So i am abandoning my previous thoughts about balance. And fully acknowledge its helpful to just tip the scales.
While teaching my dance class this quarter. Sometimes that would tip the scales i would be sitting there nursing and rocking Baby Green, while at the same time thinking about dance combination and having my ipod in my ear planning music too. Totally obsessed with planning the perfect class.
Then the balance would tip the other way. I would be teaching my dance class when all i could think about was little Baby green because she had a cold the night before. So i was like teach what?? lol My mind was on my sweetie.
I find most of the times things work out and when they don’t its best to ask for help to help reboot, start over ect. ( i have canceled class to be with baby green when she was sick, i have had someone babysit baby green so i could go to the dance studio)
Since having my baby green. She tips the scales a majority of the time. But i don’t care at all. She is the most lovely person i have ever met, and i never knew how much love was in my heart and beyond till her. She is fun, inspiring, and full of sunshine smiles. I know i will get back to creating more of my art, blogging more, ect as she gets older and needs me less and less. But for now.. i am totally fine with her dominating the scales of my life.
Its been really nice connecting with a community of women who are mothers.. ie. my sisters, friends with kids, my new peps mom group i joined.
There are a lot of books out there about breastfeeding your child, not breasting your child, how to get your baby to sleep through the night, postpartum baby weight loss, Are you being a good mother?
Mama Kabonnagreen Thoughts
The nice thing i have found among the moms i hang with is they all say this, ” you do what you gotta do.” Which is great for advice for new moms.
Meaning sometimes Mama’s gotta come first. If mama’s happy baby will be happy and benefit too. And every mother has something they have to bend or flex on to be the best mother they can be.
Honestly its my kid and that’s what is so awesome I get to make the choices about how I’m going to go about things. So I try not to compare my experience to other people’s babies too much because no two kids are a like.
For instance when I hear all the birth stories of friends not one of us had the same experience or type of labor. So why in the world would our babies be the same .
Motherhood Tool Belt
Here are some tools that were helpful to me in the following areas so far. ( 0-3months)
1. Fussy Baby ( just knowing weeks 5-8 are the fussy times) Baby is going through some huge development changes and there not being a bad baby they are experiencing some growing pains.
The happiest baby on the block video is great for being able to help calm and soothe them during this fussy time.
2. Understanding Baby Crys. I saw this on Oprah recommended by my friend Ronda. It helped me along with watching my baby’s body language to help meet her needs.
3. Sleep! Getting baby to sleep well at night and take naps. This book was highly helpful and it follows babies natural sleep patterns. It’s really quite amazing. It’s really great! No crying it out or schedules. But rather looking at our natural rhythms at sleeping as humans not just babies.. makes a lot of sense. check it out.
Closing Thoughts after 3 months of being a new mom:
Something cool about becoming a mom. Is you don’t have to know everything right away. You learn as you go. Also its cool to see how those instincts just kinda kick in. I started to be able to tell the hunger cry from the tired cry. Finding new ways to soothe her. I found myself one day just rocking her and humming and guess what? it was exactly what she needed. There are plenty of days where I am like mmm i don’t know. But i feel better and better each day about my mom tool belt i am developing.
Being an artist. There is a saying i always live by. That if you question the work you make it better. So being a mom i find it’s the same. ITs good to question what i am doing to strive to always be making things better. It’s not doubt or second guessing but just a work in progress. Another thing artists love to say is the work is never done.. i think the same shall hold true for motherhood.
A serious topic… very serious.. Kabonnagreen and Baby Green with our game faces on… lol.. ( just kidding.. postpartum body is not serious at all.. : )
So I made this video of becoming Kabonnagreen+ which is beautiful an amazing to see the body transform.
So got me thinking what about the after video. mmm yeah nobody wants to see that right. Or maybe they do. I kinda do. ha ha
I am not putting a lot of pressure to get myself back in shape like celebrity fast. Honestly not that i would mind ha ha. But i don’t have the resources to make that happen. But that cool yo.. no worries.
Really its amazing how much weight you can actually lose by taking care of your baby.
Breastfeeding burns calories and well birthing the baby gets rid of the baby weight via the baby came out lol and all that excess fluid to boot.
That said in the first few weeks in addition to taking care of baby. I took short walks ( 20 mins) with her in the moby wrap and then did these stretches/strengthening exercises to help my body start to recover.
I roughly gained about 25 pound during my pregnancy and with just breast-feeding, short walks, stretches and pretty good healthy eating habits in the last 3 months have lost roughly 15 pounds. So i have about 10 more to go and well a little bit more if i want to be in my glory kabonnagreen days.. but with bigger boobs i am thinking my weight will naturally need to be a little higher to maintain my milk supply.
