Yoga

So now that we've hit the six week mark and I've recovered from my chest infection I was very keen to get back into yoga again. I'm aware that my practice will change considerably from my prenatal months and it's important to embrace this change. Postnatal yoga provides the perfect opportunity to bring yoga into all aspects of your daily life. In the weeks since the birth I have focused on my breathing and being calm and centred as I know this has a positive impact on my baby (and myself). When practicing yoga with a baby around, it's important to let go of all your attachments to what your yoga practice was before your baby was born. Chances are, you will not be able to enjoy an extended period of time interruption free. Your practice can be spread throughout the day whenever you have a few minutes to spare, it won't be what you were used to doing but it will help you to live and breathe yoga away from the confines of the yoga mat.

I'm a bit of an inversion junkie so I was very excited to be upside-down again. Mio happily lay beside me on her blanket while I explored what it's like to be upside-down without a baby in my belly again.

Six Weeks

Six weeks already! I have totally recovered from my chest infection and I'm enjoying these warm winter days with my baby. She's growing and changing everyday and she's lifting her head when she lies on her tummy. She has been a bit restless in the evenings but she calms almost instantly when I hold her close and breathe slow and deep.

Falling Ill

I eat well, exercise and take good care of myself. I generally don't get sick and if I do it's usually fairly mild and short lived. However, there will no doubt be times in your life that despite your best efforts to eat well and stay healthy you will need the aid of modern medicine. For me this was one of those times. After getting what to me felt like the worst cold I had ever had I thought that things wouldn't get worse and that I was on the mend only to discover that just when I thought I was getting better I began to slowly get worse as the days went by. I tried everything to kick the cold- even garlic in my socks to draw out the illness. I developed a cough that would leave me gasping for air and any time I left the comforting warmth of the loungeroom I would struggle to breathe. I couldn't breathe when I lay down which meant that I didn't sleep for three nights. In the early hours of the third night without sleep I had resolved to go to the doctor when they opened. Each breath I took was laboured and I had to concentrate intensely on getting air into my lungs. I had a coughing fit and it felt like my lungs completely closed over, I couldn't breathe. Dave woke suddenly and jumped out of bed knowing that he had to call the ambulance (Mio slept peacefully through it of course). The ambulance arrived and I had slightly more control over my breathing again but I knew now that I couldn't do this on my own anymore and I needed the hospital. After a couple of hours in emergency and being loaded up with more drugs my body had ever seen I was told that I'd need to stay in for a few days. At first the hospital said that I couldn't have Mio with me and of course I was hysterical. The ward then said I could have her with me from 8am-10pm but I would need to express milk or send her off with formula over night. The staff said they could organise a breast pump and I felt a little more at ease. Hours went by with no breast pump and I decided that I was not going to let Mio leave my side, having her beside me was important for both of us. I was weak and exhausted but with an almost constant supply of drugs to help me breathe I knew I was where I needed to be.
India went off to my brothers house and Dave brought me food (because for starters, hospital food is bad, but more importantly they could get my diet right (vegetarian, no gluten, no soy) which meant that I would have starved without Dave). Late that night it was agreed upon that Mio could stay if Dave stayed, this was great news except that Dave had to sleep in a chair that night.
The next morning I insisted Dave go an get a couple of hours sleep and then return with some food. The nurses were rather annoyed with him but as far as I was concerned, I managed to take care of Mio (who, in reality, does little more than sleep) when I couldn't breathe at home so taking care of her while resting in the hospital bed was no big deal. We finally got my meals sorted which meant that Dave didn't need to leave (one meal in two days that I could actually eat is pretty appalling, you'd think a hospital would have food allergies at the top of their catering). The nurses also sorted out a bed for Dave meaning we could all rest.
My chest infection responded really well to all the medication so I was switched to oral meds and sent home on the third day. I am now making every effort to eat well and take extra probiotics so that the antibiotics and other drugs I'm on for the next couple of days don't mess up my own and Mio's digestive systems. I came across a great blog post on recovering from antibiotics http://www.lonehomeranger.com/2013/01/rebuilding-your-childs-gut-immune.html

Modern medicine has it's place and I'm glad it was there for me when I clearly needed it. It was a shock to me that I got that sick and the timing was pretty bad so it's nice to be on the mend again. I'm looking forward to getting back into the blissful daze of baby land and enjoying my beautiful family.

1 Month Old

So one month since I gave birth has already passed and Mio continues to be a perfectly calm little baby. She sleeps well at night waking about 3 times to feed. She doesn't need to be rocked to sleep and she is happy to have loads of nappy free time. She's such a beautiful little girl.

I will be starting my yoga routine again soon now that my body has had a chance to rest and recover from the birth. I'm looking forward to being upside-down again! My sacroiliac joint problem has been fixed, it was caused by Mio being in an odd position in. All I needed was to loosen the tense muscles in my hips and do some gentle stretches and it very quickly fixed itself.

