Week 0 / 20

“Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own” – Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen, Baz Luhrmann

It’s Week 0 of my couch-potato-to-10k extravaganza, AKA the only way I can get myself to commit to a #weddingdressdiet. In case you live under a rock, there’s approximately 300 billion fitness bloggers out there, and I am not one of them. I am simply a person still trying to lose the last GODFORSAKEN 20 (er – maybe now 30…) pounds of baby weight that’s juggling this-that-and-the-other-thing and look like a rockstar in a wedding dress. You know. It’s a tale as old as time. Another tale as old as time? Starting this bonanza on New Year's Day. Yup. That's right. #NYERESOLUTIONS

So, welcome to my non-fitness-blog-turned-fitness-diary-for-awhile. I’m not doing this for followers, I’m doing it because I literally have never found another way to hold myself accountable. I also find that writing helps me understand myself better, and telling my own story puts things into perspective for me. I’ve also learned that I simply cannot commit to a workout regimen unless I sign myself up for something willy-nilly, like 10k run. Anyway, here we go. Those that don’t care for shameless self-ramblings about body image, weight, postnatal woes, and floppy stomachs, please exit stage left now. 

2012-ish

It turns out losing weight is hard (did you guys know that? It’s true). Like any self-conscious teenage girl in the modern era, the world told me that being skinny was a good idea and I said “okay! Cool!” Fad diets like SlimFast, Palm Beach Diet, Only-Eat-Bacon-Fat-Atkins, etc, blew up during my late high-school years, though I know that concept has been around forever. Almost none of them were a good idea, but I drank SlimFast like a champ, obsessed about going to the gym all the damn time, and got super skinny. Mission accomplished? I had started around 140ish pounds at the heaviest, and by the time I graduated I was down to probably 125-130. 

Cut to college – horrible caf food, raging cesspool-fed illnesses, general debauchery, etc., I continued my streak of being the early-20’s-skinny that all of us were at one point. Then I got an iPhone. Yup, that’s the culprit. But seriously, once I got an iPhone I suddenly had access to all of these fancy apps, and it was just at that time that MyFitnessPal came out. If you’ve never used it, the first thing you do is input your stats and determine how often you exercise, how much weight you want to lose, and how quickly. It takes all of that information and gives you a daily calorie goal. Mine was 1200. Yes, it was pure misery.

It was also not pure misery. I’m not afraid to admit that I was proud of my self-control, happy with how my clothes fit, and satisfied with what I saw in the mirror. I was a busy college student trying to make ends meet, keep up with working, going to school full time, all that jazz. It was easy to be busy/distracted enough to not each much. It caught up to me quickly, though, and I found myself in a miserable mood more often than not. I graduated from college and found myself bored and on the hunt for a job. Guess what’s really fun to do when you’re bored? Eat.

Thanks for the collarbones, MyFitnessPal

I hit the wall one day when I was in my apartment, hungry (as usual), and made myself some green tea instead of eating anything. I tried to continue my day but the hunger kept nagging at me, and finally I said (out loud) “you know what? Fuck this.” I was so sick of devoting my time and energy to being 115 pounds and decided I couldn’t do it anymore. Give me cookies or give me death. I say that jokingly, but seriously, I knew it was time to change. 

Hiking the Wapack

It was around the same time that I got back into hiking more seriously and turned my attention to being a healthy, fit person. I also wasn’t working for a period of time after graduation, so to fill the time I started running. I have NEVER been a distance runner (I was a 100m sprinter/high jumper/long jumper on the track team), but I thought “well, at least it will take up some time”. I started eating like a more normal human and enjoyed the exercise I was doing. I also started working at REI and was surrounded by equally athletic outdoorsy people. Over the next few years I was running, doing adventure races, rock climbing, cycling, hiking – you name it, we did it. Adam and I went on our first date in 2013 – a 21 mile one-day hike. I biked up to 20 miles a day on my commute. We would leave our job where we were on out feet all day to cycle over to the climbing gym and spend three hours there before biking 10 miles home. I worked and lived in the woods for two seasons and got RIPPED. You get it. 

That span of 3-4 years was probably the one and only time in my life that I ate whatever the hell I wanted and stayed relatively thin. I wasn’t stick-skinny, but I was certainly in shape, strong, and not obsessing over my weight anymore. Ah, the glory days. I was actually doing very strenuous physical labor on a professional trail crew when we got pregnant with Noah and moved back to NH. 