SLEEPING !!!!!!!!!
Also another factor worth very much WORTH mentioning is sleep deprivation.
I have not had the brain to even think of about my post baby body until i got some sleep. Baby Kabonnagreen isn’t sleeping perfect every night but enough where i don’ t have to be sleeping every second of the day when she does.
Another factor time. There are some great classes out there for newborn moms with yoga and some exercises classes. I find there are small windows that are open for me to exercise and they just don’t happen to land in the times these classes are. I find during those times it’s when she needs to be soothed to sleep, or fed. Sometimes you can do things while they sleep but other times i have to hold her for naps.. not ideal but i find its way better to have a well rested baby ( sleep= happy baby).
Any who…
That all said i plan on taking these windows of opportunity while i am at home.
Do yoga at home or do exercises involve my baby. I image there are lots of dvds out there to workout with baby. But lucky me movement was my life before baby so i have no problem thinking up ways to hopefully whip this booty of mind back into shape .
So here are my goals for the up coming months provided i get sleep the night before.
For exercise:
* Take little 10 min windows to do a set of exercises. ( squats with baby, sit-ups with baby, ect.)
Here is a little preview of what i did the other morning.
* Dance with baby put on my favorite tunes and sweat it out. ( lucky she loves to watch me dance so i can put her on her play mate and break it down and she is in heaven)
* Going to start to see if i can get a friend or family member at least once a week to come over so i can start going to the gym to get 1 hour of cardio in ( stair stepping, walking on the tread mill).
Food
* Juicing more ( kinda hard when your short on time.. but i am juicing at least once a week)
* Eating less bread as a snack ( whole grains are great.. but so are veggies.. so instead of always grabbing bread to snack on while nursing perhaps get my carrot or celery stick on instead mmm black olives..)
* Cooking more ( i have not had time to cook.. but i am finding my crock pot is awesome.. doing some easy crockpot meals with lots of veggies. ) eating less take out.. the take out we get is pretty healthy but nothing is as healthy as cooking for yourself when you know what exactly is going into your food prep.
* Keep up with my hydration.. this is actually already going pretty well.
* OKay it’s totally holiday approaching season and i have been having fun having treats with MR. Kabonnagreen… which i plan to keep doing But not go over board.. which honestly i have been doing.. he heee
Body Image.
* Loving this transitional body!
* I just did something beautiful and amazing i created a whole other person. Like Woah. Our bodies are so amazing. And it took 9 months for my body to adjust to carrying a baby. So it makes sense it is going to take some time for it to transition back.
Not going to post pictures just yet of my post-baby body. But i will. I promise. But pictures are always more fun when you can see a progression. So i will start taking some now and then put a nice side by side comparison once i see some changes.
I have a pair of pre-pregnancy pants that i am thinking about using to show progress. Because really the scale is not the best measure because I find it goes up and down a lot depending on when i last breast fed.. so yeah!
Little Kabonnagreen is 2 months old now..and smiling which helps greatly in getting through the tougher times in boot-camp…..
1. Drink lots of Coconut Water
2. Take a shower everyday
3. Go outside for a walk or just get some fresh air
4. Healthy eating and juicing
5. Use a nipple repair butter daily like its going out of style
6. Seeing a lacation consultion as soon as possible ( even if things are going well.. see one)
7. Life lines on speed dial ( have people you can text too, or call to cry to on the phone, ask for tips, or just overall support)
8. Join a local moms group (Peps group or mops group)
9. Sleep when you can
10. Find a tv series on dvd or streaming you can watch while you breast feeding for hours on end.
11. Just take care of yourself and the baby let other people do the dishes, laundry, bring you meals and run errons.
Having a baby is wonderful. But its also a lot of work, and sleep depreviation is one of the hardest things i have ever been through. So if your a new mom. Hang in there it gets better each week.
Still in newborn bootcamp. Little Kabonnagreen is taking a nap right now. So excited to update my blog. And what would a newborn update without some cute pic. enjoy
So there have been some questions about how eating my placenta went. Well it went great! It was really easy. Heather picked up the placenta after my birth and then came over the next day with the placenta pills.
I took 2 pills a day three times a day. But then I decided i wanted to take it more. When i was feeling tired, or worn down.. i just popped a pill. LOL>
You cann’t over dose on your placenta. ( some folks eat it all in on sitting if they have it made into a shake or a cookie). So yeah i took it whenever i needed a boost.
