I can’t believe my son is 6 weeks old today! Time is really flying - and the days are hard when I can’t find much time to do anything - Nathan is having some clingy mom time and doesn’t want me to ever put him down. I was doing some reading on some blogs and message boards that this is common for this age - the baby is still getting used to being out in the world and not being so cozy in moms womb! So Nate’s been fussy and never wants to be put down which = I. Get. Nothing. Accomplished.

That includes basic necessities like, um, eating meals and drinking water. It’s a lot easier to pick on something pre-made, or grab a piece of fruit, or make my go-to smoothie!


I used to drink a smoothie everyday but as always, things like that come and go. But when I need a quick and easy and healthy meal, sometimes a shake is all I can get.

Frozen fruit is your best friend as a busy person - who has time to make sure they have fresh fruit that hasn’t gone bad when you need it the most? I’m still not taking the baby out in public much, so going to the grocery store is still a little iffy. We always have frozen blueberries and strawberries so I add about a cup of each into my nutribullet cup! (I usually add a banana but I forgot today - woops)

Next is almond milk. I use Almond Breeze but feel free to be healthier than that. I know there are better options out there - any recommendations leave them in the comments! I add enough milk to cover the berries to make sure the consistency isn’t too thick.

Since I don’t get much nutrition during the day, I like to add a scoop of protein powder. I use the Orgain sweet vanilla - I LOVE this protein powder! It tastes so good and adds some texture to the smoothie.

And finally, a big scoop of all natural peanut butter - and blend!

I gained about 43 pounds while pregnant - for reference, I am 5’7” and was relatively average to thin prior to pregnancy, so my doctor wasn’t concerned with me going over the 35 pound “threshold” you might have read about if you’re pregnant or have been pregnant. I’ve lost about 25 of those pounds already without much trying! But I’m sure not eating well and lack of sleep has contributed to that. My stomach went down pretty well so far but I still have a lot of work to do before I feel comfortable again. I definitely want to “get back” to my old clothes, don’t get me wrong. But I’m not naive enough to think it will happen overnight. And I want to make sure I do it the healthy way! I definitely have to start meal prepping to make sure I am putting the right things in my body and not living on coffee and bananas. I’ve been walking and I plan on doing some yoga at home to get my exercise in, too!




What are your guys favorite postpartum meals and exercises that got you feeling good after baby? Let me know !

Xx Sara

It feels weird to be back writing here - I haven't put up a post since January 2017! How crazy! Social media took a back seat for me in 2017 - between buying our new home and selling our old one, getting pregnant and enjoying life, somehow social media seemed like a chore and I was no longer enjoying it the way I once did. I think after seeing social media change over the past couple of years, I stopped feeling inspired and started feeling pressure to make content... but still stay true to myself. But that's another post.

Blogging/writing in general has always been something that I love and I'm excited to get back to it. Leave me any suggestions on topics that you are looking for! Any inspo is appreciated :)



My son came into this world on February 28th, 2018, just after midnight. It was a grueling couple of days from being induced on a Monday afternoon to having him on Wednesday morning. Thank god for my husband or I don't know if I would have made it through it, physically, mentally and emotionally. While I'm so over the moon with love now five weeks later, the beginning was not what it's all cracked up to be - in the movies OR what your family and friends try to tell you. I feel like it's important to hear it from someone who didn't have such a "perfect" time with the whole process... because if anyone needed some validation during the first couple of weeks, it was me. And I hope I can maybe help another woman who may be going through the same thing and just tell her, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.


Induction is NO JOKE

At 40 weeks 4 days, I went to the doctor to monitor the baby since I was past my due date and the monitor showed that baby boy's heartbeat wasn't ideal. They sent to the hospital right away to continue getting monitored and possibly get induced.

Andddd... I was induced that night.

The drugs started working in conjunction with my natural contractions and I started to experience the REAL pain of contractions that mom warned me about. Think of the worst period cramp you've EVER had, and then being punched in the stomach, but pretend the punch lasts a full minute. It's a doubled over type of pain that I wasn't sure what it would feel like, until it hit me like a ton of bricks.

After 12 hours, I still wasn't dilating any more. Later that day, they introduced "the balloon". If you really want to know the details of what that means, ask your doctor - the truth about this balloon is that might be more painful than parts of the actual pushing the child out. I was hyperventilating in pain and thank god for Jon because he was able to physically help me from jumping off of the table during the process. If you have to be induced, this is a really really effective procedure to get your cervix to dilate. But it fucking hurts. And it feels like your cervix is being stabbed inside without any relief for a good 10+ minutes. During that process, I was regretting being pregnant at all and was wondering if I had it in me to do this.

Bliss? ... Not quite. 

 The pain of labor at 12AM with no food for 12+ hours and no sleep for two days was just the icing on top of an overwhelming experience, but when I finally heard the doctor say "OK, He's here!" and I heard my son cry, I looked over at my husband with a sigh of relief that the pushing was over, and I was instantly elated. The doctor and nurses were telling me how proud they were of me, and what a great job I did and I felt relieved that I was through it. My husband broke down in tears as they laid my son on top of me and when I saw him I couldn't believe my eyes. In that moment, I was so proud, so happy, and so so tired. It was one of the most beautiful moments I will ever have in my life, that's for sure. I thought things were going to stay this perfect forever. After about 30 minutes, once my mom, dad and mother in law were able to see us, my husband and son were whisked away to the nursery and I was sitting there attempting to recover from what just happened.

