We Need To Talk About The Fourth Trimester

The fourth trimester is supposedly the three months after you give birth, in which time your hormones are settling down, your body and mind are healing and you're getting used to becoming someone's mum (or someone else's mum if it's not your first baby). 

I am now five and a half months post-partum and my hair is still falling out, my body is nothing like what it was before I became pregnant and my mind hasn't even had the time to process giving birth and becoming a mum because I've been too busy actually being a mum, so in my eyes the fourth trimester is a lot longer than three months. 

Aside from that, I was completely unprepared for my fourth trimester. When you're pregnant you spend so much time simply focussing on being pregnant that there's little thought left for what might come afterwards. There's also not that much warning; in fact it's barely spoken about. And I can kind of see why.

I don't necessarily feel like talking about the fourth trimester, now that it's apparently been and gone, so it stands to reason that most other people don't feel like talking about it either. But seeing as I have some sort of platform from which to speak, and that I myself wished I'd had more information, I thought I should probably use it. 

The first thing I was totally unprepared for was my physical recovery after giving birth. I didn't get the natural birth I was hoping for, but even if I had I think I would have been woefully under prepared for the recovery from that too. This may sound naive, but I honestly expected that I might be a little tired, but would be able to leap into caring for a newborn baby with two feet. As it turned out, I could barely walk. 

Physical recovery is rough and everyone's is different, but I wouldn't say I felt back to any sort of 'normal' for a good six to eight weeks post-birth. From speaking to other people, this is something that takes a lot of us by surprise. 

Although I was (and still am) lucky enough to land in a pretty good place mentally post-birth, I wasn't prepared for those hormones! The baby blues are real and I found myself crying at anything and everything, happy or sad. I certainly felt very fragile emotionally, and even now I find my emotions tipping over the edge a lot more easily than they used to (although that is potentially part and parcel of becoming a parent). 

I also struggled more than I thought I would to come to terms with the birth (full birth story here). As much as I was open going into it that I would go with the flow when it came to pain relief and what my baby needed, I found it hard to accept that it hadn't gone my way. The first time we drove past the hospital after I'd given birth I started having heart palpitations, a reaction I definitely didn't expect.

Most naively of all, I also wasn't prepared for caring for a newborn and what that fully entails. The ideal picture that's often painted of a tiny cherub happily sleeping is simply that; a picture, a snapshot of a moment that does happen, but not as often as you expect. Those newborn days are intense, but so brief; they feel like so long ago now!

I definitely don't want this post to come over all doom and gloom; obviously the fourth trimester also brought me the best and most perfect baby boy. I wish I could have enjoyed him more in those early days rather than feeling so completely overwhelmed, but I like to think I'm making up for it now. 

My post-partum journey is definitely not over, but my fourth trimester apparently is.