Postpartum: Do Not Recommend

 I have officially experienced all trimesters, and I have to say the fourth trimester is the worst [although admittedly I didn't get very far into the third trimester, which I think means my fourth trimester was even longer]. At one of my follow-up visits, I told my midwife that the sleep deprivation is more miserable than labor/delivery, and she heartily agreed.

I can't believe I was hoping for multiples.

Anyway, the fourth trimester is over, but the sleep deprivation continues. I have discovered that I am both stronger and weaker than I imagined. I have been through a lot [read below!], and have only survived because of community--so for all my friends and acquaintances who went through the postpartum period without my emotional/physical support, I owe y'all some serious apologies. 

Highlights [or really, lowlights] of the last 4 months:

• When Nathan was 6 weeks old Mark and I both got food poisoning. We are 99% sure it came from a soup mix that, ironically, had been sent to us to make our life easier. Yah, well, it left us bed-and-bathroom-bound for days, and on a strictly-liquid diet for a week [not because we wanted to or were told to, just that nothing else was appetizing]. I collapsed twice from dehydration, and my milk supply dropped to a third its normal for the same reason. I definitely relied on other people to take care of Nathan during this time, and boy, do I have some saintly friends. On the plus side, it helped me reach my pre-pregnancy weight! However, I do NOT recommend this method of weight-loss. Don't do it.
• I'm enrolled in a research study with Nathan, and we got a call at the end of the year saying one of the tests came back abnormal. We had to repeat the test, meet with additional doctors, chew our nails [jk, although the research study did actually want my fingernail clippings...] and learn about an obscure diagnosis that I'd never heard of but will probably not impact his life. Crossing our fingers on that one.
• We moved halfway across the country! [As a side note, there needs to be a punctuation mark that denotes woeful surprise, because moving is THE PITS]. That meant packing (I hosted a packing party with cookies and music for that), using up the last of our perishable food by cooking an egregious amount of chicken pot pie, packing up my work office, loading up a moving truck, performing a final clean of the apartment, and driving through the Cumberland Gap all with a newborn. Nathan did not like the altitude changes' effect on his eardrums, and thoughtfully shared that pain with our eardrums. [Also, big shoutout to my in-laws who came to help pack, load, clean, and move us. Especially because I kept getting migraines].
• Respiratory illnesses do not make moving or the postpartum period easier. Mark got sick first, and drove the interstate on cough drops and Dayquil. By the time we arrived at our destination, he had laryngitis, and I had sinus congestion. While still moving into our new apartment (as in, the day after we got the keys), I got the chills and a fever of 100.8, so we left a 15-week-old Nathan with my in-laws [who had helped us drive and thus were there] while I went to the ER to rule out COVID/flu/RSV/pneumonia. Those were all negative, which meant antibiotics and antivirals wouldn't help me feel better. Then, OF COURSE Nathan got sick. The first sign was a fever of 101.4, which frightened me enough to call my doctor brother-in-law at 4 in the morning [thank you, David!]. Keep in mind we had been in our new apartment exactly 3 days when this happened. I messaged someone we had just met [thank you, Cort!] for a pediatrician recommendation, and then Nathan got to be tested for COVID/flu/RSV--for which he also was negative. I was grateful I had already had Mark get a humidifier, so we got through with that, bulb suctioning the nose, tylenol, and baby nasal saline spray. Oh, and me being sick dropped my milk supply again. Yay.
• Less than a week after we moved in, Mark got word that his job start--the whole reason why we moved--was on hold. No reason given. It's a government job, and the government, in case you haven't noticed, is not functioning optimally at the moment due to leadership issues. So now, we are on government-funded WIC for food assistance instead of a government job, aka providing an actual service to the government in exchange for money. It makes no sense. This is not efficient. Also, the job hold is still an active issue, so I can't write a resolution yet. Call your congresspeople and tell them to stop cutting government jobs, especially ones that support the military ?? and thus should be a non-issue for the Republican government ??

Anyways, I hope everybody else's life is less eventful. I should write a book about the stuff that happens to us.