Surviving Your Postpartum Season: A 60 Day Guide to Walk with you and your Newborn

By Victoria Archer

As a mom with a newborn, it's hard to remember to shower, let alone focus on your mental and spiritual health.With the many demands upon you, postpartum depression, baby blues, and regular, old mom burnout are things all moms are subject to. Whether you have only heard them mentioned on a pregnancy app or experienced one of these with your previous children, know that it is extremely hard to avoid these low moments of the postpartum season.Surviving Your Postpartum Season is designed to help you maintain your mental and spiritual health by normalizing conversations about daily motherhood experiences. Each day's reading is designed to let you know that you aren't alone in your struggles as a mom with a newborn. Through shared postpartum experiences, tips, encouragement, resources, prayers, and relatable scriptures, this devotional is intended to equip you to hold on to the Lord during the ups and downs, to help you avoid falling into mental and spiritual pitfalls, to help you to get up with hope and a smile when you do fall.Whether you are about to have your first or fifth child, prepare to laugh and cry as you go through the pages of this book. Hopefully, you will read something that will transform your postpartum season and equip you to encourage the next new mom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685709297

Book preview

cover.jpg

Surviving Your Postpartum Season

A 60 Day Guide to Walk with you and your Newborn

Victoria Archer

ISBN 978-1-68570-928-0 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68570-929-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Victoria Archer

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Day 01—Recovering

Day 02—Vaginal Delivery

Day 03—Cesarean Delivery

No Perfect Delivery

Day 04—Decisions… Decisions…

Day 05—Breastfeeding

Pumping Exclusively

Bonus Break #1

Day 06—Pause and Pray

Day 07—Miscommunication

Day 08—Last Down, First Up

Day 09—By Myself

Day 10—Postpartum

Bonus Break #2

Day 11—Double-Minded

Day 12—Cheers to You

Day 13—Cabin Fever

Day 14—What's That Smell?

Day 15—I Forgot

Day 16—First-Time Mom

First-Time Mom

Day 17—Poop on My Finger

Day 18—The Colicky Baby

Day 19—The Secret Sauce

Day 20—You Are Important

Day 21—Spit-Up Down My Shirt

Day 22—In-Laws

Day 23—Separation Anxiety

Day 24—Nagging

Day 25—Tired

Day 26—Today Is a Good Day

Day 27—Runaway

Bonus Break #3

Overcoming

Day 28—Give Thanks

Day 29—Baby Bod

Bonus Break #4

Day 30—Talents

Day 31—Tunnel Vision

Day 32—Siblings

Day 33—Juggling

Day 34—Me Time

Bonus Break #5

Day 35—Getting Closer

Day 36—Always Late

Day 37—Leaky Situation

Day 38—Self-Doubt

Day 39—Sexual Intimacy

Day 40—It's Not About You

Day 41—Priorities

Day 42—God Is Here

Day 43—Influence

Day 44—Stay-At-Home Mom, Burnout

Day 45—Working-Mom Guilt

Day 46—Work-from-Home Mom

Day 47—Laundry

Day 48—Dishes

Day 49—Asking for Help

Day 50—Friends

Postpartum Depression Is Real

Phone a Friend

Scriptures for Strength and Encouragement

Journal

About the Author

Introduction

Congratulations on your new baby!

Whether you're a new mom or a seasoned mom, childbirth is never an easy task. Each delivery and recovery is unique, with its own set of victories and challenges. So let's just take a minute and say, Yay, you! You did it! Whether you are home with your new little one or in the NICU, you have overcome the task of childbirth. At this point, most of your attention now, and even before delivery, has been focused on how to take care of your little one; but I'm here to shift your focus onto you for just a short minute each day. More than ever before, you will need God to walk with you each day to get through this postpartum season.

As you navigate taking care of your baby, physically recovering, and juggling/delegating tasks with your significant other, you will need the Holy Spirit to lead and guide you. You will need the Holy Spirit to give you divine insight and direction. This hard season in life is a prime opportunity for Satan to create dissension in your closest relationships (specifically marriages) and derail your mental health.

