Beth’s Ultimate Guide to Postpartum Care

Friends, gestating a baby is hard. Getting the baby out is ridiculous no matter how you do it. But then you go home and think things will go back to normal. In the last few weeks of pregnancy, you look forward to giving birth so you can get your body back. What you don’t realize is that it will take a while for your body to recover from the epic sh*t storm that is labor. And I mean that literally. You simply won’t believe the amount of feces involved in pushing a baby out of your hoo-ha.

So I’m here to tell you about a few things you may need when you get home with your precious little one.

For your lady bits:

Adult Diapers

  • Wear to the hospital if your water breaks at home because after it breaks, it just keeps coming out because your body keeps making more of it.
  • Wear home from the hospital and for a few days afterward until the bleeding subsides a bit.
  • Wear for fun and fashion!

Giant Pads

  • You’ll need these for a week or two after you stop wearing the adult diapers.

Regular Pads

  • You may need these for several weeks after you stop wearing the giant pads. HOWEVER, they have other uses. Keep reading.
  • **THIS IS IMPORTANT**  A day or three after you get home, you will need to poop, and it will be terrifying. The poop will be hard, and you’ll feel like you are going to bust a stitch getting it out. You probably won’t bust a stitch, but seriously, it’s scary. Your pelvic floor is all stretched out and weak right now, so here’s what you do. Take one of these pads out of the wrapper, fold the wings back, and fold the whole thing in half so the sticky part is on the inside. Press it up against your lady bits to give your pelvic floor some support while you push the poop out. You may pee on your hand, but probably the pad will catch most of it, and after giving birth, you really won’t care about a little hand pee. And getting that poop out will be worth it.
  • Make some padsicles (you can also do this with the giant pads). Open the pad and apply a liberal layer of aloe vera gel all over it. Pour about a teaspoon of witch hazel (alcohol-free) over the aloe vera. Sprinkle on a few drops of lavender essential oil. Wrap the pad in aluminum foil and put it in the freezer. You can probably get all the ingredients at Whole Foods.

Tucks Pads

  • Whether you have hemorrhoids or not, witch hazel is magical.

Ice Packs

  • Steal as many of these from the hospital as you want. You have more than paid for them.

Dermaplast

  • Spray as needed.

Squirt Bottle

  • Steal this bad boy from the hospital. They will surely give you one. Use it EVERY TIME you go to the bathroom. Every time. With warm water. Every time.

Hot Bath

  • Sit in a hot bath (as hot as you can stand) for 10 minutes every day.

Boppy

  • Sit on it (you’ll need to sometimes).
  • Lay your baby on it (it’s ok that you were just sitting on it). You can do this with it around your waist during feedings, or you can lay baby’s head on the pillow and sit his/her butt in the hole so y’all can lounge on the couch together.
  • Prop your arm up with it while you hold your baby.

For pooping:

Colace (Stool Softener)

  • 100 mg at least twice a day. If you need to take 3 a day, that’s fine too.

Milk of Magnesia

  • I hope you don’t need this, but if you do, get the mint flavor, and try just 1 tbsp at first. This stuff is potent. PLEASE don’t wait until you haven’t pooped in 2 days to use this. The longer it stays in there, the worse it’s going to be coming out.

Fleet Glycerine Suppositories

  • If Colace and milk of magnesia aren’t cutting it, and if attempting to poop feels like you are giving birth all over again, Fleet glycerine suppositories may do the trick. Shove one up there, and wait at least 20 minutes. You will feel like you need to poop immediately after you put it in, but wait 20 minutes.

Fleet Enema

  • This is your last resort, but it will work. If you haven’t pooped in 4 days, and you know it’s all backed up in there, but nothing is getting it out, send your husband out for an enema, and while he’s gone, prepare yourself mentally for the test your marriage is about to go through. Then follow the instructions and enjoy the sweet relief.

For breastfeeding:

Something for Your Nipples

  • Nipple butter, lanolin, coconut oil, fancy cooling stickies…whatever floats your boat.

