Yesterday was my first official day back to work (I'll tell you about how that went later), and with that it's time for me to start writing about my Postpartum Celebration. 

It was hardly a celebration. In fact there were many aspects of it I would call excruciating and tortured. We struggled, it was hard, I was very sick and had an emergency c-section. They told me that if I had been an hour later to the hospital things may have turned out very differently - they didn't mean in the good way. I cannot think of a single thing that happened or turned out the way I expected but for one exception:

My daughter is perfect. We call her Queen Wiggles. When I was pregnant we called her Super Jiggly. Being born warranted a title upgrade. 

I'm coming out of my 42 days with a whole world of experience I didn't know existed and certainly didn't expect. I look at my first two posts and sigh at my naiveté, my hope, the joy, anticipation - I wanted the perfect crunchy-momma experience. I was dancing and singing to Gillian Welch (the old stuff) and the Dragon Age 2 sound track, we had a crackling fire, everything was so perfect and then suddenly it wasn't. But more on that later. I'll write up my birth experience in the next week or so.

And since we're just getting back into the swing of things let me just give a list of the topics I intend to discuss. You may note, it's very different than the list I originally offered:

• What to do when you have no placenta to encapsulate - an exploration of herbs, spices, acupuncture, and warm oils.
• What to do when all your parents go crazy and you have to send them home - a celebration of setting boundaries and establishing priorities.
• Eating the first week - foods to encourage the bowels and warm the heart, yes, at the same time.
• Cooking the first week - if you've never done it, Ayurvedic cooking is very complicated. [see also Parents go crazy]
• Eating around the 4th week - there is such thing as too much cardamom.
• When your spouse rocks the hardest thing they've ever done.
• Body image readjustment tools - there is a new sexy, I swear, it's sexy, or it will be soon, just give it a couple weeks.
• Now what do I do - 5lbs of moong dahl and 15 spices I'm not sure what to do with.
• PP Doulas - things I never expected to experience while having strangers in my home for 42 days. 
• Symptoms/concerns I never expected - itching, sore joints, flu like, itching, itching, itching, my god the itching was insane, sharp pains at incision site, dry skin, feet wont bend, breast yeast (that should get its own post)
• Breast Yeast or Thrush - call it what you like I call it #&$%&(*
• Chinese herbs for baby immediately after birth (this was amazing)
• Home visits - ND, Acupuncturist, and midwives all came to the house during my 42 days. The OB would not.
• Explaining your PP care plan to the hospital.
• "Failed Home Birth"is on my permanent record - why not say "Home Birth Transfer?"
• Professional PP counseling
• Vitamins
• Co-sleeping - this is how we do it
• Waiting to complain - the hospital did some things that they shouldn't've, we'll dialogue this in the birth story.
• Not being Draconian about the PP plan - trust.

I suspect it will take me a while to get to all these topics. My goal is to create a resource that may help folks have postpartum celebrations. If not a celebration - a warm, healing, nourishing postpartum while minimizing stress and discomfort.