As many of you know, I gave birth to Sara, on 31st October. It was an amazingly beautiful day, indeed. Sara is now 27 days, she’ll be 4 weeks tomorrow. As far as my recovery, I finally feel a lot better now.
Although my pregnancy was smooth and relatively easy than other women I know, it was really tough and challenging. If you ask me when I was pregnant, I would say being pregnant is not worth it! Yes, that sounded bad.
Then came labour. I was really terrified of labour. I was. I researched so deep so that I could be physically and mentally prepared. I practiced visualisation every day and think positively about my labour. 6 hours in labour, and it turned out to be the most painful yet the easiest thing. It went smoothly according to my visualisation, Alhamdulillah.
Now, the postpartum. It is the worst thing about having a baby. It’s a lot of pain. Contraction pains, breast and nipple pain, body aches, perineal pain, pelvic girdle pain, you name it. My recovery was slow and I was in 3 weeks of agony. I cried so much.
The first 2 weeks, I lost hope that I will ever recover. I guess it was the baby blues talking. Came the third week, I started feeling more sane, and tried to think positively about my recovery. Soon, I started to see improvements. Talk about mind over matter!
Now that my baby blues are completely gone, I’m starting to enjoy taking care of Sara. It used to feel like a chore, perhaps it was all those pain I was feeling. I love waking up in the morning to Sara. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. To us.
I can never forget the first time she was thrown onto my chest right after she came out. Yes, thrown is the exact word. I looked at her and I did not know what was this moving thing that just came out of me. She looked so pale and grey. Guess I was still fuzzy from the labour. Then, she was taken away, the nurse put a blanket on and swaddled her. Soon she was given back to me while the doctor sutured my perineal tear.
I looked at her and her eyes were wide open glancing back and forth between me, Eddie and the surrounding. She looked like she was trying to understand where she was and what was she seeing (although she probably couldn’t see anything clearly then).
Immediately, I fell in love with her. I was shedding tears of joy. I’m truly happy that she came into this world. She’s so perfect and beautiful. I had never been so thankful in my life before. Everyday, since she was born, I thank Allah for this gift. I feel so blessed for having her.
Sara, a few hours after she was born.
9 days old
21 days old
If you ask me now, she is definitely worth it. It was worth all the pain, agony and not to mention, all those emotional roller coaster. Truly, she is a gift. And she’s my personal achievement.
P.s, Read my husband’s story on my labour.
P.p.s, I will write about labour and postpartum recovery soon.