Lactation Cookies

  • There are a million recipes on the internet. Find one you like and chow down!

Pumping Bra

  • Or any other contraption that will let you pump hands-free. For a DIY option, just cut holes in an old sports bra, but make sure it’s one that you can get on over your ginormous nursing boobs.

For your heart/mind:

Hot Bath

  • Sit in a hot bath (as hot as you can stand) for 10 minutes every day, and just cry as much as you need to while someone else pays attention to your baby.

Be Kind to Yourself

  • This looks different for everyone, but I think a pretty universal need we have as new moms is the message that we’re doing ok as moms. It’s ok that you don’t know everything. It’s ok that your baby is crying. It’s ok that you’re tired. It’s ok that you want someone to hold your baby while you take a nap/shower/bath/drive/trip to Target alone. It’s ok that you cry every day. It’s ok that breastfeeding isn’t working. It’s ok that you still look pregnant. It’s ok that you ____________________. Seriously, if you aren’t physically harming anyone, you’re doing fine. Cut yourself some slack because you’re new at this, and it’s going to take some time to adjust. Nobody just knows how to be a mom automatically.

Ask for Help

  • Tell someone you’re struggling.
  • Ask for food.
  • Ask someone to hold your baby so you can take care of yourself.
  • Join a support group.
  • Talk to a counselor or therapist.
  • Call the pediatrician’s emergency nurse line at 3:00 a.m. because your baby “looks weird.”
  • DON’T FEEL BAD ABOUT IT.

Nap Time = Me Time

  • When the baby is sleeping, do whatever you want. Read, take a bath, take a nap, pray, meditate, watch TV, clean. Whatever helps you relieve stress, or whatever you need to do at that moment, do it. Don’t always feel like you have to be doing something “productive.” You don’t. But if cleaning is therapeutic for you, bring your baby to my house during nap time. I’ll take care of him/her.

Patience

I’m still pregnant, which is crazy. After all the worry and energy we spent and all the precautions we took to keep her in, now she’s not coming out even though there’s nothing left holding her in. For those who don’t know, for 22 weeks of my pregnancy, a 5-inch piece of thread was holding my cervix closed. That may be more than you wanted to know about my cervix, but my TMI threshold is pretty high now. At one point, I was dilated above the stitch with almost no cervical length left below it, which is to say that piece of thread is probably the reason I stayed pregnant through the 2nd trimester. That and bed rest, which I was on for 16 weeks.

But now I’m off bed rest, and the piece of thread has been removed, and we were fully prepared (well, as fully prepared as first-time parents can be) to have a baby three weeks ago, but here I am, due date coming up in 2 days, still pregnant. I realized yesterday that even though my due date was still a few weeks away, I had it in my mind that we were going to have a baby when the stitch came out. So now, even though we still haven’t reached the due date, I feel like I’m overdue. Just acknowledging that helps me to calm down, but this waiting is HARD.

The end of pregnancy is a weird, sweet, invigorating, terrifying, anxiety-ridden, exciting time. I guess like any time of transition in life, it’s like being stuck between two worlds, wanting to be in both for different reasons, but not really feeling like you fit in either. As I sit here watching my belly warp and gyrate, I know I’m already a mom. I haven’t seen her face or felt her little fingers wrap around mine yet, but the living, fluid-breathing child inside me is my daughter. She is her own person already, living off of my resources at the moment, but very much not me. She has her own body and personality and future. But as I sit here watching my belly dance, I am also aware of how quiet it is, how alone I am in my living room, and how, in a very short time, that will not be the case again for a while.