Rugged maniac

I was 148 pounds when I got pregnant with him, but it was about the most in-shape 148 pounds of my life. That was August of 2015. By May of 2017 when I had him, I was 220 pounds. I kept waiting for my Obstetrician to say “ummm… can you stop eating donuts and drinking (decaf) Starbucks every day?”. 

Side note - someone that didn't know me well (and didn't know me when I was pregnant) once told me that I didn't gain THAT much weight during my pregnancy. How they concluded this I don't know, but let me assure you, I certainly did balloon to 220 pounds by the end. 

I didn’t have particularly bad eating habits while I was pregnant, and despite what I just wrote in the last sentence I didn’t eat donuts every day. I was incredibly swollen in the last month of my pregnancy, and Noah was a big-big-baby. I was also seriously nauseous for 40 weeks straight, and a lot of time snacking was the only thing that helped my nausea. #glamourlife

Sorry lady, your XL sweatshirt ain't foolin' anyone (39 weeks preggo)

Once I had Noah, I told myself I would only step on a scale when he was weighed. I hid the scale at our house and used the one at our pediatrician’s office. Within a week of having him I lost 24 pounds. By 6 months I had lost 33 pounds, and by 8 months I had lost 43 pounds. Everything I read always said “9 months up, 9 months down”. Welp. Not a whole lot has changed since that 8 month mark, and now Noah’s just shy of 18 months old. I’ve hovered above and below 170 ever since. I also don’t have to stay in shape anymore. I don’t have to bike 20 miles a day to get to and from work. I don’t have to hike miles and miles carrying 18 pound rock bars and then put in 8 hours of physical labor doing trail work. I have to sit on my butt at a desk.

I don’t like being sedentary. I got back into a routine of exercise, but as you quickly learn, no parents can have a steady “routine”. You think you have one and then it changes. One of the best things that happened (for many reasons) was getting Cooper. He’s an equal parts lazy and energetic dog that needs plenty of exercise. I told Adam I would take care of most of Cooper’s walks as penance for letting me convince him we *needed* a dog, so most days I take him on at least one (usually two) 45-60+ minute walk(s) per day. It has certainly helped and I’ve seen a change, even if it’s not reflected on the scale. I also dabbled back into running a bit, and that’s when I actually saw the best results.

Here’s the thing, though. I absolutely hate running… that is, until I do it. I’m not a natural runner, I have shitty joints and I just don’t think I’m built to be an athletic runner. I enjoy trail running but that’s about it. Here’s the other thing, though. I usually feel pretty damn good after I go for a run. I feel energized, I feel tired (in a good way), and I feel more accomplished than just schlepping around the neighborhood on a walk. 

I ran the Tufts 10k for Women a few years ago, and ever since then I always refer back to “the time I ran that 10k”. For me, it was more than running the race. I was fit enough to commit to and accomplish something I didn’t think I could do, being the non-runner I am. I, for a short time, became “a runner” (I use that term loosely), and did pretty well. Several years, a baby, and a desk job have changed that. I found myself sick of saying “that time I ran a 10k” like it was something I would never be able to do again. I also have to face the reality that my weird loose belly and birthin’ hips will probably never be what they once were in my early 20s. 

Not having as much fun as it looks, but a well-timed photo nonetheless

So what to do? Run a 10k of course! Oh, I forgot to mention the whole wedding thing. There’s nothing quite like being on public display in a wedding dress to kick your ass into gear. I knew I needed something to work toward (not just the arbitrary “I want to look good!” thing). I needed a tangible goal, I needed a tangible routine, and I needed a reason to go for a run instead of a walk. So I grudgingly signed myself up for a 10k on the heels of watching of my best friends finish her first marathon. 

The 10k is in mid-May, which is perfect timing because after that we’ll have Noah’s birthday, all the June birthdays in our family, and then it will be full-steam-ahead-wedding-stuff until August. I set myself up for a 20 week training plan that has 6 days on, one day off – 3 days of running, 2 days of cross-training or walking. It starts off quite slow, and I even extended what was supposed to be a 13 week plan out to 20 so I could keep it very, very gradual. Pregnancy didn’t treat my already-fucked-up lower back and knees too well, so I’m still a bit nervous about how high-impact exercise will pan out. We’ll see. 

I want to bring this amazing lyric back. The words were something I felt when I hit my “fuck this” moment and decided to go the athletic route rather than continuing the starvation route. A good friend shared this song with me a few years ago and those words stuck with me since:

“Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own” – Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen, Baz Luhrmann

Another gem from the same song... 

