Total 180

12/28/22

it’s only been one week, but since rodrigo’s started sleeping with Baby at night, I feel as if things are doing a total 180. I have more energy and stamina and a more positive outlook/default mood/feeling in general. I also feel my appetite normalizing/returning: I’m hungrier and maybe eating a little more. I feel like I’ve even gained weight (which I want to do, as my weight dropped into the 80s this past sleepless year) but haven’t weighed myself yet. The best I can describe it is, that my core strength (not abs- a different core) feels stronger; I don’t feel like I’m all-day collapsing from the inside out anymore, like I did before for the past 15 months with broken sleep. Now I sleep from about midnight (whenever Baby falls asleep for the night at my breast) to about 6 AM (when rodrigo comes upstairs to get ready for work)- i get five or six hours of unbroken sleep which is like double the amount I was getting before- I don’t think I ever slept more than three hours at a time when I was sleeping with Baby. This really seems to be making all the difference.

So far, rodrigo tells me that sometimes it’s easy and baby only wakes one or two times and is easily put back to sleep, and other times it’s hard, where it seems he wakes every hour/wakes up and stays up for hours and can’t be comforted back to sleep. but it’s so different for me now- i’m excited and look forward to going to sleep because I know I will get actual rest, instead of dreading it/being depressed by nighttime coming, which is how I felt every night for the past 15 months.

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for the past few days, have felt a sort of non-painful ache (but kind of stronger – I even feel it whenever I sit down and stand up) in my abdomen-uterus similar to when I was in the fertile middle of my menstrual cycle, and also there seems to be extra mucus/egg white. Still have not gotten my period since Hunter was born. Wondering if because I’m not breastfeeding like every three hours throughout the night anymore, it’s my body gearing back up to bring my period back. I have to say, I didn’t miss it. But…it’s also nice to have it as a sort of time measuring tool, to know where I am in the cycle/reassurance I’m not pregnant.