Since I went off bed rest, Will and I have gone on as many dates as possible, knowing an evening out, just the two of us, will be a much rarer occurrence soon. We’re trying to enjoy our last days before Baby as much as possible, but at the same time, we’re getting impatient for her arrival. Part of it is the lack of control. We have no idea when labor will start, and that is driving us a little crazy. Part of it is the excitement and relief that everything is ready in time. Now that we have the nursery set up, we don’t know why she wouldn’t want to come. Doesn’t she know we’ve prepared things for her? And part of it is that pregnancy is hard, and even though we know having a baby will also be hard, we both want me to be able to go for long walks again and sleep without 8,000 pillows in the bed with me.

We’re longing for some normalcy even though we know it will look VERY different from before. We’re ready to be out of this temporary state of pregnancy and get started on the new normal of being a family of three. We want to establish routines again, like meal-planning and exercise. We want to establish new routines, like play dates, library outings, feeding schedules, and bedtime. We want, after so much difficulty, heartache, worry, and fear, to get down to the business of being parents.

But we have to wait, and that’s hard. Living in the moment is hard, especially when the moment is always tense and uncertain. Was that a contraction? Was it a real contraction or just Braxton Hicks? How long ago was the last one? Are they becoming regular? Did my water break, or am I just lying in a pool of my own sweat? Is she moving? She’s not moving. I’ll have a snack, and oh there she goes. She’s fine. I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine. I hope everything is ok in there. I hope she comes out safely. I hope I can do this. What if I can’t do this? Stay in there as long as you want. I’m not ready for labor yet. No, I’ll be fine. I was literally made to do this. Ok I’m ready.

But still waiting.

Mixed Emotions Birthday

Yesterday was Ella’s first birthday. It passed fairly quietly with no real attention drawn to it. I didn’t want people to say “happy birthday” because happy is entirely the wrong word, and I knew that any sympathy given would only make me sadder. And we are so, so tired of being sad.

So we spent some time decluttering the guest room that will become baby #2’s nursery, we watched a few episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, I made plans with my family to work on some projects for the baby’s room, my husband played a video game while I wrote a thank-you note and played with my new fancy planner, I looked at Facebook, I looked at Pinterest, I cried a few times because I just couldn’t not, we watched a movie, my sister brought us lasagna, and eventually we went to bed.

I wonder if we should have done more, if we should have released some butterflies or lit a candle or done something meaningful. I wonder if we should have eaten cake or bought her a card or done something celebratory. I wonder if I should feel guilty for not doing any of those things. But I don’t feel guilty. I’m not ready to be meaningful or celebratory yet. It’s been a year (and a doozy of a year at that), and I’m stuck between emotions. I’m not as inconsolable as I was, and I even have a lot of joyful, happy moments, but I can’t yet bring myself to celebrate her too-short life. Maybe in the future we’ll have a family day or a remembrance day, but this year, I just needed to get through it.

And since I don’t believe in “shoulds” when it comes to things like this, I’m going to let my feelings be what they are and that’s that.

Maybe next year, we’ll get to do a cake smash and sing to a toddler. Maybe next year we’ll have a party and invite all our family and friends. Maybe next year I’ll make a big deal out of a first birthday and post pictures on Facebook. But all of that will be for my second daughter. I don’t know how Ella’s second birthday will go. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Innocence Lost

I know too much now.

Pregnancy used to be this mysterious, magical thing that happened to people, and in some ways, it still is. But I will never be able to think of it again in the same way. When people get pregnant on TV shows, all I can think is, “Nope. That’s wrong. That’s totally unrealistic.” And when people look at a positive pregnancy test and say, “We’re gonna have a baby,” I just cringe. I heard a story about a lady who had her nursery fully decorated and ready when she was only 7 weeks pregnant, and I said, “I REALLY hope she brings home a baby because she obviously does not know that losing it is a possibility.”

I know that reality all too well. I was talking to a friend yesterday about the experience of loss in general. A friend of hers was murdered two years ago, so she knows what it’s like to lose someone suddenly, unimaginably. I mentioned the Thestrals from Harry Potter – the horse-like creatures that could only be seen by those who had been touched by death – and I said I really appreciate J.K. Rowling for making those things up because they’re something I can totally understand. Once you’ve experienced a profound loss, you’re just different somehow. You may not see creatures that others can’t see, but you truly do have a different kind of sight.

