The 1 Thing Nobody Told Me Happens After You Give Birth

Before I gave birth to my first son, I thought I had prepared myself for all of the possibilities of childbirth and newborn care — I took classes, read books, and even had a birth plan. I felt like I had pretty much covered all my bases, but a couple days after settling in at home with our new little baby, something happened that had me ready to head straight back to the hospital.

I didn't have any major complications during delivery, and I felt as good as can be expected when I was discharged from the hospital two days later. On our second night back at home, I was trying to get some rest of my own after finally getting the baby to sleep, when I realized I was absolutely freezing — teeth-chattering, reaching-for-an-extra-blanket freezing. It was the middle of June and about 80 degrees outside, so I started to worry something was up.

Then, out of nowhere, I began to shake uncontrollably. I held up my hand and it was visibly trembling. My husband was downstairs and I was worried I wouldn't even make it down because I was shaking so badly. I tried calling him a couple times, but he wasn't near his phone so he never heard it. I felt really dizzy and lightheaded, but I didn't want to yell and wake the baby so I waited a few minutes and slowly made my way down the stairs. When I got there, I quickly told him to come because something was wrong.

I got back in bed and told him how freezing I was. He felt my forehead and could tell that I was cold and clammy so he grabbed a thermometer to take my temperature. We were both surprised to see that it was actually super low, about 96.5 degrees. Neither of us had any idea what was going on, but he put socks and a sweatshirt on me and brought me some hot tea to help me warm up. All the while, I was still feeling faint and shaky. We wanted to call my midwife but decided to wait a few minutes to see if things calmed down.

After 10 or 15 minutes, he took my temperature again and it was starting to come back up to normal. I didn't feel fantastic, but I was feeling a little bit better. The shaking finally stopped, and I was able to get some rest. We called my midwife first thing the next morning and she said what happened to me is actually fairly normal. The way she explained it, the "trauma" of childbirth and everything that comes with it (blood loss and rapidly changing hormones, to start) can basically send your body into a state of shock. Even though I was terrified at the time, she acted like it was nothing to worry about as long as it didn't happen again. I'm about to give birth for the second time, and I'm going in with the motto "expect the unexpected."

If you experience symptoms of shock, such as low temperature, shaking, feeling faint, and low heart rate, please contact 911 or your health care provider.