8 Days In

I love the health care system here.

We have had, so far, three visits from a midwife to check on things and answer any questions which may have come up. Along with practical advice on baby care, we get the extremely important outside viewpoint about progress, not only for the baby, but also for MWF.

One of the things which we did not spend much time thinking about prior to the birth was the amount of time it would take to recover from it. There is also the issue of the body (and I am talking here about MWF's) continuing to change and adapt to the new circumstances.

Not only is there healing of the episiotomy to be done, having the milk come in has also been painful. Having the baby start to feed regularly has also been painful. We expect that this will pass (it must, I think), but it is still just stuff that didn't really occur to us as being a painful part of the normal process. Mastitis, yes, likely painful (we have it on good authority but hope never to be able to empathize). Non-mastitic, regular feeding pain? Yeowch (but improving).

Having someone come in from outside our little bubble to tell us that this is normal, and will pass - priceless.