As I sit here and reminisce about the last 12 weeks of my life, starting from the day we had our sweet, baby boy, Asher, I wonder things like “How did I survive? Good lord, that was hard. That postpartum stuff is no joke. That baby sure did rock my world. That was the longest, blurriest 12 weeks of my life.” Did I enjoy it? I suppose. Were there days I felt like I was going to die? Absolutely.

Wondering how in God’s name I made it through those first 3 months, I realize I couldn’t have done it without God, my family, my faith and my husband.

If you are about to have a baby, or are just curiously contemplating on beginning your family, here are a few items to carry with you:

1. Accept Help

Yes, accept help. Sure, your mom may not burp your baby the way you’d like her to, and you’ll sit there and stare in fear that your baby will somehow pass out or suffocate if not burped properly, but LET IT GO. Your mom raised you (this goes for your MIL and others as well), and you survived. They know what they’re doing.

2. Sleep When the Baby Sleeps

Cliche, I know. But seriously, how are you ever going to get sleep if you don’t sleep when the baby does?  Leave those dishes in the sink, nobody cares anyways, and they’ll understand.

3. Don’t Forget to Drink Lots of Water and Eat Lots of Veggies

Many times, I would fall asleep at night, wondering if I had eaten anything that day. Home cooked meals may not be doable, but for the love of God, order delivery. You need to eat, you need to take care of yourself, and you don’t eat (and you’re breastfeeding), your supply will go down. Take care of yourself mama!

3. Get Help from a Lactation Consultant

I was always worried that my baby wasn’t getting enough, and it ran me wild. But, I also didn’t have a clue what I was doing. It’s no wonder I struggled because nobody told me the tips and tricks to the “rules of breastfeeding”. The good part: you should get free support through the hospital you delivered at, and you’ll also have other women you can talk to who understand how difficult breastfeeding is. (Sidenote: my hospital had breastfeeding groups twice a month that other mothers would attend… check in to those as well!)

4. Take Long Showers… with Your Drink of Choice

Many nights, when my husband would get home, I would hand the baby off to him and disappear into the bathroom with a beer for two hours. Yes, seriously, TWO hours. I spent the first 30 minutes on Facebook drinking my beer, the next 30 minutes just standing in the shower, doing nothing, and the final 10 minutes actually showering. Then, for the next hour, I would take my good ol’ time painting my toenails, putting tons of cream on my stretch marks, beautifying my callused feet that I had been standing on all day, and doing something with my hair. It was the ONE thing that made me feel human. Oh… and that was actually when I could get my teeth brushed for the day too (sorry, husband).

5. Shop on Amazon Prime

Who goes to the grocery store with a 2 month old? Sure, I don’t care if you passed your 6-week check up with flying colors (I didn’t… more about that later), let Amazon deliver all of that TP, paper towels, diapers, wipes, and every other thing you forgot to buy. And, soak up the “subscribe & save” on diapers through Amazon Prime!

6. Take Saturday’s for Yourself.

It’s your one day off. The day your hubby is home, and can help out. Again, leave the dishes in the sink, go hang out with the girls or go get a haircut while you give your hubby time with your baby (as opposed to hovering over him making sure he’s burping your baby right). Plus, it serves as a moment that dad gets to be a dad, and see just how hard it is to be at home with a baby all day.😉

7. Don’t Worry About the Dishes in the Sink, or the Dust on the Table. Nobody cares.

See “Sleep When The Baby Sleeps”.

8. Spend a Little More on Clothes for Your Post-Baby Bod.

Honey, you just went through 9.5 months of morning sickness, aches, pains, sleepless nights, painful skin stretching, heartburn, and crazy hormones. And then, you had to push that baby out, and somehow work your way through postpartum, diaper wearing recovery where you were expected to sleep 1 hour a night while you couldn’t walk or lay down comfortably for 6 weeks because your hoo-haw hurt too bad. Treat yourself! You might be a little self conscious about how your body has changed, but your body just did a miraculous thing! It created a human, and birthed a human. Go out, buy yourself a nice pair of True Religion’s that’ll make your ass look fine, and rock them! You won’t regret it.

9. Take Care of Yourself, Mom!

Need I say more? Postpartum depression is very real, ladies. Going through child birth is hard enough, and raising a child those first 3 months is even harder. Some days you feel like your body is shutting down and you’re about to die (sorry, don’t mean to scare you, but it’s true). You will be delirious, and the longer you don’t sleep, the unhappier you are, and the unhealthier you are. Happy mom = happy baby. Let me say that again… Happy Mom = Happy Baby.

If breastfeeding is a struggle, and the thought of pumping makes you nauseas, formula is just as good! It’s not worth it risking your sanity. And besides, a stressed out mom is unhealthier for a baby than getting to eat breast milk versus formula.

One more time… Happy Mom = Happy Baby.