Without going into all of the gory details, your body attempts to adjust from the labor and birth. There were plenty of times (even during the induction process) where I said to myself, "There is no way I can do this again" just from experiencing the excruciating pain and discomfort. I couldn't imagine going through this process again to give my son a sibling.

Once we got into recovery, everything changed a bit. The excitement from the labor and delivery area of the hospital that I loved so much (the nurses and the doctor were amazing!) turned into a cold harsh reality that I was now a mother to a human being and I had to take care of him starting 10 minutes ago. The recovery nurses helped, but their demeanor was so different than the nurses I had before my son got here. They were colder and expected more from me than I was ready for. I realized really soon after getting into recovery that things were about to get a lot harder than I thought.


Breastfeeding is not for everyone

I'm not sure if this happens for everyone, and I really hope not, but in the hospital, the nurses ask you 100 times if you are going to breastfeed or give formula. Once I said the word "breast...", it was like there was no going back on that. I was super confident that I could breastfeed with no problems - I have a pretty good pain tolerance, and things usually come pretty easy for me, so why not? I have never been more wrong.

My mom warned me about how she couldn't breastfeed very successfully and I just figured I had more of a will than she does. The first time I tried it, it was not bad. Hours and hours later? It became more painful each time and no matter how many lactation consultants came into my hospital room to "help" me, it wasn't getting any easier. The second night we were there, my son was feeding for 8 hours with almost no breaks. He clearly wasn't getting much food, and none of us were getting ANY sleep. His jaundice was worsening because he wasn't able to poop which is essential for babies. You have to record their diapers on a little piece of paper and when the chart wasn't getting filled out, the nurses were asking why. I finally told Jon and the nurses that I think maybe we should give the baby some formula to feed him and to get some rest. The nurses looked at me like I had 10 heads. How dare I not breastfeed when I said I was going to? They told me "Oh, just keep trying." while my nipples were red and cracking and my son was getting drops of food. They kept sending lactation consultants in every time I doubted whether this was the right choice for us. Once my son was screaming at 2am, my husband called the nurses and demanded formula and we all finally got some sleep that night.

It didn't get easier as the days went on. I started feeling anxious every time my baby wanted to eat. Anxious from the pain that was coming, and not knowing how long he would be there. By the time we got home from the hospital, I was bleeding from breastfeeding and I was officially scarred from it. I never wanted my baby near my boob again.

I felt a lot of pressure to breastfeed. I felt guilty that I couldn't do it. I felt responsible that my milk wasn't coming in even by day 4. I was letting my baby down. I was letting my husband down because he really wanted our baby to be breastfed too. And no matter how many times Jon reassured me that it was OK to give our son formula, I felt like I failed. I know now that all of these feelings were propelled by an overwhelming amount of hormones. But they were real, raw feelings at the time that took over my whole head.

Two weeks into pumping my breastmilk, my supply was going down and down until it kind of just stopped. Even though we had been supplementing with formula, not being able to continue to pump made me feel like I was giving up. But at the same time, also gave me a ton of relief. I felt like I had been set free.

After Effects of Birth

No one REALLY tells you how much pain you'll be in after you give birth and how long that pain lasts. I was coming up on three weeks post baby and still having such terrible pain "down there". It was so frustrating to just get up and walk around the house. When you add constant pain on top of sleep deprivation and a completely new lifestyle, anyone is bound to snap a little bit! I think women put a lot of pressure on each other to just talk about how amazing being a mom is and how cute your new little guy or girl is and how incredible you should feel being a mother. Between healing physically and the high running emotions I was having, I wasn't feeling very "blessed". I wanted to cry every time someone asked how we were doing. I didn't really know why I wanted to cry, but I just felt overwhelmed, tired, and I questioned whether or not I was cut out to be a mother. Maybe I was weird for not feeling so happy and joyful. Was I selfish to feel like a prisoner in my own home? Why wasn't I smiling from ear to ear every day? Note to new moms: witch hazel, aloe, and ice pads. I'll just leave a link here.  (This is a really good post!)


By week 3, I started feeling like myself again. My routine with our son started to come together. Sleeping started to get a little easier and my son realized the differences with his days and nights (thank god!) And tomorrow he is going to be five weeks old already! I find myself staring at him in the way that I feel like moms talk about - that googly eyed, loving way, can't live without him kind of way, and still can't believe he's here kind of way. I am so incredibly in love with him and I miss him when he is sleeping or when I leave him with his daddy to go run an errand. But if you are like me, and you didn't get that from the start, you are normal. If you struggled with motherhood in the early weeks or months, you are normal. If you questioned yourself and thought you could have postpartum depression, you are normal. If you end up having postpartum depression, you are normal. Talk about it. Ask for help. Make sure your partner knows how you're feeling. It's all such a big change and to feel unsure about motherhood is OK! If it weren't for my mom and my husband, I really don't know how I would have made it through the entire process. They kept me sane. Becoming a mom was harder for me than I expected. And feeling that way made me feel guilty. But now in a clearer state of mind today, I can tell myself that all of my feelings were completely part of the process that I needed to go through.

If any of you guys are going through a similar thing, I can say it gets better! And eventually you'll be looking at your baby with heart-eyes and wondering where the time is going.

x Sara