Postpartum Body Image Ramblings

My body is different now. It would be nice if the pregnancy weight just melted off and I was back down to the size I was when I became pregnant. But honestly, I have never thought about my body the way I do now. It feels so good to not worry about it for once and not to feel guilty about going weeks months without an intentional "workout."

I sometimes look at myself and think that I would like to start working out and don't want to let myself go. I never look at myself and feel disgusted, to be completely honest, I feel pretty impressed with what my body has done! I felt so good after I gave birth to my sweet girl, especially since I did it without any drugs. I felt like I had just run a marathon and I feel that without a doubt I could do it again and actually hope to.

I am amazed at how beautifully my milk has come in and feel so blessed to have never had a problem with supply. So many women have problems for unknown reasons and for some reason my body produces milk wonderfully. I am amazed when I see my baby that has more than doubled in weight, just from eating the milk that comes out of my body! What a beautiful image of what our female bodies were made to do.

I feel a kind of beautiful that for many years I wasn't sure I would ever feel! Sure, I have the desire to get back on the bike or jump into the pool and start losing weight. It feels good to be healthy and exercise produces endorphins that are so good for my mind and spirit as well as my body.

I guess I just realize that I have a very different body image now than I did before. My body was made to provide life for my baby, not just to look pretty.

So although I will still try to make my body look good by exercising, eating a healthy balanced diet and doing all of the other things a woman does to make herself look nice, I will never look at my body the same again. I will always see it as a source of life, and a beautiful tool that God has given me to nourish that life.

People often say that pregnant women have a glow, but in all honesty I did not feel it at all when I was pregnant. I do however feel like I am glowing now. It's a glow that I have never felt before, not one that comes from nicely tanned skin, a perfect diet or a disciplined workout schedule. It comes from a joy deep within me, something that I sought after for years. It's finally mine and I never really knew how badly I wanted it. Sure those old feelings of insecurity creep back up at times, but I have been amazed at how secure I feel in my body, despite it's appearance since having my baby.

So I will cherish this time and enjoy the way that I feel about my body right now. I am after all a woman. Feelings change so quickly. But I would like to look back and remember this feeling. It's life giving and a good reminder of what our bodies were made for. And of course, when the time is right, I will have time to work out again and to put some effort into making my body look the way that I want it to look. But for now, I am going to focus on using it to give life to my daughter and allow that to breath life into my spirit as well.

The thing about infant sleep

I am not going to write some fiery post about what is right and what is wrong. I just want to write about this because I feel like so many people are always talking about it. There seems to be research and science behind both sides of the story, but there is one thing that I don't like that comes from either side, I like to call it "sleep shaming." This is when one person from either side of the fence comes against the other and makes them feel ashamed of how they are doing it. That is not what I am here to do.

My hope is that first time mothers would see this and feel less pressure when it comes to sleep training. Because I am FINALLY starting to, even though we have NEVER really had any problems apart from the first month, when babies really can't be trained anyhow and they are basically nocturnal. But I was under some impression that I could because I read some books that made me feel like I should be starting it already. Then I had a few people talk some sense into me and I read this, this, this, this and this on kellymom. I realized that sleep training and schedules were not going to happen the first few months. Routines can be started by the parents, but schedules, I don't even know if I agree with strict schedules, especially since my daughter is so unpredictable, as are most babies. But that is probably a completely different discussion. 

I can't speak for everyone's babies, but the best way to get my baby to sleep is to nurse her to sleep. This has been so natural and been one of the greatest joys for me since I became a mother. But all along I have had this voice in the back of my mind telling me that I am doing something wrong. I am ruining her, it's just a crutch and I'm gonna need to break it eventually. All of these things would be going through my mind even though we had a great sleeper on our hands and we still do.

The other day I read this article about lies people will tell you about infant sleep and it was revolutionary for me. It helped me to feel the freedom in what I was doing. It reminded me that what worked for me and my sweet baby girl wasn't wrong just because some scientists or pediatricians might say it is. There are just as many people saying the opposite. There are always two sides of the coin. I am not some huge advocate of attachment parenting (though I tend to favor most aspects of it), nor am I completely against sleep training. I am for what works for you! I know this sounds like some post about "everything is relative" "just do what feels good." That's not it at all. Every baby is different and every mother is different. I am not saying there isn't a science behind the different methods. I am just saying that different things work for different people. If you found something that works and you like it and feel good about it, stick with it!! Don't worry about what everyone else is saying or doing.

