The six week Schlep

We’ve made it this far. The six week frontier. Second time around and it’s been… interesting. Nowhere near the anxiety induced mind fuck of the first time. How could it be? The shocking newness of having a baby can never quite be repeated. I felt wiser this time around, a veteran of sorts. It changed the way I’d approached the whole thing. 

I was also motivated to approach my birth differently as memories of how I bowled into the first one woefully underprepared had haunted me ever since. Obviously you can’t know exactly how your birth is going to go first time around but I’d prepared better mentally. Taking a birth course that specifically focussed on mindset, doing the hypnobirthing thing and making sure I kept exercising and believing it was all going to go my way. Sure, birth is unpredictable and it very easily could not have gone well, but the mental prep helped.

This better start to having a second child made those first few weeks better. I distinctly remember the elation of feeling like I had got what I wanted even though there were troughs of anxiety too. 

My main concern before I gave birth was how the hell we were going to afford another child (probably should have thought harder about that one earlier) and how was I going to cope with a lack of sleep again. I remembered the lack of sleep slowly scrambling my brain to the point where even little decisions became almost impossible. 

The worry about money seemed both an immediate and future concern. How would we fund a second maternity leave so quickly after the last one? How would we fund both girls’ futures? Could we afford to pay for the hobbies they wanted to do or the trips they might want to take? 

Other immediate worries included how my second attempt at breastfeeding would go. Would it be the painful, distressing battle that, despite a lot of help, took weeks to improve on my first attempt? I didn’t think I could go through that again so bought bottles of formula in anticipation. I so wanted to care a little less this time but also wondered if I could. 

Would my exhausted and swollen body recover as quickly after the marathon slog I’d put it through? Would my poor stretched muscles in my stomach ever go back to what they were? And would the skin that had felt so tight across my overdue stomach ever regain its elasticity? Could I go back to looking like I had done before children?

How on earth would I cope with two? I’d seen people walking around with two little people practically everywhere you went and never batted an eyelid. It just seemed so normal, boring even, but when faced with it myself, it seemed wild. And how would my eldest cope with a new sibling? How would she share us with this interloper?

The answers to all of the above were mixed. Sleep was wakeful but, at least initially, not quite as bad as with my first. Breastfeeding worked but was not without hitches, tongue tie, painful latch and faltering weight gain made it tricky again. Money, at least initially felt OK, until all the little purchases that seem to come with a new baby, plus one or two bigger and unexpected ones, began to tot up and the worry crept back in. My body recovered much more slowly this time around. At this six week mark I’m not nearly where I was the first time around. The weight clings stubbornly to my middle and none of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit. Coping with two has been like setting small hand grenades off in my life as competing needs often clash, tiny tempers fray and I learn how to soothe two little people. But I’ve made it!!