"Don't waste your time on jealously, sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long, and in the end it's only with yourself"

On empathy at 1am.

“I’ll never let my kid do that”

“I’m never going to act that way when I’m a parent”

I can promise you that 100% of parents have heard this at some point, from fellow parents and non-parents alike, and have smiled through their teeth. This is very scientific data (it’s not). You hear it all the time as a parent, and you have to figure out how to nod along instead of saying “THAT’S FUNNY, MARTHA, I DIDN’T KNOW YOUR CHILD WAS EXACTLY THE SAME AS MY CHILD.”

(I don’t know any Martha’s).

I thought about this phrase a lot the other night as I held my teething baby at 1am, his monitor blasted me out of bed after an hour of blissful sleep. I thought about all of those opinions on sleep training, I thought about my own pre-conceived notions of how I would or would not parent. I thought about how wrong I was. I had a 99.99% success rate of being wrong. I have a 100% success rate at using oxymorons.

We did sleep-train Noah with mostly what you would consider the “cry-it-out” method, and I’m actually really happy we did. Some parents are absolutely HORRIFIED with the cry it out method, and some babies just can’t do it. They get so stressed out that it’s not worth it. Some parents say they would NEVER use that method, but after 6 months, 8 months, 24 months, of having a baby attached to your boob or in your bed all night, they say "you will cry in your crib and you will LIKE IT". For all of our sleep training, we would still go through periods where all hell would break loose. My brilliant sister-in-law gave me the brilliant advice (which she may not remember, as she hasn’t slept in 3 years) – “do whatever you need to do to get by”.

I’ve thought a lot about that phrase in the months since it clicked in my mind. The mom you see letting her kid watch Daniel Tiger on her iPhone at the grocery store may not be a horrible mother (“I would NEVER let my kids do that, ugh, so lazy! MILLENIALS!”). She may be having a shitty day, and grocery shopping with young children is actually one of the most unpleasant activities, ever. But maybe she ran out of milk and has nothing to cook for dinner, so she has no choice.

We’re finally to the point with overnight waking that we don’t really have to just survive the night. That was the truth for a long time when I went back to work – we were committed to sleep training but at the same time we still had to go be members of society and drive cars and earn paychecks, so if you just need to hold and rock your baby for 45 minutes at 3am so you can all go back to sleep, you just do it. And then you mentally punch the person that says “well, don’t do that too much because you’ll form bad habits. I never let my kids do that”. Okay, Martha.

I sat there and rocked my sweet Noah-boy at 1am, he was content with some Tylenol and a little bit extra milk. I was tired and felt like crap, but there we were. We rocked and rocked, both looking up at the stars a little plastic turtle projects onto the ceiling – blue, green, amber, blue, green, amber, there’s the big dipper, that’s Orion’s belt… he was so relaxed that I checked to see if he was asleep. He wasn’t. I asked him the same question I do every time I put him to bed, “Are you ready to go to your crib?” Every night I ask this and every night he taps his chest, his way of baby-signing “please”. Tonight, he shook his head no. I told him okay, we can rock some more. 10 minutes went by, he pointed to the fan in his room (he’s been fascinated with fans for months). “No, Noah, it’s not time to play with the fan”. He pointed to his door. “No, Noah, it’s not time to play downstairs.” Rocking, rocking, rocking. “Are you ready to go to your crib?”. No.

I faced a fork in the road, I could plop him in his crib and let him whine a bit (or have a meltdown, or just conk out, who knows), or I could keep rocking him. I chose to respect his decision because in that moment I realized that Noah is truly his own person. He has always been independent, stubborn, sweet, hilarious, a general whirlwind, and he has a big personality. Something about that moment, though, made me realize that he has a say in his own life even if he’s only 15 months old. Maybe not all the time, maybe not for everything, but he has to have some control over his life. I let his decision stand. Five minutes later I asked him again if he was ready to go to his crib, he tapped his chest (“please”), I put him down, and there was not a peep for the rest of the night.

Before you (I mean “you” rhetorically) tell a parent how to parent, how to not parent, what you would do as a parent, etc., consider that maybe those 50 minutes at 3am are 50 minutes that a working mom didn't get to hold her child during the day. That sometimes what on the surface looks like a lazy parenting decision (Moana AGAIN?) is just a way to keep your sanity together at that moment. That children, babies, toddlers, whatever, may not have rational minds all the time but they are human beings with thoughts and emotions, and treating them like little robots that have to follow a rigid set of rules isn’t always best. Rules are good, don’t get me wrong, but why can’t a child have a say when the situation allows?

