But I Don’t Have Time to Recover!
From the moment I gave birth, my to-do list has been full. Here are the tasks that had to do for the first two weeks after the birth just to recover from delivery.
- Drink 2 cups of Ruckbildungs tee. Each 30 gram package of this German “recovery tea” contains a mixture of 3 herbs: 10g of Melissa leaves, 15 g Alpine Lady’s-Mantle, and 5 g of Shepherd’s Purse. You steep one teaspoon of the mixture in one cup of water for 10 minutes.
- Take two 15 minute sitzbads with Epsom salts infused with essential oils to treat all my sores “down there.” The point of a sitz bad or “sitting bath” is to treat the perinium and hemerroids with a good soak while ensuring that water doesn’t enter the vagina.
- At least twice a day, do kegels for five minutes while lying on my stomach.
Altogether these tasks would have taken an hour of my waking life broken up into lots of little time chunks. Still, I couldn’t do it. Luckily, it wasn’t an all or nothing list of tasks. Usually, I managed one sitzbad and one cup of tea and still got to feel better. The tea helped with constipation and the sitzbads helped sooth everything I couldn’t sit on.
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Infancy
5 opinions for But I Don’t Have Time to Recover!
Babylune
May 29, 2006 at 6:36 am
[…] Baths for the first three weeks (sitzbads, baths where you sit upright to treat birth-related injuries with special epsom salts and herbs are OK) […]
Babylune » OK, this plan is do-able
Aug 30, 2006 at 1:43 am
[…] The first few weeks that I was home alone with two kids, I remember feeling like I didn’t have time to recover from childbirth, let alone take care of my general health. […]
Babylune » A Letter to My Sister
Sep 29, 2006 at 5:58 am
[…] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Related Posts: # 21. Top Three Things…State of Mind…FeelingUsed…Clothes that Shrink With Me…How to Help…Wait! Those are Muscles!…Or, Mummy Really Is Perfect… […]
Babylune
Aug 4, 2007 at 4:26 am
[…] It doesn’t get easier, but you do get used to it. Technorati Tags: motherhood stress, serenity nowShare This […]
#33. Sad, But True Speed Links for Saturday
Jan 12, 2008 at 12:09 pm
[…] to new mothers, you probably don’t have time to do everything you should to take of yourself. I recommend outsourcing as much of it as possible. […]
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: