Congratulations! All the happy wishes!

Advice: Get as much sleep as you can, whenever you can, and don't try to lose weight while nursing. Do try to keep as much healthy (meat, vegetables) already-prepped food on hand as possible (like, if y'all are cooking dinner, cook 3x as much as you need and freeze or fridge the excess in single-serving portions)-- otherwise it's easy to develop an unhealthy relationship with peanut butter-- and eat when you're hungry. Nursing a baby is really metabolically demanding, and it's better to gain a few pounds than to be cranky and feel like crap all the time while trying to care for an infant-- infants are really demanding too. If you're one of those lucky people who just naturally lose baby weight while nursing, that's fantastic. But so many ladies (myself included) just aren't like that, and if that's you, too, don't stress and feel guilty about it. The "breastfeeding is a great way to lose weight!" thing is a dishonest bit of marketing. Focus on eating healthy, getting sleep, and don't worry about the rest. The time for trying to lose weight is after the baby is weaned.

If you can, get yourself a copy of Katie Bowman's book: Diastasis Recti (if you can't swing it, I will seriously buy you one and send it to you! Saved my life). You may be one of the lucky ladies who just sail through pregnancy and childbirth, recover quickly, no issues. And I am wishing that for you as hard as I can. But you need this book because A) Even if you're in great shape, pregnancy recovery is still really important, and Bowman can help you speed things up. B) If you do have some pelvic floor/abdominal integrity issues (women do not like to talk about this, and I'm not about to post any horror stories, but it's fairly common and most gyns/docs are fairly clueless about it), this book is a total lifesaver.

Speaking of recovery: DON'T LET ANYBODY GUILT YOU into doing housework, or going out and doing stuff, before you're good and ready. Even pediatricians' appointments can darn well wait until you are recovered. It is totally INSANE that you, a woman who just gave birth, are expected to get out and take your new baby to multiple doctors' appointments when you are going through one of the roughest metabolic adjustments of your life, and are not recovered physically. In traditional cultures, Mama is not expected to even leave her house until at least 40 days have elapsed (this is where we get the word "quarantine" from), and there are solid physiological reasons for this. If you feel great and you WANT to go places, awesome! If you don't feel great and don't want to go places: clear your calendar and tell everybody to GFY. Listen to your body. All the people you know who just want to come hold the baby? Don't be shy about telling them that:

A) You're not up for company, really.
B) What you really need is someone to sweep/vacuum your house, since you can't do it right now.
C) Actually, can I just give you my grocery list?
D) Your bathroom needs cleaning.

Probably lots of people will ask if you need help. Asking them to bring food or clean your bathroom quickly sorts out the posers from the ones who are serious ;)

A true friend who's been through having kids and stuff, will totally come over and scrub your toilet and run your errands for you and not ask to hold the baby, but just peer at the kid and smile and tell you how beautiful he/she is. I kid you not. A person who just wants to come over and touch your new baby with their germy hands.... but isn't interested in helping you out with the housework, is a burden you do not need to take on, and don't let anyone guilt you about that. Protect your baby, and let people take care of you. This is not the time for you to play hostess. You'll have plenty of opportunity to return the favor when your baby is older, and other people you know are having babies. Once your kid is 3 or so, go out of your way to scrub some new mom's bathtub or wash her dishes, or babysit her older kids for a few hours for free, and you will balance the scales and rack up good karma and stuff ;)

If you're feeling overwhelmed, talk to someone. Don't bottle it up. Babies are the most wonderful thing in the world, they turn your brains to mush, you can love them more than anything in the universe... and they're also a crazy amount of work and make gigantic demands of you emotionally, spiritually, physically, metabolically, and probably every other possible way. If you're struggling, don't try to play "I'm a perfect mommy": talk to someone! Your husband, older women in your life who've already had kids (esp. if they're not trying to put up a perfect mommy front themselves!). Stay out of mommy forums on the internet, though. Sometimes just having someone to talk to is so helpful, and sometimes you just *need help*. If you need help, ask for it. Not once, but relentlessly, until you get the help you need. Parenting alone is an unhealthy artifact of modern living. You get told you can do this all yourself (and maybe you're superwoman and you can!), but that's not the natural way of things, for most humans, in most of the world, through most of history. It's OK to ask for help. LOTS of help. You can pay it forward later.

AND MOST OF ALL: Treat all advice, including mine, as highly questionable hearsay :) All women are different. All families are different. All babies are different. By all means collect ALL the advice anybody wants to give you (people have a lot of useful experience!)... and then ruthlessly discard anything that doesn't work for you, your baby, or your family. Ultimately, you've got to find what works for you. And it's not gonna be exactly the same as what works for me, or anybody else.

Love, virtual hugs, and all the good wishes and good will I can send!
If you're OK with it, I will ask the prayers of the Theotokos for the health and wellbeing of you and the baby.

Hi Jen! I am so excited for you and your family!! The bit of mothering wisdom I would like to share is this: the reason we're told to stay off of our feet until the post-partum bleeding stops is because the placenta rips off of the uterine wall, leaving a wound. Since the uterus is a free-floating organ, there's nothing to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding. If we get up on our feet, the scab that is trying to heal over that wound gets pulled on by gravity, having nothing to hold it firm, and degrades, prolonging the bleeding and healing. I learned this from a pediatric nurse after my 3rd baby was born and I wished I'd known sooner.
Sincerely, Michelle

Congratulations! Something that worked for me as a parent was singing to our boys, and reciting poetry with them participating, at a very young age..The more you do with them, the richer your experience will be!