Hi guys – wow, what a whirlwind the past week has been! So far motherhood is everything you guys said it would be – amazing and overwhelming at the same time. <3
As you guys know, our daughter Riese was born on Friday afternoon via scheduled C section, and we headed home from the hospital on Monday afternoon. It was exciting to take her home but also terrifying – I thought that pregnancy hormones were an emotional roller coaster, but man postpartum hormones are even more intense. I cried the entire car ride home because I was so scared about having her out in the big scary world. The love I feel for her is just so, so intense – it’s like my heart is outside my body now, and that feels really scary and vulnerable.
It’s crazy to think that just one week ago she was still inside me (I still can’t believe that I actually GREW this little human in my body – it’s so weird/cool) and that we were enjoying Thanksgiving with my family! One last belly photo with Matt from Thanksgiving Day:
We were so glad we made the call to move the scheduled C section from Monday of last week to Friday – obviously, we were lucky our gamble paid off and that she didn’t come early, but when we were leaving the hospital on Monday of this week we looked at each other and were like “wow, we are SO glad it’s not Thanksgiving Day right now.” There’s no way we would have been up for that physically or emotionally, and I would have been really sad to miss out on it.
I started having some early labor sensations on Thanksgiving Day – nothing crazy, but it basically felt like period cramps that came in sporadic waves. My parents hosted Thanksgiving for myself, my brother (in town visiting – I was glad to get some quality time with him on Wednesday and Thursday before the hospital stay), and my grandmother, and when I went into the dining room I started cracking up – my mom had put a towel on my chair, just in case! Too funny, but smart!
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving – we came early and stayed late, and it was really nice to have one last relaxing adult-only meal. The food was delicious, too, of course. 🙂 Matt and I weren’t officially assigned any dishes this year for obvious reasons, so the cooking was all my mom with assistance from my brother, and Matt once we got here! I was glad my last big pregnancy meal was not a nauseous one so I could really enjoy this delicious food. I went back for seconds on the turkey, gravy, and mashed taters!
Dessert was also awesome – I have more of a savory palate in general but I LOVE pie and ice cream, so this was basically my ideal dessert. 🙂 A slice of both pumpkin and apple, mmm!
It was such a lovely day – thank you for staying in there long enough to let us enjoy it, Riese. 🙂
Friday morning was surreal – we didn’t have to be at the hospital until 10, and I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything 8 hours before the surgery at 12, so Matt woke up and made me breakfast in bed at 4 a.m. before we went back to bed for awhile. I was all ready for one last awesome night’s rest but my period-like cramps had started to get more regular and painful overnight (not anything intense/consistent enough to go to the hospital early for, but it definitely didn’t give me a restful last night’s sleep).
It was a beautiful morning so we got up in time to take one last walk just the two of us with the bump in tow.
My very final bump photo! 40 weeks and 1 day.
And then, it was off to the hospital! Scheduled C sections are so weird because obviously you aren’t doing the whole “OMG GET ME TO THE HOSPITAL THIS BABY IS COMING!!” thing – we were like “well, I guess we should head out in a few minutes to go have our baby…” It was even weirder arriving at the hospital and checking in. “Um, hi. I’m here to have a C section?” So surreal.
I’m going to work on writing out a birth story as soon as I can, so stay tuned for that! (Seriously, though, how does anyone get anything productive done ever with a baby?!) Over the next month, I want to try to check in a couple/few times a week with updates, and I have a few fun recipe posts lined up for you guys for December, too, so keep an eye out for those. Thank you for your patience as I start to attempt to figure out a new blogging routine! Right now it’s 1:45 a.m. and I’m writing this post with a milk-drunk Riese asleep on the breastfeeding pillow in my lap. 🙂
Stay tuned for more – the birth story and an update on the first week-ish at home will be coming soon! And in the meantime, I’ll keep sharing photo updates over on Instagram, too, so follow me over there if you’re interested in some daily snapshots.
