The Postpartum Trimester – the Trimester Where the Mother Bonds With the Baby

By shambhavi - Updated: April 1, 2020

We all have heard about the three trimesters of pregnancy, but nobody talks about the most intense trimester which awaits after that. Same way as no one shows the life after ‘Happily Married’ in movies.

The Fourth Trimester-

A period of three months where you question your decision of being a mother (the most). The time when your body gives up on you but you need to comprehend the baby’s signs and its needs round the clock. A span of time when you get advised the most about how to handle your baby.

For me, those three months were the hardest three months of my life and will always be.

It is said that you feel the instant connection as soon as you hold the baby but I didn’t get to hold him that long. I had a C-section so was bed-ridden for 2 days. When I was in a position to hold him, he was admitted to the NICU due to high levels of Jaundice. The days and nights were on stand-by waiting calls from the NICU to feed him. As he was too weak to suckle in what he needed, the cycle of every two hours of pumping started, to help the let-down and later to relieve my engorged breasts.

Once he was back home, fully recovered, I was all ready to enjoy the motherhood like my pregnancy but I was stuck in an endless loop of breastfeeding and the Do’s and Don’ts.

Every now and then after an hour long feeding session, it was time to change the wet nappy. As soon as I dozed off, I was woken up by the meek cry of hunger. My nipples would hurt as he was biting onto them and after almost a month, I realised that I was latching him wrong. We were struggling with the latching and were trying different positions to help us both, but the elders couldn’t resist telling me how new techniques were useless and theirs were the best.

I had read that breastfeeding makes you loose weight faster but that hanging belly and the outgrown hips were not loosing an inch even after feeding and expressing the milk round the clock. Stretch marks were engulfing my tummy, hips and thighs and even my breasts.

I was so exhausted that I wanted to go back in time when I was pregnant. The third trimester looked so much better now.

If I were to have a second baby, I would happily repeat the entire process minus the Fourth Trimester!

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