A few posts ago I blogged about my strangest pregnancy symptoms that no one told me could happen. Well, I’m here today to share with you some of my strangest (and common) postpartum symptoms that no one warned me about! A couple of these aren’t necessarily symptoms but rather feelings I’ve had postpartum but I thought I would include them in case there is another momma out there feeling the same way!

5.) Sweat: Now this one was on my pregnancy symptom list as well but it definitely needs to be on this post too because I swear I probably sweated out a good 10 pounds in like two days! I remember being in the hospital room and feeling drenched like I had just been sitting outside in the sun and heat for hours. I was soaked! My back literally had beads of sweat running down it and I hadn’t done any sort of exercising. It’s a totally common postpartum symptom. I mean it makes sense right? You’re body has gained all this extra fluid so it’s gotta come out somehow but I did not imagine I could sweat so much and so quickly after giving birth! I swear it was almost immediate. I was in the hospital for two days. When I was admitted I was 175lbs and when I got home I was 153lbs. Nate weighed 8.6lbs at birth so you can do the math! Crazy right!?

4.) Hormones: I was so unbelievably emotional. I would tear up slightly if someone else was holding him. I remember crying in the middle of the night once because he looked so peaceful sleeping. I wasn’t sad or overwhelmed or frustrated either. I just started crying because of how beautiful he looked. I actually cried myself to sleep. I felt embarrassed to tell anyone because I thought they’d think I was losing it. One night I was reading “Love You Forever” and I got through the first “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living, My baby you’ll be” and I choked up! I couldn’t even focus on the words of the next page. Thank god Kurt was tearing up slightly too because it made me feel like o.k. I’m not the only one who can’t handle this book now. I was an emotional wreck for weeks!

3.) Guilt: This I’m sure has to do with hormones as well but I felt (and still do feel) guilty over everything! I lost my baby weight super fast. In fact I’m about 25lbs lighter than I was before I got pregnant. Well, hearing people tell me how skinny I am now has made me feel really guilty. It sounds funny but a lot of those skinny comments came from people I knew who had had babies before me and had had a hard time losing their baby weight. I would hear “You look so skinny! I hate you!” (joking obviously) or “Oh wow! You look so great now! You’re so tiny!” (so what? I didn’t look great before?) things like that. I felt like I was being judged by how fast the weight was falling off me and having people tell me it was “uncommon” to lose weight this quickly made me feel like something was wrong with me. Yes, I feel fantastic now and yes, I do love that I have lost so much weight especially because I’m only 5’3 and I was pushing 147 when I got pregnant but I wasn’t purposely trying to lose it so quickly. I told myself at six months postpartum I would really try to lose the extra weight but when it starting coming off right away I felt like people were assuming I was on some kind of crazy diet or that I was simply starving myself when in fact I wasn’t doing anything. I felt guilty that it just fell off of me yet I knew people who’s babies were over a year and they still weren’t back down to their pre-baby weight. I also feel guilty about some of the “mom choices” I’ve made. Nate still sleeps in his playpen in our room even though he’s six months and could be in his crib. It’s simply out of my laziness that he’s in our room. I don’t want to have to wake up at 3:30am and walk to his room and sit in there to feed him. I have a really hard time falling back to sleep if I actually get up and out of bed so being able to just pick him up and put him back down allows me to get back to sleep easier. I’ve had friends say to me “Really? He’s still in your room?” and then give a “look” like I’m nuts or I’ve had friends say “I must be a bad mom because (so and so) was sleeping in their crib at six weeks”. Well, no. You aren’t a bad mom. You just made a different choice than I’ve made. I know I shouldn’t feel guilty about my choices but I feel like “mom shaming” or “dad shaming” is such a big thing right now that every time I talk about how I’m raising Nate, I think I’m being judged. I’m trying my best not to feel guilty all the time but it’s hard when everyone has their own opinion and theirs might differ from mine.

2.) Hair Loss: So I had been warned that this would occur but silly me at two months postpartum was laughing at how I’d been told my hair was going to fall out as soon as I had my baby. I had absolutely no increased hair loss and figured that everyone was just making it up. But then it happened. For almost three months my hair fell out in handfuls. And I actually mean handfuls! There was hair everywhere! I would have to swept the bathroom floor after I brushed my hair because the floor would be covered! You could pick hair clumps off of Nate after I’d been holding him for a long time. It was unreal! I remember Kurt saying that it was karma for me assuming I’d been spared this symptom. Lucky for me, I have a massive amount of thick hair so you couldn’t actually notice by looking at me just how much had fallen out. My stepsister came over one day and was laughing about how much of my hair was on the living room floor like an hour after I had vacuumed. Thankfully, it only lasted a short while because I’ve read it can last up to an entire year!

1.) I Stink: Seriously. I do. At first it was because of the sweat. Obviously when you perspire you’re going to have some B.O. but what I didn’t realize was that I was going to smell like all those pre-teen boys going through puberty who don’t realize they actually need to wear deodourant! It was awful and it wasn’t like I wasn’t wearing deodourant either! In fact, I would reapply multiple times a day because I smelled so bad. I remember specifically one time I was shoveling the driveway while Nate was napping. I wasn’t working overly hard. In fact there was really only a dusting of snow on the ground I just wanted some fresh air but when I came back inside; holy cow did I ever need a shower! I made myself gag because of my B.O.! And all day that’s all I could smell on myself was my horrendous B.O. that had been burned into my nostrils. I also didn’t realize that breast pads can smell too. So not only did I smell like B.O. but there was also an aroma of sour milk. How pleasant. Nowadays though, the B.O. is under control (thankfully!) and my breasts don’t really leak so no more sour milk, however; this certainly does not mean I smell like a garden of roses. Oh no my friends! Nowadays, I simply smell like baby puke. All day. Every day. I can smell it on myself before, during, and after I shower. I smell it on myself when I’m out and Nate is being babysat. I constantly smell it. I’m pretty sure it’s seeped into the pores on my skin and now that’s just “my scent”.

So there you have it! Some postpartum symptoms to look forward to! Thanks for reading! And please if you’ve had any strange postpartum symptoms I’d love to hear about them!