Engorgement Charms

It's hard to see out of my glasses right now as there is milk on the left lens.  It was snorted at me just a few minutes ago.  My son has this interesting skill of shooting milk, now with some accuracy.  It's not a problem, just a feature of motherhood.

There are many interesting features to motherhood.  Awhile back, I said I'd continue posting on the pains of motherhood and today I'm fulfilling my promise by talking of the pain of full filling (as well as a few other things).

I'm not sure if I just never thought it through or what I expected the human body was made of (not plasticine evidently), but the pain of childbirth doesn't actually end with the birth of the child.  I'm not just talking about the birth of the placenta - which I actually barely felt.  Would you believe that everywhere feels like a bruise after you push a giant (and yes, after you've had a child you realize that that wee little newborn is actually massive) baby into the world?  I'm not talking about just the places you'd expect either.  My arms ached for a couple days after birth.  What exactly were my arms up to in labour?  Did they leave the room and go weight training when I wasn't looking?  My legs felt tired.  I didn't give birth by running or standing, so I'm sure what they were thinking about.  Then there's that whole hurts-to-sit deal.  Experienced mothers and midwives have all sorts of remedies for that.  If you're interested, I'll tell you sometime.

The fact that I was sore was a shock to me.  If you've not had a baby, be aware that you will be sore after the baby comes.  It's not overwhelming or terrible, it just caught me by surprise.

So that's fine.  A bit of tiredness and tenderness.  On child's fourth day, I was sitting at the table when I got a shock.  Or a tingle.  At least that's what the books call it.  I call it fire in my nerves.  Engorgement.  That was a shocker.  All of those years thinking it'd be nice to be a couple sizes bigger, and that day it was true.  I tried to get dressed to go out, and none of my dresses fit.  Too tight.  I was impressed; Adrian told me they looked fake.  Quite a strange couple of days those were.  Nothing like a pair of rocks strapped to your chest.  They're heavy, hard and difficult to deal with.  Poor kid looked at me like "what am I supposed to do with these?"

But really, that was it for pain.  So don't worry.  It's all survivable and none of it lasts that long.  One little smile from my little man and everything fades into happiness, pain melts and the past is unrememberable.  One little coo or happy sound and I'm blissing out.  Sure, I need to clean my glasses and quite possibly my shirt before I get groceries, but that's the charm of it I guess - it's all to make a happy baby.