The Things They Didn't Tell Me...

Having given birth 7 weeks ago, it's still a hot topic among my pregnant and thinking-of-being-pregnant friends. They like to know the nitty gritty details about pregnancy, labour, birth and babies to perhaps mentally prepare themselves and yes, it's as painful as they say. Describing a few of my experiences however, it became apparent that the same things to everyone were unknown and sometimes gross and downright shocking. 

I didn't know a lot about pregnancy or childbirth myself either. Sure I knew your feet would swell or your hormones would be so outrageous even you would be scared of them, but as for the finer details and lesser known facts, my most frequent phrase was, "Is this normal?" A lot of the time when you're pregnant and especially now that I have a baby you always feel like you are the only one out there going through the motions. You're not. Everything I experienced was normal, I just didn't know!

I had the books and read the blogs, but it seems I missed a few things. There are many more weird facts but the ones below actually happened to me;

1. You can get pregnancy gingivitis

Painful and bleeding gums. Yuck. All attributed to those lovely hormones. Worst part though is when you go to have your teeth clean post birth. I can still hear the drill....

2. Your waters don't all 'gush out' like they do in the movies

I felt like an elastic band was 'twanged' inside me then a very warm and wet sensation. But it was only a few tablespoons worth. As the labour progressed and the contractions became more intense, more water was released.

3. When you go into labour, your bowels completely empty to make room for the baby's head

I didn't actually know I was in labour for the first 8 hours because of this fact. I thought it was 'poopy-pains' due to a bad piece of meat at dinner the previous night. 

4. You can be constipated for a week after childbirth

Try three weeks. Metamucil and prunes were my best friends. I still get excited these days when I have a movement.

5. Baby girls can sometimes have a 'pseudo-period' shortly after birth

Probably the scariest moment of my mummy life so far was seeing that little red smear in her nappy. This doesn't occur with all little girls but after speaking to my midwife and checking google I was satisfied I could calm down. Apparently because she had been absorbing big lady hormones for 9 months, then was rudely and suddenly cut off from them, her body shed a lining because thats where all the unwanted hormones were. 

6. Producing breast milk is a painful process

First it's the sensitivity issue and having a human squeeze the living daylights out of them. Then they blister, peel, bleed and scab. And this is all in the first three days before your milk comes in. THEN they get as hard as rocks and expand larger than Pamela Anderson circa 2004. This lasts for about 48 hours and if you're lucky like me, your baby will yank on your nipple so hard it bruises. 

7. While breastfeeding, you wont normally have a period

Perks

8. Contractions were more painful than pushing her out

Her body actually leaving the birth canal was a piece of cake compared to the hour before.

9. You'll have an umbilical cord hanging out of you for up to an hour

They give you an hour to naturally expel the placenta but if you don't you either get a little needle jab in the leg or hope the walk to the bathroom enables gravity to help. My husband and I officially have no mystery left in our marriage. 

10. You get uncontrollable shakes

Like you're in Alaska wearing a bikini. Except you're not cold. Lasts through labour and a couple hours after. 

If these are old news to you, you lucky duck, why didn't you tell me. If these are new facts I hope you will now not be unpleasantly surprised and if you have a few little known "wtf's" of your own, please leave a comment below. xx

Gluten Free Gingerbread Cookies

Normally I am too lazy and hungry to get past the cookie dough stage in baking, but seeing as Christmas is nearing and I have this weird need to be motherly I wanted to try my hand at a holiday favourite. Gingerbread cookies to me taste like happiness. They remind me of the white snowy winters we would have living overseas and snuggling up by the heater Christmas morning. Here, the sweltering heat will more likely cook them before making it to the oven and you're more likely to wash them down with a cold beer than a mug of hot chocolate but they still represent Christmas to me. 

Seeing as my family and everyone else these days are coeliacs I wanted to trial a gluten free gingerbread recipe. A lot of gluten free biscuits I find however are either too dry and fall apart or you have to mix ten types of rice, corn or almond flour together. As mentioned, I am lazy. So I searched around for a recipe that pretty much just substituted the one flour ingredient but still maintained some type of texture. 

I thought I would also share a small review of this recipe after making and tasting them so you don't have to waste your time making cookies that crumble like dust. These don't, FYI. 

Ingredients

• 2 cups gluten-free flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 egg
• 125 g butter
• 1/4 cup golden syrup
• 1/2 cup brown sugar

Method

1. In a bowl cream the butter and brown sugar
2. Add golden syrup and egg and mix till combined
3. Ina separate bowl sift together all the dry ingredients, then add to the wet ingredients
4. Mix together and then refrigerate for 1 hour 
   
5. Remove dough from refrigerator and place onto a floured surface and knead lightly
6. Roll out to 5mm thickness then cut into shapes using cookie cutters
7. Bake in 170 degree celsius oven for approx 15 minutes or till well browned 
   
8. Leave to cool on trays for 5 minutes then transfer to cooling racks
9. When cool ice with icing 

Review & Thoughts

• I thought I would need to tweak a few things to get the nicest texture or flavour but honestly this recipe is so simple and delicious there's no changes required; just a couple tips I wish I knew before making them. 
• I would knead for the shortest time possible as the dough warms up extremely quickly then its hard to transfer onto the baking tray. 
• And while one tray is baking, I would recommend putting the unused dough back into the fridge to harden back up so the next shape cutting is easy. 
• For chewy cookies, cook for about 12-13 minutes. For harder, cook for the recommended 15-17 minutes or until well browned. 