I know what it’s like to hold a baby for the first and last time. I know the empty feeling that comes in the days and weeks afterward when you should still be carrying life, but you’re not. I know the fight you have when you need hope more than anything, but having it feels like a betrayal of your loss. I know the special combination of excitement and terror you feel from the moment the next pregnancy test is positive. I know how slowly the time seems to pass when every day counts.

I see pregnancy much differently now. I know what’s happening at every week and what the major milestones are. Someone (I can’t remember who, so if it was you, don’t be embarrassed) recently was surprised to learn that pregnant women think in terms of weeks. I said I was 24 weeks pregnant, and they were like, “How many months is that?” Maybe some women think in months. I don’t know. When you think in days, it’s hard to imagine thinking in months. I’m 25 weeks and 4 days today, and I have to think in days because my baby’s chances of survival literally improve with each passing day. If she were born today, she’d have a 2-3% advantage over yesterday. I don’t know if it’s healthy to think this way, but it seems to help me get through each day, so I do what I have to do. Like I said, I know too much.

I know how the cervix works. I’ll give you a demo if you bring me an empty toilet paper roll. If you give me an empty toilet paper roll and a pair of scissors, I’ll show you how cervical incompetence works. If you give me an empty toilet paper roll, a pair of scissors, and some yarn, I’ll show you what a cerclage is and what it does. But if you are pregnant now or hoping to get pregnant in the future, it might be better if you didn’t know because the fact of the matter is that it’s quite rare, and you probably won’t have to deal with it, so there’s no need for me to scare you.

I know WAY too much about remedies for constipation that are safe to use during pregnancy so that you don’t have to push at all to poop. For most pregnant women, this is great info to have in order to avoid hemorrhoids, but for those of us with cervical incompetence, it’s an absolute must. (This one is a little silly, maybe, unless you’ve dealt with it, in which case you know it’s no joke.)

I know what a sunshine baby is, what a rainbow baby is, and what a pot of gold baby is. I know about all the ways to put extra progesterone in your body and the reasons for doing it in the 2nd and 3rd trimesters. I could go on, but I think I’ve made the point. I wish I didn’t have all this knowledge. I wish I could be one of those moms on the mommy boards complaining about how I wanted a boy, but it’s a girl (because I have nothing else to worry or complain about). I wish I could be thinking right now, “I only have 3 more months to get the nursery ready,” instead of, “If she came right now, she’d be in the hospital for a few months, so we’d have time to throw something together.” I wish I could be blissfully unaware of the survival rates of preemies born at various gestational ages. But I can’t do any of those things. I know too much now.

This whole post feels a bit self-indulgent or whiny or maybe even arrogant to me somehow, but I don’t mean it to be any of those things. I might be complaining a little, but I don’t feel like I’m better than anyone else because I’ve been through something terrible. This is just what it’s like. And the truth is I have much to be thankful for, but that’s another post. This one doesn’t have a tidy bow on top and likely never will. I hope it makes no sense to you at all. I hope you gave up reading halfway through or read the whole thing and thought I should suck it up.

But if you can relate to everything I’ve said here, you aren’t alone. And now you know that I know too.

Blank Page

Any writer will tell you that the scariest, most daunting part of the process is the beginning. The blank page just stares at you, daring you to speak, and speaking makes you vulnerable. I’m convinced this is one reason babies learn to speak the way they do. Before they can say or understand any words, they practice using their voices, and at that point, they’re so darn cute that all the feedback they get is positive. Adults have a much harder time finding and using their voices, unless of course they’re still really cute (like Taylor Swift, who can apparently move mountains with a tumblr post).

I am not Taylor Swift, so this is hard.

