an induction at the hospital for Dec 25 just in case baby still hadn’t come.

I came home after the appointment and went for a walk with Gursheel and both my moms. I live with my mother in law and my parents had just arrived a couple days ago from Vancouver. Their timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I think we walked around for an hour and then after coming home, I continued to pace around the house. I started feeling a lot of pressure and I was sure something was happening, although, I didn’t think it would happen the next day.

That night I went to sleep around 9 pm and I remember waking up to pee around midnight and noticed Gursheel was still awake watching TV. At 2 am on December 19, 2019, I went to the bathroom because I noticed bloody discharge (which is normal after a membrane sweep) and put on a pad in case the amount of blood increased. While in the bathroom I started experiencing diarrhea and really bad lower back pain. I took a shower with hot water and then had a bath right after to help me ease the pain.

I realized soon that the pain I was experiencing was contractions since it would last for a few moments and then stop. So, I woke Gursheel and told him to start timing the contractions. My midwife said to page her when the contractions were lasting 1 minute, but upon timing, I realized mine were only 30 seconds and I didn’t know how I would make it to 1 minute since I was in extreme pain already.

To cope with the pain, I got on all fours and this time, when the contraction came, a gush of water came out as well. Although I was wearing a huge pad, it completely soaked and leaked through. Every time I had a contraction, a gush of green/yellow coloured water would leak out as well.

We called my midwife at 4 am and she came around 5 am to check me. She said I was 2-3 cm dilated but the colour of my water was concerning, meaning the baby had pooped inside of me. She also said I wasn’t quite ready to be admitted to the hospital just yet (I needed to be 4 cm dilated) and I should call her again once my contractions were lasting 1 minute.

The pain was so unbearable for me that I took another bath and when that didn’t work, got on my knees in a downward dog position and tried to get through the pain when the contraction came. I was miserable and I didn’t know how I could make it any longer. Both my moms and Gursheel tried to help me through the pain by telling me to breathe through it, but nothing really worked for me.

Around 9 am Gursheel called the midwife again saying my contractions were now close to 1 minute long and the midwife told us she would meet us at the hospital in an hour. I don’t know how I made it to the hospital, but we did on this cold and snowy day. Somehow I also managed to make it up the elevators and into the labour and delivery unit and got ourselves into a room.

My midwife came around 10 am, checked me and said I was still only 3 cm dilated, but because of the meconium in my water, they would admit me. Relieved, I asked to get the epidural and after hooking me up to the IV and the bands around my stomach to measure the baby’s heart rate and the contractions, the anesthesiologist arrived, gave me the epidural and the pain relief was instantaneous. I was basically back to my normal self.

From around 10 am to 4:47 pm, I went from a 3 cm to a complete 10 cm dilated and was ready to push by 4:50 pm. During this time, I chatted with my moms and drank orange juice, water and apple juice. My biggest regret was drinking orange juice, because as soon as it came time to push, my whole body started to shake and I started to vomit. Apparently this is because orange juice is acidic and it really upset my stomach at the worst time.

I was feeling pretty good overall and pretty motivated to push but every time I pushed, I would puke, which really started to drain me. As I mentioned in my Preparing my body for labour blog post, J-breathing was key and really helped me prepare for the pushing stage of my labour.

Partaap Singh was born at 6:21 pm with the help of a vacuum and the OB on call. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his shoulder, so although I was pushing really hard, the cord was just pulling him back. Because there was meconium in my water, there was a team and paediatrician in the room when he was born and they took him and checked on him as soon as he was born. I delivered my placenta, had a third degree tear, which the OB stitched up and then they pushed on my stomach to get out fluids, which I vaguely recall as being super painful.

Immediately after, I felt completely drained and exhausted and also had a high fever because of all the vomiting. They gave Partaap Singh to me to hold and my midwife and my moms helped me with skin on skin and breastfeeding. Although I was exhausted, it was surreal having our baby in my hands, the baby that we waited 9 months to meet. Partaap Singh was born at 7 lb 13 ounces and 54.5 cm long with black hair, long hands and feet, and just a whole lot of cuteness.

A lot happened after, but this birth story post will get too long if I shared all of that. But we are extremely blessed, grateful and humbled by this experience and having our newborn with us who instantly brought so much joy and happiness.

I hope you all enjoyed reading Partaap Singh’s birth story and I’m planning on being more regular with my blog posts while I’m on my maternity leave. Look out for post-partum and related posts coming soon 🙂

Collaborations

Worthwhile Improvements To Make To Your Home In 2020

01.10.20

Renovating a property is incredibly satisfying, but it’s also incredibly exhausting. That’s why you might not be keen on the idea of sprucing up your home. You might know that changes are needed, but you might think that you don’t have the time or money to make the improvements that you have in mind. However, renovation projects don’t always have to be as extensive as many people imagine. Unless you were planning on overhauling your entire property from top to bottom or getting some new vinyl windows, you could probably make bigger changes to your home than you appreciate by simply fixing a few small details. So, it’s time to fix up your household. These are some worthwhile improvements to make to your home in 2020.

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Tidy up.

Tidying up is a great place to start when renovating your home. Of course, that might sound like a rather basic concept, but you can go beyond simply putting a few pieces of clothing away and sweeping the floor. You should declutter your house to make it feel spacious. You could really put your property’s space to better use if you were to sell or give away the things you no longer need. You might also want to put up more shelves to create additional storage space, and you could also store things under beds. Once you make your home tidier, you might be surprised to find that each room looks entirely different. Spaciousness affects the appearance of a property. Cleaning up your windows and doors is another way to easily tidy up.

Add statement pieces to each room.

You might also want to add statement pieces to each room in your household. A statement piece serves as a focal point. So, if you want to transform the aesthetic of your property in 2020, then statement pieces could definitely help you out. A statement piece doesn’t necessarily have to be a stylish piece of decor with no function, either. A light fixture could become a statement piece if it were designed in an intriguing way, for instance. If you’re feeling adventurous, then you might even want to check out built-in wardrobes. You could turn something functional into a stylish part of your bedroom. It would also use space effectively, tying into the first suggestion made in this article. Even plants can be statement pieces, so you might want to bring some nature into your household.

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Fix up your garden, too.

You might be heavily focused on the interior design of your property, but you shouldn’t forget about its exterior design. And if you’re looking for straightforward renovation projects, then you should definitely cast your eyes to the outdoors. Fixing up your garden would be a simple and worthwhile improvement to make to your home in 2020. It’s important to see your garden as part of your home. Nobody wants to look out of their window and see an overgrown patch of land where their garden should be. So, tidy up this space. Mow the lawn, tend to your flowers to keep your outside area bright and vibrant, and trim back any shrubbery to keep everything looking neat and ordered.

You should focus on creature comforts, too. If you want your garden to feel like home, then you have to fill your outdoor area with some indoor elements. Maybe you could put some fairy lights above your patio to create a warm and inviting ambience. You might also want to create a dining area on your decking for you and your family members to enjoy. It’s important that your garden feels like an outdoor room, essentially. And it’s very easy to create that kind of aesthetic.

For more great posts, check the Kamfy Living section of the blog.