DIY: Up-Cycle Your Old Greeting Cards

For a lot of the birthday, christmas, valentine and other greeting cards I have received over time I tend to hoard and box away for sentimental reasons. I never refer to them; only re-reading them once a decade when I happen to stumble across them during another house move. I feel that if I threw them away, I would be discarding the well wishes that were written with care by those who I love. 

A couple months ago I was perusing the interweb as I do, and came across an incredibly sweet and creative article post on Good Housekeeping about different 'things' to frame to create your own wall art. After our engagement, wedding, pregnancy announcment and birth, we had accumulated an extensive collection of cards. Rmemebering the post, I decided to put them to good use. 

I thought I would share a brief How-To to obtain a very unique piece of art in your house and show you what I ended up doing in my own home. For the purpose of the tutorial, I made it small-scaled but depending on how many cards you have, it can be as small or as large as you like. 

The first step is to choose a shape to cut out. This can be anything; a butterfly, star, heart, geometric shapes, flower, animal, etc. I chose a heart. I used a post-it note and drew an outline of the shape/template on it so that I could simply stick on top of the card I was using. For a heart, I folded the post-it over so that I was symmetrical. 

Here, I simply cut out the hearts without having to draw ontop of the cards. This ensures the template stays in place. Do this for as many as you need. If the 'stickiness' wears off, copy the shape onto a fresh post-it. 

Choose a frame size that can accommodate the number of shapes you have. As mentioned, for this tutorial I had only two so I used a small frame. For a backing colour I simply applied a pink sheet of paper. The glue is to stick them to the paper so they don't move while you are adjusting everything (a lot more helpfull with a larger frame)

The End Result

It's not very hard or high tech to create and if anything it's a lovely rainy day craft idea. If you have any simple craft ideas of your own that you think I would enjoy please let me know or leave a link! Being on maternity leave gives me a little more time to tinker. 

This is what I had created a few months ago out of our wedding cards:

I also included our wedding invitations in two of the hearts and a picture of Eddie and myself. 

1 Week Post Partum

Firstly, I wanted to point out this is not a guide of what you should or should not do post birth to lose weight or get back your body. Each mother's speed of recovery depends on several factors such as weight gained during pregnancy, how active you are, genes, if you breastfeed and if this is your first baby. I simply want to share my experiences and recovery so far. 

40 weeks pregnant 

Over the course of the 9 months I gained a total of 12kg. 48 hours after giving birth, I weighed myself and found that I had lost about 6.5kg from the birth. As of today, I lost a further 1.5kg. Most of this loss I attribute to genes. There are however a few things I do to ensure I am getting the most out of my recovery:

Exercise

I have not done any rigorous activity. The most I do is fold laundry and walk around in circles nursing Elliot to sleep. Before I can start any sort of work out I need to make sure my body has healed. 

Because your abdominal muscles split during pregnancy and because I had perineal stitches, throughout the day I do my pelvic floor exercises while simultaneously doing the following to aid in closing the gap:

•  Keep your lower back flat
• Breathe out and draw your belly button back towards your spine. Your lower back shouldn't flex or move. 
• Hold this position and breathe lightly. Count to 10. 
• Relax and repeat up to 10 times per set
• Do 10 sets, as many times per day as you can. 

Elliot's sleeping is quite scheduled so I am able to get about 5 hours a night and about 2-3 hours in the day. 

Diet

I keep myself extremely hydrated. I drink about 4 litres of water a day - especially when I am breastfeeding. Which, itself speeds up my metabolism.

My diet has not changed much since before giving birth. See details of my daily diet here. 

Products

I looked into getting one of those belly bands or recovery shorts but I thought their price was a little too outrageous for my liking. I shopped around as I always do and found that you can get almost the equivalent on Ebay for a fraction of the price. I also ended up purchasing leggings that I actually saw on a TV infomercial. They are called the Slim and Tone Leggings. Learn more about them here. 

One Week Post Partum

I found that these leggings aided in the contracting of my uterus back into shape and has helped alongside my exercises to mend my abdominal muscles. I highly recommend them!

For my skin itself, I try to keep it as hydrated as possible. I moisturise after each shower - no particular cream at the minute and alternate between bio oil and moisturiser. In the shower however I like to use Frank Body Scrub a couple nights a week. I find this really does invigorate my skin and even though I didn't get stretch marks, I have noticed a difference in my skin elasticity. 

For now, I am not looking to get my 'body back' or to try and get stuck into working out. I am happy getting to know my new baby and when I feel like it, I may start with walking then later on post an exercise routine when my abs are healed.