The moment you meet you baby for the first time, all the pain slips away (for a very short moment lol). You are in a bubble of ‘I can’t believe I made this’, the world around you has completely changed and you are now a MAMA!!
In the first few weeks/months your life get turned upside down. You are trying to figure out how to be the best mom you can be to this new life you have created. Reading all the books you can find about breastfeeding, sleep and how to survive a newborn! Googling rashes, poop and ‘why is my baby crying’!!! Your life is all about baby, but what about YOU??
It took me months to pay attention to what was happening to my body. I was so caught up in the life of my baby I didn’t see what was happening to me. Being a personal trainer I thought I knew what I needed to know about postpartum fitness, reality is I knew NOTHING!! I rushed right back into getting my body backmode. Planks, push ups, chin-ups, crunches….you name it I tried it. I even went back to a Crossfit gym to do a WOD thinking this was what my body needed. I didn’t make modifications and I went as hard as I could.
As life started to calm down I was noticing things that didn’t seem right. I was struggling to get to the toilet on time….when the urge hit I had to freeze in case something went wrong! I would be walking with the stroller and it felt uncomfortable down there…I couldn’t quite figure out what that feeling was, but it wasn’t there all the time. Some days it was fine other days it was like something was falling out. I was in denial. Bragging about how quickly I pushed in labour, laughing about how I couldn’t sit down for weeks…but that was all a cover up for how I ACTUALLY felt.
I felt broken, like my body had let me down. Child birth is a natural process, why do you have to be left so scarred (or even scared about what your body is now) ? Moms joke about never feeling the same again, but why?? So you still pee your pants…I don’t agree that is right! So my rectum is falling out through my vagina….erm ok I’ll just keep going on as ‘normal’!!
I promise this story has a happy ending!
I started googling what I was feeling, researching what was happening to my body. Words kept popping into the results page like unrinary incontinence, prolapse, diastasis rectus abdominus….I was amazed….why did no one tell me about this when I was pregnant. Is this a lable I have to live with now? Why didn’t my OB/GYN not talk about this during my recovery or in my discharge appointment? He even checked my vagaina during the appointment…didn’t he see anything?? This was my calling…I work with women and mams to be and knew I had to do something to better the information given during/after pregnancy.
I still battle with myself, thinking what if I had done this differently? What if I had been given more information during pregnancy, would I have a prolapse? So many questions I have, so much information I would have given my ‘first time mom’ me. You are not alone in this journey, PLEASE don’t ignore the symptoms!! Your body is screaming out trying to tell you something. The fitness world tells you to listen to your body, but how do you know what to listen out for if you aren’t told about it in the first place?
Check out the list below of signs you shouldn’t ignore…this doesn’t mean you need to stop doing what you are doing….instead change HOW you are doing it!!
