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I loved breastfeeding! It was such an emotional and bonding experience between me and my son, and it came so much more natural to me than I had ever imagined before becoming a mother. Sure, it was complicated to get started properly because of soreness and getting the flow right and the joy of mastitis hit me a couple of times in the beginning. Also, because of my injured tailbone I could only breastfeed when I was lying down, which made it all quite inconvenient. But for the relationship with my son I absolutely loved it – and so did he!

So when I was told that the prolapse might see an improvement when I stopped breastfeeding I stood in front of a difficult decision. I was back on that battle where the personal me wanted to try everything to get my own body back to some sort of normality… but as a mother I really didn’t want to stop breastfeeding! The discussion came up every time I went for a ’prolapse checkup’ and I came from the appointment confused and a little sad. When to stop breastfeeding was not a decision I wanted to make in this way. I wanted to be able to continue as long as my little one needed/wanted it without having any other reason making me decide to stop. And on top of it, I didn’t know that stopping would for sure help, it was just a ’might’. I guess it was also for that reason that each time the question came up, I ended up putting it behind me, and I let the mother win this battle.

I therefore continued breastfeeding with no consideration of the prolapse and stopped when my son was 17 months old. I saw no significant difference in the prolapse symptoms after. And I feel very pleased that I listened to my heart on this one.

But what are your experiences? I am not sure if this breastfeeding thing is something scientifially proven or not. But I believe it is due to hormonal reasons – something about that the estrogen levels are lower when you breastfeed making the vaginal tissues weaker, so when you stop and your cycle and estrogen levels are back to normal it may have a positive effect on the tissues and pelvic floor strength – but please do not quote me on this. I am in fact very curious about hearing YOUR experiences on the topic?! Has anyone had a prolapse improvement after stopping breastfeeding? Or do you have any other thoughts (or knowledge!) on this? Please share!

Before having children I think I imagined that I would want my second one about 2 years after the first. Then, that seemed reasonable to me.

Once I was a mother and I knew the toll the pregnancy and birth had taken on my body the months soon became a year and more and I was still not ready to have another baby. Maybe it was the physiotherapist’s word ringing in the back of my mind: ‘Ideally give your body two years of rest post-partum before getting pregnant again’. Like that I would give my body a chance to naturally heal up from the pregnancy and birth and go into another one as strong as possible.

But sometimes I played with the thought of having a second one sooner. Maybe I should think the opposite way instead? What I mean is: going for the next child closer to the first and ‘get it over with’ and then take care of my body damage and potential treatment options afterwards? Because no matter what, I seemed to understand that if I wanted to go down a surgical route for the prolapse then I would have to have all the children I want before. The reason being that there might be no point in doing surgery to correct things when another pregnancy might just mess it up and it needs to be redone anyway. So maybe, if I instead I have all the children I plan to have in a shorter amount of time and then deal with the problems afterwards – at least  that would mean less years passing by in total, I would just decrease the recovery between each pregnancy. And I could sooner focus on getting my body back and hopefully become a runner again?! To be honest, the sensible part of me never really thought this seemed like the way to do things, but I have to admit it sometimes was an intriguing thought.

When I asked the women’s health gynaecology nurse about the matter she said she would rather recommend me to do the running I wish to do Now, before getting pregnant again. To try to reach a few goals now that I was ‘anyway back to running a little bit’. She is such a sweet person and I know she always tries her best but unfortunately she has no understanding of that the running I have managed to do so far postpartum is nowhere near any goals I would actually be happy to set. And even worse, I knew what she was trying to say between the lines….

Another pregnancy and birth might just make things so much worse and I won’t have the chance at all later on…

I thought I would post an English translation of my story which was published on the blog Baking Babies a few weeks ago. The original text was in Swedish (and can be found here) and I have had several requests for a translation.

So what was this all about? I was asked to write a constructive text about how I dealt with a very tough time following childbirth, but how I managed to get through it. This was part of a theme where not just me but also a few other readers of that blog shared our stories in order to help and encourage other women that might go through a rough time. I do hope this can inspire also some of you, my own blog readers!

‘The labour and birth did not turn out at all as I had planned. And after that nothing was the same anymore. This is the story about how much the complications I got when I gave birth to my son have affected my life and still do.