I was talking to a friend the other day about why I haven’t been writing while on bed rest. I mean, it’s the perfect time to do it, right? And I thought it was because I just didn’t know where to start, but the real reason is that it’s too scary. Blogging about pregnancy is one thing, but blogging about pregnancy after losing a pregnancy is a lot of processing that I’ve been scared to do. I’ve been on bed rest for almost 6 weeks now, and without really even realizing it, the goal of every day has just been to distract myself and let the time pass. If I stop too long to think about the pregnancy, all the dangers come rushing at me, and when I’m home alone, that is too much for me to handle emotionally. So I’ve watched a LOT of Netflix, and I’ve been eternally grateful for the friends and family who’ve come by for a visit.

But just today, I’m starting to sense a change. On Friday, I’ll be 24 weeks. For most women with normal pregnancies, this is not a particularly special milestone, but for women with a history of 2nd trimester loss, it’s HUGE. At 24 weeks, the baby could possibly survive outside the womb, and at 24 weeks, hospitals will do everything they can to keep a baby alive should she decide to make her debut. Some hospitals will do their darndest at 23 weeks, and a few might attempt to resuscitate a baby at 22, but most won’t do anything before 24 weeks because the baby’s chances of survival are just too low.

I’m in a Facebook group for women with cervical incompetence, and almost every day, someone is celebrating having reached viability. I cannot emphasize enough what a big deal it is, so every day that I inch closer to it is a day with more hope.

And hope is really what transforms a blank page from something dreadful to a something possibly beautiful.

We’ve found ourselves recently starting to use more definitive language when we talk about the baby. We say “when” now instead of “if.” We worry about whether we’ll be good parents. We marvel at the fact that the hospital is going to just let us take her home without any supervision whatsoever. We argue about how we should decorate the nursery. And you know what? I don’t mind worrying or arguing like that because it means we’re turning a corner, and it’s a really nice place to be.

Here we are.

Through most of my adolescent and adult life, I’ve had, here and there, what I thought were stressful situations, difficulties, pain, self-doubt, and general hardship. And while I will always believe that folks are entitled to their feelings, I can also look back on my 24-year-old self and say, “That? That’s nothing.” When I think of all the tears shed by teenage me over boys who didn’t like me, clothes that didn’t fit, friends who acted weird, and stupid decisions I’d made, I want to laugh. I don’t, though, because those were practice problems. They were warm-ups – the slow, clumsy progression of scooting to crawling to pulling up to toddling to walking to running with full muscle control – preparing me for the past year of my life. It’s been hard, to say the least.

I can only hope that this past year hasn’t been preparing me for something worse that’s about to come. Dear God, can we please have a break from this level of hard for a while? I hope so.

Hope has been more important than ever since late January, when we found out we were pregnant again. And yes, I say we are pregnant. I used to be opposed to it because obviously I’m the one carrying the baby, but Will is the one who carries me. He’s the one who works a full day, comes home tired, and still makes sure I’m fed, the kitchen is clean, the laundry is done, and the house isn’t a health hazard. My body is the one hosting our daughter, but we are definitely in this together.

We are pregnant. And it’s the most terrifying thing we’ve ever faced.

I’ve been wanting to start blogging again for a long time now, but I had no idea where to start. There are so many things swirling around in my head and my heart on the subject, and it’s just occurred to me that I could brainstorm them here and then just tackle one at a time, adding as I go.

  • hope
  • help
  • fear
  • bed rest
  • insufficiency
  • sufficiency
  • mindfulness
  • boredom
  • friends
  • strangers
  • pregnancy
  • waiting
  • finding
  • reading

We’ll start with those. Stay tuned.

Happy Hanukkah

I know the holidays are over and this is very late, but it’s something I’ve been pondering for a few weeks now, and I feel like I just really got a handle on it myself, so I’ll go ahead and say it. Better late than never, right?

Just a tiny back-story to start: I made Christmas CDs for all of my coworkers for Christmas, except for my Jewish boss, who got a Hanukkah mix. I didn’t have a lot of Hanukkah music, but I found some really good tunes, and I ended up having more fun making that mix than the Christmas one. I’ve also enjoyed listening to it more. I thought, at first, that it was because those songs weren’t so familiar and played out, but the more I listen to them, I think it’s something different.

