Husband and Post Partum

Yesterday, I felt bad after my husband noticed my growing belly, I am not pregnant again, it's just that I have somehow gained weight since we moved here to Bohol. Unlike when we were still in Cebu City, the food here in the province is always available, someone cooks for us, and that we eat five times a day.

So, when my husband noticed and unawarely mentioned to me that I am growing horizontally, I became emotional and negative thoughts came rushing into my mind.

How come he noticed my belly fat but didn't think that I just gave birth nine months ago? How come it was easy for him to utter those words when I am breastfeeding? How come he was not careful with his word choice when I have been looking after his child and almost don't have time for myself?

I felt unloved, unappreciated and so many unlikeable things were bugging me. I had to cry, I know it was silly but I had to just cry it out and he knew he did something wrong and right away asked for forgiveness. But it was just too hard for me to say I am okay because I wasn't.

The only way I could get things off my chest was to remember where was he when I gave birth, I had to remember his good deeds to cover the emotional damage he just did that day.

My First Meal After Giving Birth

My husband is not the sweetest but he has his way of being sweet like when I just gave birth and he made an effort in finding native chicken soup. He had already planned on cooking one for me once I give birth but because my hospital admission came unplanned, he had to instead order it somewhere.

Fortunately, he found a restaurant on Food Panda that sells native chicken soup. He had to make sure that it will be delivered right on time so the soup would still be warm when I am roomed in.

Daily Sun Bath and Baby Skin to Skin

One of the things that I am grateful for my husband after giving birth was his dedication to sunbath our baby every single day even if he had little sleep the night before.

Matti has to be sunbathed at 6:30 AM for a few minutes and James had religiously made it a point to get that done every day! Also, during that time, he as well would continue carrying Matti for his skin-to-skin session.

Skin-to-skin is very important for babies to feel warm and loved. This can be done by both parents. The mother can do this after giving birth and so on but when fathers would also do this, there's a psychological effect to the father and creates a bond between the baby and the new dad.

Burp and Bath

Thank God for work from home setup, James was able to work full time and be a dad at the same time. For me, although the pandemic has been a disgrace, it was also a blessing in disguise for James was with us the entire time. Yes, he went on paternal leave for two weeks, and that allowed him to be a full-time dad too!

I truly appreciated him for making it a point to carry Matti every after a feed and burp him. Burping a baby is challenging as the baby can't make it on his own without the help of his or her parents or guardians. And a baby must burp after a feed because if not, he would have hiccups, and worse, he would have throw-ups.

Cooking and Other Household Chores

After giving birth, I had to let my body recover and it meant not doing anything that could tire me including washing, cooking, cleaning the house, etc. There were so many things to do, I want to do everything and be a mother at the same time but adjusting to my baby's needs was occupying my time, I couldn't do what I wanted and it stressed me out.

James did the things he doesn't usually do before like washing clothes. Our baby's clothes were the most important above all our laundry and he had made it possible to wash them! He did a great job!

Cooking every single meal was also another thing he made sure to do while I was busy being a mother. He was working and would stop to cook. We resort to cooking only in the morning and afternoon and would just heat our leftovers from lunch for dinner. In this way, he could still work without being interrupted.

I remember I lost a lot of weight in the first month even if I had been eating a lot of carbs. That was not a problem of no food but breastfeeding was demanding too much of my energy, I was always hungry, always thirsty. I ate a lot of malunggay, drank a lot of hot choco and soups so I could produce more milk for my baby.

Pork soup was my favorite and James would make it a point to look and buy for the freshest pork meat and bones available in our community. Thankfully, there was a vendor that sells every other day in our neighborhood.

Groceries and Other Errands

I could recall how hard it was for James to do groceries alone. He is not the type of person who enjoys going to the groceries, I am the opposite so when the pandemic happened and there was a lockdown announcement, it was the hardest to go out for groceries.

There was the strict implementation of rules like social distancing, only a few individuals were allowed inside the groceries thus, there was a long queue of customers. The longest time that James bought groceries was five hours.

Aside from that, the thoughts of engaging with other people outside and going home to his wife and baby scared him. He would often leave the groceries he bought in front of our condo door and would go straight to take a bath. He then would have to disinfect the items one by one before putting them into the fridge. It was tiring and very time demanding but he did it all for his family!

Conclusion

Those days when it was just the two of us were the hardest as first-time parents but it was also the sweetest and most memorable one. We had doubts about our decisions but when we see Matti's development now that he is nine months old, we realized that our fears and doubts were merely emotions but we did what our instinct said.

After recalling these things, I had to stop my silliness and told my heavy heart to smile again. James' words were a wake-up call. I have to be active again and focus on the right food to eat. I need to avoid sugar and always hydrate. I know I had been lazy these past days, just simply sitting on my chair if Matti is asleep. I have to get up and start exercising again. This is not just for myself but for my family too especially for my baby.

xoxo,

mommy jean of momentswithmatti

Love harder than any pain you've ever felt.