   I was in so much pain. The injury I had sustained in my coccyx (tailbone) from snowboarding more than a decade earlier got extremely aggravated when I gave birth. I could’t sit without horrendous pains, or even walk. And I felt like a failed mother. How was I supposed to get through this? I live in London since twelve years and gave birth here in 2015. I had a pretty much problem free pregnancy, but instead a long and dragged out labour with various complications. After 59 exhausting hours of contractions my son finally came out with forceps, and in connection with the final stage I sustained a major haemorrhage and needed blood transfusion. The blood loss combined with that I didn’t have any sensation in my lower body from the epidural meant that I remained lying flat on my back for much longer than what was ideal for my coccyx. I had already before labour had some concerns about how my tailbone was going to cope with this task, and soon enough I was going to find out that it hadn’t very well. The pain was almost unbearable. 

   The initial period after the birth was very tough. I struggled with lots of thoughts and emotions, probably more than anyone around me ever realised. I felt like a bad mother because I was so limited physically and I couldn’t do many normal everyday things – like sit or walk. So I was lying down most of the time, and this was the only chance also for breastfeeding. We lived on the top floor with no lift, and a venture out from home was a major project. Because of the pain I felt too unstable to lift my little baby down all the steps. And what would I do when I had to breastfeed? The sight of a chair could make me panic. In the beginning I never left home without my very special sitting cushion which relieves some pressure on the tailbone. I still use it today when I sit for longer periods. I also learnt how to breastfeed my son in a standing position in a baby sling so I wouldn’t have to sit down to feed him when we were out. But it was really only when it was necessary to leave home in the beginning that we would, most of the time we simply didn’t. 

   The physical problems also affected me psychologically and I couldn’t help but feeling like a failure. A failure because I hadn’t gone through the labour and birth like the super woman I had hoped I would be. And I hadn’t bounced back to pre-pregnancy me immediately like so many other women seemed to be doing. I felt like a failure because I couldn’t feed my baby like a normal mother seated in an armchair, or even cuddle on the sofa with my son on my chest. You know, like you do. If I would just do these things anyway it only resulted in that my injury felt worse and I could anyway not enjoy it. The pain was just too intense. I was also stressed about the fact that I couldn’t enjoy the days together with my newborn to 100% because time seemed to just fly by and my baby kept growing.

   But I found help! Already from a very early stage I started seeing a Women’s Health Physiotherapist. My encounters with her were everything else but comfortable as many techniques performed were vaginal or anal. But thanks to what we did slowly things started to improve. I received exercises to do at home and lots of advice on how to ease my daily activities. It took time but finally I got over that initial and worse phase. The coccyx did not heal – and will probably never do – but the pain eventually became manageable and life could start for real again. I started to sit more, walk more, walk even more, and eventually also progressively start training again. 

   That’s when I realised how much my newfound prolapse also was going to affect my life. It was so hard to accept that. I have been a runner since as long as I can remember and both trained and competed up until I became pregnant. The running was something that had always identified me. When I was running I was home. To run was ME. What would now happen with my running? I had imagined I would regularly be out for runs with the buggy. And I had thought I would shortly after birth be setting new goals for my continued training. Nothing became like I had planned, it was like starting from scratch again. My running world fell apart.

   And on top of that, how should I be thinking with regards to any future children? The thought of another pregnancy and what further damage it could do on both the coccyx and the prolapse was indeed quite complicated. Would I ever be able to run again? At the same time there is a mother inside of me who was born in the same moment as I met my son for the first time. That mother doesn’t care about if I never will be able to run again. The mother inside of me doesn’t want anything else but focus on family and hopefully be able to give a sibling or more to my son. There is that constant battle between the Runner and the Mother inside of me that I am fighting. They are two different people but each with very strong willpower and lots of feelings and emotions. And when I dream away thinking about my ‘pre-baby-body’ and have hopeful imaginations about the running in the future I straight away feel guilty for even thinking that thought. It’s so selfish. 