Make those first 3 months the best 3 months of your life, ENJOY it, they’re only newborns for a very short time. Don’t wish it away, let them be little.

Well, it’s been about 2 solid months since I’ve last posted, and let me tell you, these last 2 months have been a blur.

Asher James was born on February 6th at 2:13AM, and is the biggest, healthiest, most laid back sweet little boy God could have blessed us with. I prepared, and prepared for his arrival, ready to have a natural birth, but it didn’t exactly go that route.

At 6:00AM, we went to the hospital for our scheduled induction. After all of the paperwork we completed, we geared up for the day that would change our lives forever. 7:30AM came around and they broke my water. We waited, and waited. I was a little over 2CM, and unfortunately no progress had been made. At 9:30AM, the nurses told us that we needed to speed up the labor, so they issued Pitocin.

That Pitocin is a mean beast.

I was on Pitocin with no Epidural from 9:30AM to 3:00PM. During that time, I was focused, ready to approach this head on. We started to walk the halls to get the baby to go down, but the water kept dripping like a huge leaky faucet, and I could not focus, so we headed back in. I asked the nurse for a birthing ball. It’s the one thing I dreamt of having in my labor. I had heard so many wonderful things about how it progressed labor, how it was so comfortable to sit on for your back pain, and it ended up being nothing but a really uncomfortable chair. So much for that.

Up next, we try a hot shower. That was MAGICAL. I could’ve sat in that shower for years. The contractions came and came, each one harder than the next. I never thought I’d be in an ugly hospital shower with my husband hovering over me, buck naked and not giving a hoot, but let me tell you friends– you lose all dignity when you go through labor. The nurses decided they need to check me and I was hoping for at least a 2CM jump… but I was hardly pushing 3CM. After six… read that… SIX hours of hard labor without an epidural, I hardly progressed. At this point, I knew I was in for the long haul. As I sat in the hospital bed, another contraction came on, and finally around 3PM, in the middle of a contraction, I yelled “I can’t do it! I give up! I need an epidural!”

Within 10 minutes, an angel walked through the room – a tall, old man with a brigade of anesthesia. I had never been so relieved to get this epidural. They had asked Chad to leave the room, which is a good thing because he probably would have passed out. Let me tell you, there was no needle big enough that could’ve scared me away at that point. I – Wanted – That – Epidural.

With these epidurals, they put some strange things on your back (gobs of extra strength tape, numbing serum), but the thought of hugging that pillow is all you can think about. That comfy, nice, pillow… and bam, epidural is over.Within minutes, I am numb. Completely numb. And thus we begin the long haul.

The entire time, you lay there in that hospital bed, hoping to progress as quickly as possible so you can meet your little one. I was not so lucky. By 5:30PM, I had progressed to 4CM, and by 8PM, 5CM. We were hoping to have this baby on February 5th, but we slowly realized it wasn’t going to happen. The nurse did say that once you hit 5CM, then things start to speed up, so we were excited to say the least!

11PM rolls around, and we’re at 8CM. Come on… two more centimeters. 12AM, 9CM.

FINALLY. 12:30AM hits, and we see 10CM. But wait, we have to go “back down”, meaning we still have to get the baby to drop lower. Around 1AM, we start to practice push, which I didn’t think we needed. Marissa was our nurse, and I did not quite trust her. I knew if we pushed, I might have that baby right on that table without our doctor. We had about 7 practice pushes and I can hear Chad saying “Is the doctor coming in soon?” and the nurse asking me “did you have a lot of heartburn?” which was code that I was crowning. Ok, Marissa, lets get the doctor in here now!

But… the doctor had other deliveries she had to get to first, which made sense why we were practice pushing. She wanted to kill time, and I just wanted to get this baby out. I was afraid I was going to get too exhausted and not be able to get the baby out. Mind you, I was exhausted from the contractions. A few hours prior, our nurse Marissa kept having to flip us because the babies heartbeat was dropping. After being flipped 4 times, she did not care to check the epidural cord and CLAMPED the epidural cord. During those 2 hours, I kept feeling the contractions, and the anesthesiologist came in and didn’t know why I could feel them. He was going to reinsert the needle, but I had already pushed the epidural button 3x in 20 minutes (your only supposed to push it once every 2 hours).

During that moment, a new nurse came on shift, and asked Marissa if she had checked the epidural cord after flipping me – nope! The new nurse unclamped the cord and *BAM* my entire body was numb with 3x more epidural than needed. Yes, I was not a happy camper!

Anyways, back to the story… The doctor finally makes her grand appearance just before 2AM. She gears up with her gloves, and tells me to start pushing. After 5 pushing sessions (of 3 each), our beautiful baby boy was born at 2:13AM with Daddy being able to say “IT’S A BOY!” in tears. It was the most beautiful moment of my life, and to this day, he is the best thing that has ever happened to us.