I was trying to adjust to having a little human needing me for survival 24/7, figuring out how to care for this baby and my healing body, not being able to leave the house whenever or however I chose, enduring endless days and sleepless nights, facing my first time not working since I was sixteen, experiencing my first time not being in school since I was four, and so many other things. The last thing I was anticipating was an enemy lurking around trying to capitalize on all of these experiences in an effort to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10). He came to kill my self-confidence, to steal my joy, and to destroy my marriage.

During each of my postpartum seasons, this is a battle I have faced many times. As a person who has a lot of grit and can go days without sleeping, I'd like to think that I handled the first few weeks after childbirth pretty well. Well, with the exception of battling breastfeeding for the first time with my daughter. Yet after a few months of sleepless days and nights running together, I experienced a fog come over my mind. My emotions would lead me to lashing out at my husband. I'd go from being happy one moment to crying about how I wished my life was different. I'd plan scenarios of running away. My mind was consumed with rants and attacks against my husband. At one point, I even told my husband to just leave me and the kids alone and go on with life without us.

It took a lot of prayers from my husband to bring me out from the depths of postpartum depression. I cannot even express how grateful I am to have a praying husband. I'm even more grateful that my husband was connected to God enough to recognize that the anger spewing out of my mouth was the result of postpartum depression. Although my words hurt him to the core, he swallowed his pride and got onto his knees in prayer on my behalf. He gently encouraged me to seek counseling. I am most grateful that he didn't give up on me.

I assume the hardest part for my husband was battling this season alone. No one else knew the battle that was occurring in my mind and within our marriage. I looked normal from the outside. Yet behind closed doors I was a complete mess, and our marriage was hanging on by a thread.

As you can imagine, each subsequent pregnancy was met with excitement and fear of what the postpartum season would bring. Would my husband lose his wife every time we had a baby? During the last trimester of my third pregnancy, my husband and I made a plan to commit to praying with each other every day to keep my mind sane. Six weeks after my third child was born, I found myself in the fetal position under the covers having a panic attack. My newborn's colic spells had ranged from 9:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. every night. And one night, it broke me. Yet I remember saying to myself, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13). Then it dawned on me that I should have been consuming my mind with scriptures all along. I needed to be on the offense and not the defense. I should be bold in Christ and not fearful of postpartum depression.

The result of this revelation is this postpartum devotional. This devotional was crafted during my third postpartum season. After enduring a day with my little ones, the Lord would whisper to me, Now, go journal about this day so I can use your experience to help other women. I am on a mission to be obedient to my Lord and Savior and help you avoid postpartum depression through daily prayer and scriptures. As I address many challenging scenarios and emotions that are shared among moms, I pray each daily devotional will leave you feeling a little more hopeful and a little less alone.

So let us laugh and cry together on this journey of maintaining your mental, emotional, and spiritual health with shared experiences, daily scripture, and prayer.

You are not alone! God is walking alongside us!

Day 01—Recovering

Recovering

Your Body, Mind, and Emotions

OMG! What was that? I guess the saying is true. Nothing can truly prepare you for childbirth, for no experience is the same.

Whether your childbirth experience was an unexpected walk in the park or a complete nightmare, you are recovering! You are in the midst of a recovery process, physically, mentally, and emotionally. The obvious fact is that your body is recovering from months and months of hormonal and physical adjustments which culminated into a grand finale of childbirth. What's less obvious is the internal recovery your body endures. Although the initial pains of childbirth may subside over the first few weeks, your internal organs, tissues, muscles, and hormones are still trying to find their place again. And they will continue to do so for about eighteen months.

What goes almost completely disregarded is the emotional trauma you may have experienced. Did you go into labor quickly and deliver before you could make it to the hospital? Did your baby take forever and have to be induced, resulting in a two-day labor? Did your baby come before the doctor/midwife could get there? Were you held at a doctor's appointment unexpectedly and required to have an emergency C-section? Did you labor for hours at home and/or in the hospital? Were you in the hospital for more than three days? Did your baby have to go to the NICU? Did you have to undergo further medical treatment? Were you faced with the decision to save yourself or save your baby? Did your baby have jaundice and had to be held in the hospital a few more days?

Whatever your story is, it has made an emotional imprint on you. As you recover, I