   But I have now come to a point where I have accepted that I have to find a balance between the two to fully enjoy life. They have to compromise with each other, this is where life has taken me. And at present the mother is the stronger one: my son is 2.5 years old and I am actually pregnant with our second child! I don’t know what it will mean for my body physically to go through another pregnancy and birth but I believe I will be more prepared this time. Prepared in the sense that I won’t have such high expectations on the recovery afterwards. I will need to give my body the time it requires to heal. Maybe this will affect my possibilities to run in the future even more? But maybe not. This is where I am now and it looks like I will be able to give a brother or sister to my son, and I feel an enormous happiness for that!

   A big help for me to move on physically was that I had the possibility to early on meet a Women’s Health Physiotherapist and that I really listened to her advice. And then it has been even more important to let my body take the time it has needed to heal and to progressively get used to training again. It was walks lasting for five minutes that became 10min, 15min etc combined with pelvic floor training, core stability and pilates and I felt stronger and stronger. First 6 months postpartum I dared to try jogging again. It was 30 horrible seconds – I thought everything down there was going to fall out from me! But 30 seconds eventually became 60, 90…. and 16 months after giving birth I had finally reached a distance of jogging 5 kilometers, without anymore worsening my prolapse symptoms. It was a win, but on a level very far away from how I had imagined things would be. But I am confident that it was thanks to the fact that I moved things along so carefully and always listened to my body and the signals it gave me, that I finally managed to start running a little again. Another important help was that I was fitted with a pessary – without this it would have been much harder to run at all. It lifts up the prolapse and decreases the uncomfortable symptoms. 

   Psychologically it has been important to accept the fact that my body has changed, and that still a couple of years postpartum in fact still is a body in recovery. I cannot expect that it can be like it used to, maybe ever. I take care of my body in the best possible way considering my current position, and like that I prepare it as much as I can for the future. A future with or without running only time will tell. 

   I think it is extremely important not to be ashamed of your birth- or pregnancy related problems. Even if you don’t think there is help available for your kind of problem, most probably there is and you are definitely not alone. We often see all the positive examples of mothers with perfect labours and women who recover immediately, but most probably we often don’t get presented the whole truth. Many choose not to talk about it and as a result we don’t realise how common it is to have problems after childbirth. A blog like bakingbabies.se is therefore worth gold both thanks to its fantastic information and to simply get an understanding of that we are not alone in this.’ 

Last week I had my story published on www.bakingbabies.se !!

It’s an amazing Swedish blog written by a women’s health physiotherapist, she talks about everything concerning pregnancy/childbirth/female health. I can highly recommend it. It’s written in Swedish though, so not all of you will be able to read it I’m afraid!

But for those who do know the language and are interested here is my story.

After I had reached my 5K target, it felt like nothing could stop me. This was somewhat ironic as a gentle jog of that distance for ‘my previous me’ wouldn’t be much to talk about. But I wasn’t my previous me anymore, and I guess I had come to a point where I had started to accept this. I felt proud about coming to this point, considering that a year earlier I questioned if I would ever run at all again. It had taken time – a whole 16 months postpartum before I was comfortable enough to do it – but my body felt ok.

And I started dreaming.

It was right in the middle of the cross country season at the time and I was still on an emailing list from my athletics club and regularly got updates about the team’s progress and upcoming races. I never admitted it to anyone but at one point I actually considered to put my name down for one of the races that very season! Even if I would run very slow I would gain some points for the team and at least I would get the chance to get out there on the cross country field….. should I just go for it and don’t care about the performance too much?? The thought was intriguing for a moment.. but it didn’t last very long.

Deep inside I just knew it wouldn’t satisfy me in the way I hoped it would. Sure, I could now do a fairly comfortbable little run but somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it would be too heartbreaking to enter a race and therefore face reality. My level of fitness/running ability was still so far away from pre-pregnancy and even if I tried to think of me as a ‘new me’ I knew it would be too hard to take it.

So I never signed up for that cross country race. 

Fast-forward a few months and I had progressed my running and fitness level a bit more. I was pleased with that my body and prolapse could take a couple of runs a week without aggravating the symptoms too much. One day in May I was running through the little forest close to ours, I think I did about 6K that time. And I started dreaming again. I counted the months leading up to a half marathon that same autumn, and calculated how much I would have to increase the distance by each month to comfortably reach that target…..and my heart started pounding faster. It seemed doable! It was as if I forgot about the fact that maybe training for a half-marathon wasn’t ideal for the prolapse, because now that I had gotten back into the running again I just wanted more. And at one point I even thought that I don’t care anymore if I worsen it, if at least I get to do another half-marathon in my life….