So did it work? I would say yes.
1. I didn’t have postpartum depression.
2. I had no postpartum anemia
3. I have had a good milk production
4. My postpartum bleeding was not very heavy and lasted for only a couple of weeks
5. My body healed very fast from the birth and after a couple days had no pain down there
Is it hard to know if its all because of eating my placenta. Or was it a combination of things. Because i don’t have a previous birth to compare it to without eating my placenta.
But i have to say if your on the fence about doing it! Do it.. rather be safe then sorry.
I wanted to share my wonderful birth experience. I really did try to have a good pregnancy in terms of juicing, exercising and prenatal yoga and taking some birth classes. I was a high risk pregnancy and i knew that i was not a canadate to have a home birth or just a midwife. So I felt very much at peace knowing that i would give birth in the hospital and with an epidural. However even though i knew this was the plan. I wanted to take advantage of the holistic approach as well.
I wanted my birth to be a combination of both eastern and western methods. So I looked into what natural methods i could use to help progress my labor along with avoiding unneeded medical intervention if i could.
The result. I had a wonderful amazing birth! I am so pleased with my experience. I felt well prepared and was so well supported I couldn’t have asked for a better or more beautiful experience.
Here is the play by-play.
1 Week of Prolonged early the labor before Labor ( irregular contractions)
19 hrs of Early Labor ( 1am-8pm)
8 hrs of Active Labor (8pm-4am)
1 hour pushing ( 4am-5:08am)
Total: 1 Week and 28 hours
Saturday July 7th
I actually had a week of irregular contractions some call it false labor. But trust me there as nothing false about it was all happening it was true. My Dr. didn’t use the term false labor but rather pro-longed early labor. Because the contractions are working. They just take longer breaks in between. I came to peace with my long state of early pro-longed labor. I chilled, i watched movies, went for 5 mile walks, stay hydrated, took baths, slept when i could. It was totally manageable. And my sister was here so great bonding time with her too. I just surrendered and was like my body is doing it thang no worries.
( Early Labor!) July 15th
I woke up around 1am on Sunday. I was having contractions. I took a shower because in the past week that is what made them go away. But this time they weren’t going away! So i got out my timer. And sure enough they started to get stronger and closer together. I let Mr. Kabonnagreen sleep because i was able to manage the pain. I did cat/cow position and rocked back and forth on my birthing ball taking deep breaths. But then around 3am they were coming on more strong where i wanted some support. So i awoke Mr. Kabonnagreen and he rubbed my back during contractions and grabbed me coconut water to hydrate.
Then when sun came up we went for a long walk. I could still walk and breath through the contractions but they were tough and taking my total focus. After this we came home and worked through contractions in my living room doing yoga poses, deep breathing, rocking on the ball ect. Then my contractions were coming about 3 mins apart.
We called the hospital and they said to come in. However i didn’t want to get in the car and its only about 1 mile ish walk to the hospital so we walked instead of driving. Lucky my sister was hear to drive the car for us to meet us there with all our hospital goodies.
Active Labor
They admitted at 6:30pm i was at about 3 dilated. Yes! Since i was not having Seizures or passing out they said it was up to me when i got the epidural. I had an amazing support at the hospital.
I was able to labor with no interventions to 5cm! ( 10 is all the way ). I was able to do my yoga squats, the bath tub, birthing ball, ect, deep breathing. But yeah once i hit 5cm i couldn’t handle the pain anymore with my heart.
So then i got the epidural. It was awesome took away all the pain. I just felt a little itchy but that was all. My labor kept progressing i was at 8cm after a few hours. Then they broke my water and i went to 10cm! I felt pressure in my lower back and sure enough they saw the head! It was time to push!
Pushing!
This is no joke. While i didn’t feel any pain. IT took all my strength and energy to be able to do this. IT is physically so hard to do. But i had a really good epidural and while i didnt’ feel pain i did feel when to push still. Which is pretty awesome. I pushed for 1 hour. AFter this the drs. were worried about my heart rate the baby was fine but my heart was really being pushed to the max.
They wanted to use a vaccum to help the baby out. So i just focused all my energy and said ” i can do this”.. and then i did . One big push and she came out all at once.
She was perfect! The drs said open your eyes and look at your baby.. with that one big push she came right out and they put her right on my chest. I got a huge rush of feel good hormones, joy and love. She looked me right in the eyes, she was very alert. She then started rooting and went to breast feed.
It was one of the most amazing moments of my life. So much love for this new little girl in my life.
i think the same shall hold true for motherhood.