People keep asking me how my Christmas was, and I keep saying that it was good, but lacking. I did Christmas things because that’s what I do at the end of December, but I’m not really sure I celebrated Christmas this year.

I feel like some Christians might get upset or concerned when I say things like this, but just hang with me. I really preferred Hanukkah to Christmas this year. That doesn’t mean that I’m converting to Judaism or that Jesus’s birth is insignificant to me. Hanukkah and Christmas are not mutually exclusive holidays. Just because they happen at the same time of year does not mean that they are in competition. They simply celebrate different things. They tell different stories, and this year, my own story lines up better with the Hanukkah story than the Christmas story.

Christmas, for me, this year, was just too big. It was too overwhelming, too much to receive at one time, too much to change. Christmas is about a world-changing event. The way we count our years revolves around it. It was the beginning of a new era. It was THE BIG ONE for all mankind. But my heart is still too tender for that. Overwhelming is overwhelming whether it’s good or bad, and I couldn’t open up to the overwhelming joy of Christmas because I’m overwhelmed enough. Or maybe I’m just not in a position to see the big picture right now because pain causes you to focus in on it so that you can take care of it one step at a time.

Either way, I felt like while Christmas was happening all around me, I was oblivious to it. Christmas might have been like the sun rising, but I was sitting in a blacked-out room. What I had in the room with me, though, were candles, and they were just what I needed. If I had opened the curtains, I would have been blinded. The candles were just the right amount of light.

The story of Hanukkah goes like this (the extremely condensed version, but correct me if I’m wrong in any way): The Greeks had taken over the Holy Land and made it illegal to study the Torah. The Maccabees were the leaders of a Jewish rebel army that fought to get their land and their religious rights and traditions back. They won despite being horribly outnumbered and outarmed (is that a word?). The Greeks de-purified all the ceremonial oil in the temple, but the Jews found ONE jar that had been overlooked. It was only enough for one day, but it miraculously lasted for 8 days, which gave the Jews enough time to purify more oil according to their laws.

As I listen to music about this, I relate to it in two ways:

  1. I have felt very ill-equipped to deal with my life over the past five months. As I look back on each week, I continue to see that things are easier than they were the week before, but I often still feel overwhelmed. Some days, the sadness is still very oppressive. But the Maccabees were overwhelmed and oppressed, and they fought back and WON, not by their own strength, but by that of the God who stood with them. That gives me hope.
  2. There are days when I don’t know how much more I can take, but somehow, hope remains. There are days when I feel that my hope should have dried up a week ago, but somehow, it’s still going. I don’t know how, but it’s there. I’ve found one little jar of hope untouched by sorrow, and it’s keeping me going against all odds.

So happy Hanukkah, everyone. Whether you’re Jewish or not, may you experience the light of hope that miraculously continues to shine until your supply is replenished.

When Advent Hurts

We went to a Christmas Eve service at my mother-in-law’s church the other night. Why they had a Christmas Eve service 10 days early, I do not know, but that is beside the point. The point is that I broke down crying while trying to sing “Joy to the World” because I just don’t feel all that joyful.

When we found out I was pregnant, before we got the official due date from the doctor, we estimated that we’d be expecting a baby on Christmas Eve. I loved the thought of expecting our own baby as we also anticipated the celebration of the birth of Christ. I thought about how special Advent would be this year, how much more meaningful. I looked forward to the lessons I would learn and the ways I would be able to identify with Mary. I was excited about experiencing Advent in a deeper way because of my own state of expecting.

But instead of singing Mary’s song of rejoicing, I find myself identifying more with the Psalmist: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?” Instead of feeling like joy has come to the world, I feel like I’m still longing and pleading for it.