But was it the right time ‘already’??? If I just went for it, would all the work I had put in until then have been thrown away, if the result would be that I made my problems much worse? Was that really what I wanted for the future?

So I never signed up for that half-marathon.

But what was all that dreaming about? Could I make any of these dreams come true one day, and maybe relatively soon?

Or was my problem now on a different level, could I actually do it now but I was too afraid to even try??

I walked in the middle of the pack, we were all heading towards the startline. It was a fresh morning –  pretty cold but sunny, and the surroundings were just beautiful. We were in the countryside, and an amazing scenery was to be expected over the course ahead. A perfect day for a half-marathon. I was excited to support my close ones that day, and I was so happy to have been part of the training leading up to this event, although in another way now than being the actual athlete myself. I had been the coach, and was about to see inspirational achievements take place in the next couple of hours, and it really was an exciting moment. But the feeling of walking amongst the runners also brought me back to memories of a past which no longer is reality for me. The emotions a few minutes before start – it would be nerves mixed with a thrilling sensation about getting to do what I loved the most. To run on a cold, fresh and sunny morning, together with other likeminded people. A perfect day.

I walked in the middle of the pack but when we arrived to the startline I would take a step aside because this time I was there as a spectator. And nobody knew, but tears were running down my face. Will I ever be one of the runners lining up on that startline again?

Time went by, and I gradually increased my training. I mixed little jogs with spin sessions at the gym – these were the ones that actually got my fitness back to a somewhat decent-ish level. My runs were so far not doing loads for me on the cardiovascular side of things.. I have always enjoyed a good spin class, but in the past they were something I would turn to in periods of injury when I couldn’t run as much as usual. But now spinning became a critical part for me in order to get fit agan.

A health professional suggested I should try the gym class ‘legs, bums and tums’ as it would be such a good workout for me – she was speaking out of own experience as she too suffered from a prolapse. Excited about trying a new class (except from spinning I have never actually been a massive fan of exercise classes but here I was living my new… post-partum life…) I attended ‘legs, bums and tums’ twice. Each time the prolapse got much worse afterwards. And each time I had to skip several bits as they were simply way too much impact for me. I could have tried different sessions, different instructors and eventually find a class that would potentially work better for me – but I didn’t. I basically gave up there and then after attempt number two. Leaving the class feeling unfit as I had to take a pass on the jumping squats or the burpees, and with a sensation of the bladder falling out of me, a general feeling of that I wasn’t doing any good for my body – well that was not what I wanted to get out from a fitness class. Therefore I quickly left that behind me, I just didn’t want to have anything else affecting my mind in a negative way when it came to training, especially if I could choose to avoid it. (Please note – this is is my personal experience and the particular class mentioned may work really well for someone else, with or without prolapse issues!)

And pilates came into my life! This turned out to be an amazing way of getting a really tough session done but with no high impact what so ever. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t always done pilates, as an addition to my running also in the past. It made me feel stronger each time and it gave me confidence that I was doing something which was actually helping my body. At times, especially in the beginning I would get a slight symptom worsening in the evening following the pilates, but I instantly knew which positions to be a little bit cautious with, and soon enough I could pretty much go 100% on each and every exercise during the class.

Apart from ‘running’, spinning and pilates I would do a bit of core stability and strength training from home when I could (and of course pelvic floor stuff), and on a daily basis there was also lots of walking with the buggy going on… yes, I started to accept ‘walking’ as a form of physical activity. Not a leisurely stroll in the park but whenever I got out for a proper, good paced – 45min at least – walk then I would include it in the total. I do believe that all these things combined helped me growing stronger each day.

Jogging more and more turned out to be ok, and before I knew it I was doing 2 or 3 kilometers without any major problems. I just needed to make sure that I planned my running days well, so that I didn’t do too much walking on top of it on the same day. If I did, I soon noticed it would make my prolapse worse in the evening and the day after. Running is also always better in the morning rather than the evening, as that’s always when my pelvic floor is at its strongest!