I know that I am a relatively new mom with little experience. But I know so many great moms who have nursed their babies to sleep and haven't had problems. I know some that have had problems, but don't regret it because those were some of their most cherished times and these little ones won't be little forever! It's really just a season and then it's gone. The time of night time nursing and watching them sink slowly into sleep as they nurse during a cold drizzly day. It's the best in my opinion and if things change and she starts waking up every hour, I guess I will have to change what I am doing. But for now, it's working like a charm and I have a very happy and healthy baby on my hands.

I hope that if you are a new mom and you are doing something that is working for you, but have been shamed by others doing the opposite, that you would just be able to find freedom in doing what works for you and your precious little baby.

Traveling with an infant

I was all geared up to write about infant sleep, but I decided to save that for another day and just write about our experience traveling with our sweet girl this weekend. This wasn't the first time we have flown with her, since we had to fly all the way across the globe to get here, so I wasn't too worried about the trip. But I knew that there could be some issues with the return flight which didn't arrive in our home city until almost 9:30pm, and her bed time is 8:00.

The reason for the trip was her 4 month vaccinations. We had to travel to the former capital city and the easiest way to do it was to fly in the morning and fly back the same day in the evening, rather than packing for overnight and coming back the next day.

It all went incredibly smooth. She barely cried for her shots! I was so relieved. She was smiling about two minutes after they finished! She really is a happy and social baby. She loves to be out and was just looking around in wonder, taking in all the sights around her the entire day. The good news though is that she sleeps so good in her carseat and there were several times throughout the day when we had to take taxis. After the shots she fell asleep on the taxi ride to a mall that we went to in order to kill time before our next flight. We sat in the food court and just hung out while she slept for about two hours in her car seat.

She then slept again on our way to the airport, but once we got there, she woke up pretty quickly and we weren't able to get her to sleep again before the flight. There was too much excitement and we thought we would have a little bit more time to rock her to sleep. Mistake #1.

I'm not really sure if there was a mistake #2. I just know that we have a very social and excitable baby. She nursed for only 5 minute periods the whole day because we weren't at home and there were too many exciting things happening for her to focus on her eating. I have been finding that this is very usual for her when we are not at home.

But when 9:00 hit and she couldn't calm down to nurse to sleep she was very frustrated. She began to cry, and by cry I mean scream. Amidst her screaming I was trying to get her to nurse, trying the paci, trying to burp her. At the time I thought it could have been several things, but once it was finished, I realized that it was just pure exhaustion. At one point the Steward came over and offered advice that it could perhaps be gas and tried to show me how to rub her back to get the gas out. I was pretty sure that wasn't the case, but I just nodded and tried to calm my baby, who was actually calm for a moment when he came over because he was a new person and that was kind of exciting to her.

What happened next was only okay because I knew we would be home in about an hour. She got so choked up on her spit while she was crying that she began to projectile vomit. And there was A.L.O.T! I was SOAKED. I felt so sad for her, but somehow after that she calmed down enough to start nursing and with Curtis and I both shielding her eyes from distractions and shushing her, she was finally able to get to sleep. Huge sigh of relief from both of us.

After the flight we took our time because she was still sleeping on my nursing pillow and we didn't want to wake her prematurely and have her screaming as all the passengers were exiting. The stewardesses all fussed over her and helped us as we put our precious and calm baby in her winter clothes and into her carseat.

What we DIDN'T know... Everyone from the plane was waiting on a bus. FOR US! EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM! We walked on with our heads down onto the bus apologizing profusely. I'm not sure if they got over it. But to be honest it didn't really matter that much.

We did it. The trip was a pretty big success in my book. The fact that about 5 minutes of crying on an airplane, even if it did feel like an eternity, was the only thing that really went wrong is pretty amazing with a four month old. Yeah, I'd call it worthwhile. To get our precious girl vaccinated. I felt really thankful that we could even have that privilege. Especially since the day before we went, a friend of mine from high school wrote this: an open letter to mothers who don't vaccinate. It's a pretty important topic if you ask me.

Embracing Minimalism

I wrote a few months back about aspiring to be a minimalist and I finally got my chance at applying it to my living space since we returned back to our apartment in Central Asia about a month ago. It's been a process since we got home to everything in boxes. Not to mention the suitcases we brought with us and then with decorating for Christmas.