Maybe “Joy to the World” is just not my song this year. Maybe this year, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is the one for me. I’ve always liked it, but this year, I understand it more. Mourn, lonely, hell, gloomy, shadows, dark, death, misery – these are things I get. There are also things I want – Emmanuel (God with us), wisdom, knowledge, freedom, victory, cheer, strength, mercy, peace.

I guess in a very sad, unexpected way, I am experiencing Advent in a deeper way. It’s just not the way I wanted. So I listen to this version of it on repeat and try to think that maybe we all go through cycles of painful longing and joyful receiving all the time, and it’s just unfortunate that my own personal Advent isn’t lining up with the one on the church calendar.

Context Clues

I’m reading Number the Stars with my class right now. If you haven’t read it, you really should. It’s a great story and very well written. Plus it’s short and on about a 4th-grade reading level, so it might take you a weekend to get through. It’s about a Danish family that helps their Jewish friends escape before the Nazis can “relocate” them.

My students are really enjoying it, and I’m using it to help them start getting comfortable using context clues to guess the meanings of unfamiliar words. We’ve done a lot of work on how to use the context to figure out what part of speech a word is, and now I’m starting to get them thinking about what’s happening so they can take a stab at the meaning as well. They still need a lot of help with it, though, so when they ask the meaning of a word, I walk them through the process by asking questions. Who is in this sentence? Where are they? What are they doing? What is that like? Imagine you were in this situation. What would you be doing? How would you do it?

Today, one of the words in question was “weep,” and I almost demonstrated involuntarily.

The context was that a Jewish mother and father were trying to escape with their baby when the Nazis arrived to investigate an unusual gathering of folks late in the evening. Everyone got through that particular encounter just fine, but it was understandably frightening, so when the Nazis came in, the mother held her baby tightly and started to weep.

Many of my students are mothers with young children, so I asked them, “What would you do if you thought someone might take your baby away?” And that’s when I almost lost it myself. I turned to write a definition of “weep” on the board, and I took my time erasing what was in my way and writing my definition so they wouldn’t see my face as I pulled it together. When I turned back around, I had on a happy face, and they were none the wiser.

I’m doing better. I really am. I don’t cry every day anymore. I can get out of bed and go to work. I exercise most days and eat good-for-me foods, and I feel good about myself for making those decisions. I laugh and sing and dance. I have more hope now than I’ve had since the summer. But I have also gotten better at hiding my feelings from most of the people I see regularly. It’s not that I’m trying to be fake. It’s that even though I don’t want to be sad, I still am, but I don’t want people to feel like they’ve done or said something wrong. They haven’t. If I’m crying, it is in no way your fault. I’m just sad. That is my context at the moment.

I know this is kind of a downer of a post, but today (this whole week really) has been hard, and I felt like I’d hidden it enough and needed to share it.

All the Rules You Ever Wanted to Know about Using Apostrophes and Making Things Plural

Well friends, it’s that time of year again! You are about to receive a glorious mountain of love and friendship in the form of ye olde annual Christmas cards! I don’t get very many myself, but I love looking through all the ones my parents get. They keep them all in a big bowl, and every year when I’m at their house, I sift through them, finding familiar faces and enjoying updates from family friends.

I’m here today, though, to offer a little help to those of you planning on sending out cards this year. I want to talk to you about apostrophes, which are apparently terribly confusing these days. I understand. There are a lot of rules, and a lot of people use them incorrectly, which adds to the confusion. First, let’s talk about making names plural.

Making Nouns Plural

For the most part, the rules for making names plural are the same as the rules for making any old nouns plural. If you’re talking about a whole family full of people with the last name Smith, for example, those people are the Smiths. Here are all the rules.

You probably know that you add -s to most words to make them plural.

  • card – cards
  • tree – trees
  • light – lights
  • present – presents
  • Henderson – Hendersons

You will notice that not a single one of these words has an apostrophe in it at all. That’s because an apostrophe is NEVER necessary when making a word plural.

Now let’s look at some words that end in -s, -z, -x, -ch, and -sh. To make those plural, you add -es, and I’ll give you an example sentence with each because these are getting trickier.

