We often think of the wonder of birth here in our daily lives. My mom is a midwife, I am a doula and it is something that pretty much is mentioned at least once daily, whether it be pregnancy, issues with pregnancy, new babies, whatever.
The wonder of birth never fails to get to me, it is a wonder as we have a small human growing inside of us, a small parasite as it were almost, but in a wonderful way = )
Then in a not so wondrous way, we give birth. I have likened it before in the way I felt a couple times like I grew an apple inside of a bottle with a small neck and then someone pulled it out!
I guess though I was thinking though about our society today and how they view birth, labor, postpartum mothers and wondering if we are so much better off now than we used to be. I have started to realize as I see these moms who are thrilled the labor is over, then they begin on the journey of motherhood, and find themselves ill prepared. Their body is different, they feel different, they have to sacrifice the need for personal space, then they come home from the hospital or if you birthed at home and the expectation to still keep a clean house, cook your meals, do your laundry are all there. I cannot count how many times when I have talked about resting and the importance of it after birth, I get the comment "Yeah, right. As if that is going to happen!"
I am not surprised, but yet, why is it that this is so unimportant? I think especially of moms who have more than norm for children should focus on this especially. It cannot be unimportant. I know that may sound impossible. Maybe you have no one to help you, your husband works full time and cannot afford to take off work to help you or other things like that.
Some tips:
1)Do some meal prep steps before you have the baby. Brown ground beef if that is an ingredient in meals you use often, dice onions, celery, other vegetables you use in soups and freeze them in the freezer. If you like ready made meals from the freezer, freeze some meals to pull out as well.
2)Streamline your house before birth- if you can a few weeks before you give birth see if you can put away or even pack away any extra toys, clothes or things that end up getting dumped out all the time. This way, there will be less to make a mess.
3)If you have other children, write a list of activities they could do while you are resting, nursing the baby or whatever next to the couch. Gather the stuff you need and put it in a place where you can save it for that time.
4)Take the time to sit to do things you can. Try to plan at least 2 weeks at least of not leaving your house. For 10 days you should not be picking up anything heavier than your baby, and sometimes not even that if they are too heavy!
5)Let things go a bit....not in a trashy way, but dinner does not always have to be 4 food groups for two-three weeks or even the full 6 weeks. The kitchen floor does not have to be washed for a few weeks, no one will probably die! If you keep the clothing to a minimum, you could wash only two loads in a week, depending on the size of your family and still have clothes to wear, but wearing the same thing twice for your children will not hurt them.
I hope this helps someone to encourage you to take care of yourself so you can keep having children and being a blessing to others and your family because you took care and rested.