So as long as things seemed to be going ok, I decided it was time for a more proper target: I wanted to do 5K before the end of the year – to keep you on the timeline this would be 16 months after giving birth.  As I reached 4K I knew it was doable but I wanted to make sure I didn’t do it straight away just for the sake of it. I wanted to make sure my body was totally ready for it. And a silly part of me wanted it to be a bit special…! So I did 4K many times, and I did 4.5……

New Years Eve. In my hometown, in the beautiful countryside. To make the whole thing even more perfect I would have of course ran together with my dad but as he had come down with a bad cold at the time he couldn’t. (We had of course done a couple of runs together earlier during my visit!)

I had a great experience this cold and fresh winter morning. It was frosty, it was quiet… and before the end of the year, I did 5K. And I felt good.

Was it time to get excited for real now? What would be the next step?! 

There’s a constant battle in my head between still wanting to be the person I used to be, and to just be a mother. But they are two different people. And whenever I focus on the ‘pre-pregnancy-me’ I feel guilty. Guilty because maybe I shouldn’t even think that I could be that person anymore? Life has changed, not just for me physically but on loads of different levels anyway since starting a family. The mother in me often tells me that it’s better to forget about what was in the past, and just move on. Just be a mum.

And the reality is that having my son is the best thing that has happened to me. And believe me, it’s not a cliché. There must be a reason why many women end up going for more children, regardless of previous experiences – may it be a difficult pregnancy, labour or postpartum problems. It seems that you forget about the hard bits and are prepared to go through it again should life take you that direction – because it’s worth it all day long.

And again, of course life has changed in other ways than because of my physical issues. It would be much harder to keep up what I was doing before family – with late night track sessions during the weeks or special Sunday training days, competitions all over the country many weekends of the summer and cross country events instead during the winter. It would be possible of course! But that on its own would put a big pressure on our life now as family and I honestly don’t think I would keep doing it to the same extent even if I my body would allow me to. Because I wouldn’t want it right now. Family is a new priority in my life and I wouldn’t want to focus on it any less than I am already. If anything, I want to do more for my family! Part of me wants to have one and two and three –  yes loads of more children and just enjoy family life and everything that comes with it. And I want it now, I don’t want to wait. Family is what is important now.

But.

Yes there’s obviously a But…

Couldn’t I have had just a small part of it still? Even if it wouldn’t be like before, I imagined that I would remain the runner in the family on some sort of level.. I can’t help but feel a bit disheartened about the fact that as it is right now, I am not. And I can’t help that my mind keeps going back to that other person: ‘pre-pregnancy-me’, or ‘running-me’… and the more I want to focus on being a mother and in the future maybe a mother of more children, it would at the same time take me further and further away from that person. More children might not make my prolapse worse, nobody would know that in advance. But I can personally take a pretty good guess on that it would not really make it any better! And whenever my mind travels back to somewhere/someone I am not anymore – well, that’s when I feel that guilt coming over me again shadowing any nostalgic or hopeful feelings and imaginations… Because maybe I should just suck it up and deal with my situation where I am here and now. Accept reality.

There it is – The constant battle.

A couple of weeks went by since my second jog, and it was time to get out there again. I wanted to stick to the plan of initially doing repetitions of short jogs followed by a walk and the idea was to increase the repetitions and/or the length week by week, depending on how I felt.

This attempt was very similar to the second. It was definitely better than the very first one but I still felt like I must have looked like a novice, like someone who didn’t really know how to run. In fact, it kind of felt like I didn’t know how to do it properly. It was a weird sensation where my brain wanted to tell my legs to just go for it and never stop again, but my pelvic floor told me….. well, the opposite.

My running occasions continued. Two weeks between them became one, 60 seconds jog became 90, then 2 minutes… and I could feel that my body gradually responded well to the new impact. Sometimes the prolapse would feel worse in the evening on a ‘running day’, but I could often pin it down to that on top of it I had also walked very much that day. If I took good care and planned my running days well, it didn’t seem to generally make the prolapse worse.

Four months after my first attempt (10 months post-partum) I jogged for 5 minutes on a treadmill at the gym. Clearly, very small steps.

But at least they were steps going forward.