  • Christmas – Christmases (When I was single, I only had one Christmas each year, but now that I’m married, I have two Christmases – one with my family and one with Will’s family.)
  • Jesus – Jesuses (They had mismatched manger scenes at incredibly low prices. I cleaned them out of Baby Jesuses, which I made into ornaments!)
  • box – boxes (I wrapped all the boxes, but I forgot to put tags on them.)
  • church – churches (Many churches have Christmas Eve services.)
  • bush – bushes (I put lights on all the bushes in my yard.)
  • waltz – waltzes (Sad songs and waltzes aren’t selling this year.)
  • Rogers – Rogerses (The Rogerses are moving to Baltimore!)
  • Hernandez – Hernandezes (The Hernandezes got a new car.)

Once again, no apostrophes. That’s because an apostrophe is NEVER necessary when making a word plural.

Ok ONE more plural rule, and then I’ll stop (though I could go on). When a noun ends in a consonant + y, you change the y to i, and then add -es. **Note: Family names ending in -y do not change according to this rule. If a family’s last name ends in -y, just add an -s to it. (Clearys, Grimsbys)**

  • family – families family’s
  • mommy – mommies mommy’s
  • puppy – puppies puppy’s

Say it with me. An apostrophe is NEVER necessary when making a word plural. Ever.

Using Apostrophes

So what the heck do we use apostrophes for? Well, two things:

  1. Making contractions – When you smush two words together so hard that some of the letters pop out and fly away, you put an apostrophe there to mourn their absence. RIP “i” from is in it’s, the contraction of it and is. *moment of silence* So long fair “o” from not in aren’t, the contraction of are and not. *bows head*
  2. Making possessives – There are a few rules about this, and it gets a little sticky, but I think you can do it. Let’s go!

Here are the rules for using apostrophes to make possessives:

  1. Singular noun + ‘s – If a noun is singular, just add an apostrophe and s to make it possessive.
    – Bob’s car (1 man, 1 car)
    – the dog’s toys (1 dog, many toys)
    – Raleigh’s unemployment rate (1 city, 1 rate of unemployment)
    – James’s house (1 man, 1 house)
    – the bus’s tires (1 bus, many tires)
  2. Plural noun ending in -s + ‘ – If a noun is plural and ends in -s, you only need to add an apostrophe to make it possessive. You do not need another s at the end.
    – the dogs’ toys (many dogs, many toys)
    – the Joneses’ house (a family of many people with the surname Jones, 1 house)
    – the cities’ unemployment rates (many cities, many rates of unemployment)
    – my friends’ apartments (many friends, many apartments)
    – the buses’ tires (many buses, many tires)
  3. Plural noun not ending in -s (men, women, children, teeth, geese, etc.) + ‘s – Some plural nouns are irregular. They do not end in -s like normal plural nouns. To make these nouns possessive, you must add an apostrophe AND an s.
    – men’s jackets (many men, many jackets)
    – geese’s wings (many geese, many wings)
    – the children’s toys (many children, many toys)
    – people’s opinions (many people, many opinions)

Sample Christmas Card

So here’s some text from a sample Christmas card with corrections made:

Merry Christmas from the Jones’s Joneses!

We have had a great year! Both boy’s boys’ baseball team’s teams went to the playoff’s playoffs, and Tyler’s team won! Skylar’s team lost in the last game, but Sklyar was chosen as one of the MVP’s MVPs!

This is for educational purposes only. I swear I’m not trying to be a douche.

There you go, friends! The more I write, the more pedantic I feel, but I promise I’m not trying to be condescending or judgmental. I just want your loved ones to appreciate your sweet holiday card sentiments without losing respect for you. I know you’re smart, and I don’t want you to shoot yourself in the foot with apostrophes gone wild. If you have any questions about this AT ALL, please ask. I am more than happy to help you out!

Happy Holiday’s Holidays!