Three Weeks Postpartum + Boob Trouble

The next few blog posts and videos on vegan pregnancy, birth and baby are going to be in a weird order... Kind of reflects life right now - three weeks postpartum, there's no day or night and I have no idea which meal is breakfast and which is dinner! I'm just going to blog what I can when I have time between feeds and staring at our little daughter's ever-growing double chin. I'll probably also be writing in 5-minute chunks, so please bear with me if nothing seems to flow :')

So we're currently three weeks in, and time is passing quicker than ever. Chia is sleeping fine for a newborn (waking every couple of hours to feed) and breastfeeding is going well.

Having said this, we had a hooorrible 24 hours a couple of nights ago where I very quickly developed a plugged milk duct - my boob got engorged, went all hard and gross, red and inflamed and it hurt so much to feed her that I was sat crying in pain and wishing I could swap the experience for pushing her head out again. I had no idea boobs could bring on that level of pain!

I then got a low fever and was shaking; I ended up getting nipple shields and a manual pump from the pharmacy as soon as it opened at 7am.

I pumped 100ml which she drank in about 3 minutes (while thrashing and screaming at the bottle which she apparently hates) and then she demanded more, so I fed her on the good boob and later started using the nipple shield on the inflamed one.

I had twenty minutes' sleep that night and felt physically and emotionally drained the next day. We are so lucky to have friends and family who helped us around the clock (Peppe had to work away from morning to night) with food, baby cuddles so I could nap, and lending feeding equipment.

We fed and fed on the bad boob with the shield and now Bad Boob is doing well. (I never thought I'd post updates on my right breast on the internet.)

Anyway apart from this (: (: (:

Everything is going really well! Fitness-wise, I'll be updating on Instagram and through blog posts here about working up my training to what it was pre-pregnancy. I stopped training with my personal training clients around the end of the first trimester, and I continued practising yoga and teaching (non-pregnancy) yoga until 38 weeks pregnant.

Here's what I looked like at 40 weeks pregnant vs what I look like today - I actually went 11 days overdue but didn't take any more pregnancy update photos because I was too busy crying about being overdue :')

I've done pretty much zero exercise in the last three weeks bar short walks with the dog. I was told by the postnatal physio that I'm not allowed to exercise for at least around three months due to having stitches, on top of general guidelines for exercise after pregnancy. She said around 3-6 months is a good guide for high-impact exercise, but she said all of these timeframes might be shortened for me as I was really active previously. I'm aching to run and train again, so will play it by ear and ease into exercise as I feel ready.

We're getting married in 5 months' time, so if you're interested in seeing the fitness journey I'd love to share it with you! My Instagram is @imserenalee and YouTube is /imserenalee :).

Thanks for reading!