Sleepy milky daze

Four Weeks

This past week has been pretty rough. India got really sick and barely ate anything for 4 days which meant that her body just wasn't getting what it needed to help her get better and in turn it just made her get sicker. She has never been that sick in her entire life, it turned from a bad cold into conjunctivitis and an ear ache (both things she has never had before) we had to resort to pain killers (another thing we have never needed to do) just to stop the pain and tears. Despite taking olive leaf extract and vitamin C and eating really well I ended up getting sick too, I was so sick that I spent an entire day in bed- I don't think I have ever done that. Dave had a film job in Geelong to do so he was away overnight, taking care of my sick self and two children was not much fun. Mio was great through it all she probably liked that I spent so much time snuggled up in bed with her. I thought she was going to get away with not catching what we had (especially since I was taking so much olive leaf extract and vitamin C) but late on Sunday night she started crying (again, this is something that just doesn't happen) and I knew that she must have finally come down with it. She spent all of Monday sleeping in my arms, there were parts of the day when she was happy but I could tell she was pretty sick and it was really upsetting because I knew exactly how she was feeling. I can't remember India really getting sick as a baby (at least not while she was so little) so it made me feel so terrible. I've been keeping her close and she seems a whole lot better already even after just a day of being sick. Dave thought he was going to get away with not getting sick but has just come down with it too. Never have our whole family been sick at the same time, this week has been a whole lot of firsts for us and I'm not happy about it. This bug really floored me, I'm still getting over it, I'm hoping that with Dave and India both on holidays now we can get out and enjoy these beautiful winter days we've been having.

3 Weeks

Mio is now 3 weeks old and looking so grown up. Still an easy little girl that lets me sleep at night and lets me have a shower while she naps in the evening.

Unfortunately Mio developed a little fungal nappy rash a few days ago. She woke one morning looking a little red and despite spending a few hours each day sleeping without a nappy on, putting breast milk on it, putting probiotic powder on it, and covering it in coconut oil (for it's amazing anti-fungal properties) I couldn't get it to heal. It didn't get any worse but it wasn't getting any better either. India had a similar problem once when she was real little and as much as I hate chemicals and do everything in my power to avoid them I knew that it just wasn't going to go away without a trip to the pharmacy. With only 2 applications and less than 24 hours it has healed considerably which makes me feel much better about the situation.
Considering it is a fungal thing it got me thinking about candida and the fact that her body is a direct reflection of mine because everything that I have goes into my milk so if she has a candida problem then chances are I have one too. I've been taking probiotics but it has been very sporadic as I often forget now that I have two little ones to keep me busy. I considered an anti-candida diet but the diet recommends eliminating all dairy (except yoghurt) and all legumes and as I don't eat meat and have had to take it easy with nuts and seeds otherwise I get stomach aches I decided it wasn't a good idea because I need protein and a varied diet to make milk for my baby. Instead I resolved to eat less sugar (and try to cut it out completely), take it easy with starchy foods like potatoes and take probiotics, I'm sure both Mio and I will benefit from this.

The niggling little pain in my back that I suddenly had at 37 weeks pregnant was still hanging around and was worse if I sat down for an extended period. Curious about exactly where this pain was coming from I looked up some pictures of the bone structure in hips and lower back. I figured out that it was my left sacroiliac joint that was causing problems and did lots of reading and started to get real worried that I may have done some real damage. I decided to go to a physiotherapist to see what they thought and to hopefully knock this problem before it got too bad.
as I suspected it was a problem with my sacroiliac joint but it wasn't as bad as I initially thought. The joint was very tense and the surrounding muscles were also quite tight which was twisting my left hip forward. This fits with my initial thoughts when I first felt the pain when I was pregnant. The cause is most likely from Mio being in a funny position when her head engaged in my pelvis which is why my back hurt and I had a pain at the front of my left hip. The pain in the front of my left hip was probably from her shoulder pressing into it. I mentioned this to our midwife and she said that it did always seem that Mio did seem to lie sort of half sideways across my belly. Mio's positioning caused the sacroiliac joint and the surrounding muscles to become tense which is most like what made that later stages of my labour feels more difficult than it should have and made the labour take longer than I expected.
I find it all incredibly fascinating and it's a relief that I haven't done any serious damage. The physio gave me a few gentle stretches to do so with time I'm sure this niggling little problem will fix itself.
My trip to the physio was also the first time I let Mio out of my sight, Dave came with me and I fed Mio before I went in and then Dave took her for a walk to the coffee shop where they had their first daddy daughter coffee date. She slept through the whole thing but it was still a bit special.

The past 3 weeks have been really beautiful and it's so lovely to see my little girl growing. She really is such an easy baby to take care of, I've been able to do a little crocheting, and some drawing and painting, and I've also been able to cook dinner most nights which is something that I really enjoy doing. I'm trying to soak in these early days before they disappear.

Two Weeks in Pictures

Birth Day 

 1 Day Old

2 Days Old 

3 Days Old 

4 Days Old 

5 Days Old 

6 Days Old 

7 Days Old 

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