We started the process naturally as we took our things out of boxes. I probably got rid of more than half of my clothes and shoes. One of the rules of minimalism (according to Joshua Becker) is to just keep what you LOVE and what you use a lot. The first purge is the easiest, but after that if you still have too much stuff in your drawers, you know you need to go a step further and really identify the things that you use the most.

So far I have done this in two steps. I went through my clothes and everything else once when we arrived here and removed things from boxes, but as we started to use things we were able to identify the things that we used the most and the things that we didn't use at all and that helped us get rid of a second round of things.

One of the main differences in our home now is in our living space. We decided to remove the television, which was on a table in the corner, to make room for Ruthie's toys, but also just to de-clutter things. We decided that the majority of our movie watching happens on our computers anyhow and this has proved to be a good decision, especially since I am home all day so many days during the winter months.

The other place that I have been really working to narrow things down in is cupboards and drawers. My clothes are something that I always struggle parting with. But the concept of keeping only the things that I love has really helped me to narrow it down. I've also just adopted the mindset that I can always buy another pair of jeans if I feel like I don't have enough, but in reality, I know that two to three pairs is enough. It has felt so freeing to open my drawers and only see a few shirts and pairs of yoga pants to choose from. It can be cause for more frequent loads of laundry, but it's so nice to be able to fit everything in so easily when the laundry is clean :)

The kitchen cupboards also needed help. I was tired of having mugs stacked on each other. How often do we even use these mugs? Some of them, never! Some of them were left by the people who used to own our apartment, but I kept them because they looked nice and I thought maybe we would have parties sometimes where we would need extras. That didn't really happen, we rarely have more than 8 guests in our home at once, so I decided only to keep the mugs that I really liked and ended up with a lot less clutter in my cupboards!

I feel like we are just starting to scratch the surface of having a minimalist home. We are definitely trying. With an apartment this small it can be difficult, but it's even more necessary in some ways. If you are interested in the minimalist lifestyle, check out Joshua Becker's blog "becoming minimalist." I follow him on Facebook and get inspiration for this lifestyle every day from his posts.

It's more than just having less in our homes, but I feel like this is where it starts for most people. Parting with possessions can be hard, especially as we begin to narrow it down to only what we really use and love in our homes. We often believe the lie that maybe we'll use it or need it someday, but lately I have been reminding myself that if it can bring someone else joy or provide them with something that they need, then it's not worth keeping it in my home "just in case." So if you're inspired, find a worthy cause and begin your journey to minimalism today!

First Week!

I have successfully completed my first full week as a stay at home mom! I was so scared of it, but it went amazingly well! Once I started relaxing and just going with the rhythm of my baby, it was so wonderful. I feel like I have fallen more in love with her this week and more in love with my new role. I have fully embraced this season of life and am so excited about what it continues to bring.

On Wednesday I wasn't totally feeling this way. Baby girl woke up at 7:30, when she usually wakes up at 8:30 or 9:00 and she just didn't want to nap, until she finally did at 11:00, relieved, I started a slow cooker meal. 15 minutes later she woke up very fussy and then since she wouldn't let me put her down without fussing after that, frustrated as I was, I carried her around in the boba until I was finished.

After that I tried to feed her again and get her down, but she just wasn't having it. I continued to just go with it. I wasn't doing it gracefully, I must admit. By almost 1:00 I decided to turn on a baby Mozart channel that Curtis found on youtube the night before, it had seemed to calm her then, so I gave it a try. Worked like a CHARM! She was in a daze, but still not falling asleep. She needed the finishing touch. Like the "good mom" that I am, I know she doesn't stay asleep long in her crib and I wanted her to get a good long nap. I knew the ONLY surefire way was her car seat. After two minutes of rocking she was asleep and stayed asleep for an hour and a half!

After that I had a good friend come over for lunch and we had a great talk about how being a mom is all about going with your intuition. What is right for your baby. It was so refreshing and really nice to just chat with a friend and hang out while she slept like a rock!

That was a turning point in my week. I finished that day feeling confident and excited about how much I accomplished despite "my plans" getting a little bit shaken up. I realized and continue to realize that with a baby, you can't always expect to get YOUR way.

Lastly, I read something really valuable this week that I want to be at the forefront of my parenting arsenal. That if something your child does is an inconvenience to you, it doesn't mean that what they did was wrong. You must always evaluate if you are doing what is best for them and not just acting out of response to them inconveniencing you. I don't ever want to forget that. I want to strive to do what is best for her and if that takes some discipline on my part I will do it, but if it means some sacrificing of my expectations I also want to be willing to do that!