About a week after I’d been home from the hospital with my firstborn, I went nuts. I desperately wanted to go out into the world but was still in too much pain. My husband had to work, so that meant his parents would come to help me.
The only problem with that was that our apartment wasn’t gigantic. And that my mother-in-law made me foods I didn’t want to eat. Ok, so that’s more than one problem. 🙄
When you’re stuck inside with people you don’t speak their native language fluently enough to converse with, and you’re not eating what you want, it makes you grouchy. REALLY grouchy. I could talk enough to tell them what I needed, but I couldn’t have a conversation about music or movies or anything interesting. And in the grand tradition of all Chinese moms, my mother-in-law kept asking me about food.
So, you can probably guess how thrilled I was when one of my fellow American expat friends offered to come by and cook for me. I couldn’t wait until Janice showed up.
Once she did, she took over my kitchen like a true southern girl. She found her way through it like she’d been in my house dozens of times. But there was one thing she couldn’t readily find, so I went to help her.
I went to look in a cabinet below my knees and started to bend when she grabbed me up with force like you’d do to a child before they stepped out into oncoming traffic.
“No bending! I’ll look!” she’d ordered. 😐
Then, a pause. “Leslie, what IS this?” she inquired. I started to bend again, and she corrected me again, elevating the curious object so it was now on the counter.
“It…it…it looks like old tea? Used cooking oil?” I ventured.
“Something disgusting is what it is,” Janice said. We agreed. My in-laws had, for whatever reason shoved a juice glass of a vile liquid into the cabinet and left it there for an undetermined amount of time. 😮
That definitely had me in no hurry to bend over and discover anything else.
But there were times I had to go low and was on my own. So what did I do?
I squatted
In China, they have squatty potties, as we call them, merely a hole in the ground fashioned from porcelain. I had to get used to squatting, especially when out in public. During my pregnancy, I felt like I had to pee all the time, so I was well-versed in squatting. When I dropped things, I’d just squat to get them.
Turn around
Before a c-section, you can twist and turn. During recovery, though, that’s not a good idea. If that makes sense, you’ll have to physically move your body, feeling like a big tank in a corner. You’ll need to move your whole body rather than turn at the waist if you’re sitting. Or you can hopefully use a desk chair to make turning much more comfortable.
Use tongs
I also got creative by using our tongs from the kitchen whenever I dropped something. Honestly, that was the more fun way. Perhaps getting the Reacher Grabber would be ideal for you. If you’re planning on a c-section and anyone asks you what you want for a gift, ask for it. You’ll find tons of uses for it after this, anyway.
Hopefully, these tips help keep you out of pain as you get back to normal life after a c-section!
Leslie Berry lives with her husband and two young daughters in Los Altos, California, where she loves helping other moms get comfortable with motherhood and embracing the insanity with facts peppered with laughs.