Consider how often you’ll look back at your past self and say “wow I had no fucking clue what I was thinking”, I do it at LEAST once a week. Consider that you will find yourself in situations, reacting in ways you never imagined your cool-calm-collected-adult-self would. Consider seeing children as people – yes, little people that needs lots of guidance and for some ungodly reason react in ridiculous ways that no one can explain, but people nonetheless. Little people that may just need an extra 15 minutes being held. Can you imagine waking up overnight with a sore mouth and your loved one saying “well TOO BAD, sucker”. Can you imagine being so DEVASTATED over something that you absolutely must throw yourself on the floor in Target and scream bloody murder because it’s one of the only ways you know how to communicate, and your loved one scolding you and yelling even louder at you? You may not feel the crushing heartbreak over someone telling you that you can’t open the applesauce and dump it everywhere, but little people aren’t yet equipped to realize that not being able to dump applesauce on the floor in Target isn’t the end of the world. Side note: if someone gives you a dirty look because you don’t drag your screaming child out of the store immediately and instead try to react in a calm way, you can tell them to shove your heads up their own asses, with a smile. Just saying.

//

This thought process has come to me most clearly in parenthood, but I think it can be applied universally. What if we saw people as people, while still acknowledging our differences? What if we consider the human element of each person? What if pushed ourselves to practice empathy, even in situations when it was hard to? Practice being the important word – humans are judgmental by nature, we seek to define and categorize people and situations so that we can build context and build appropriate feelings and reactions. What if we chose to acknowledge our bias, why we have it, and practice empathy around it? What if we truly saw all people as humans, whether they are big, little, white, brown, native, immigrants, some identity within LGBTQ+, northern, southern, religious, spiritual, agnostic, loud, quiet, the list goes on? And what if we just prescribed to the thought that we can empathize with humans as they are, and not calling that “some stupid bleeding-heart-liberal thing”?

I write this with the full acknowledgement that I have to practice this myself, I try to practice it daily and forgive myself when I fail. I remember that I, too, said “I’ll never let Noah do that” before he was even born, and that I’m often wrong. My favorite question that Oprah asked so many of her guests is “What do you know for sure?”. I know for sure that if we come at situations with true practiced empathy and respect, we take time to think critically and acknowledge our biases, that we can better ourselves and those around us. I know for sure that it is important to give my little Noah respect as an individual, even if he is only 15 months old and still needs schedules, rules, and reason. I know that I can practice that respect and empathy with everyone in my life, and I know that practice is important.

//

End existential rant. See what things come to your mind in a sleep deprived state at 1am?

Lessons Learned

Well hello from my couch! It's a Monday night, I should be doing my homework to just GET-IT-DONE for the week, but it's my last discussion board so here I am procrastinating. 

So, instead of the necessary homework in my last week of the term, I will go ahead and sip my (vodka) apple tonic and relay all of the lessons I have learned in one year or parenthood. 

Your Relationship With Your Child Is Just That

…and relationships take work and time.

Contrary to popular belief, it is very common to not feel the amazing unicorn and rainbow connection with your baby the second they are born. Birth is an incredible but also physically and emotionally taxing experience. I felt like I was on another planet by the time he came out (could also be due to the long labor and significant blood loss I experienced). If you don’t know our story, I’ll give you the quick rundown – I labored for 22 hours and pushed for 3 hours, I was hair’s width away from a C-section. I had an episiotomy and vacuum assist to get Noah out. He was immediately taken away to be checked and didn’t cry. He had inhaled meconium (essentially, his “poop” in the womb) and had fluid in his lungs. He was “singing”, which sounds cute but is NOT what you want. It took what seemed like forever for them to get him back to me, I remember the nurses telling me I had about 30 seconds to say hello and snap a photo, and then they took him away. I was, and I say this with the utmost affection, looking pretty damn horrible.

I had lost a lot of blood and (in my opinion) should probably have gotten a blood transfusion (but whatever, I’m not a doctor). Noah was in the little nursery at our hospital but they didn’t have the resources to provide what he needed, so we had to make the decision to send him to Boston Children’s Hospital or Children’s Hospital At Dartmouth-Hitchcock, we chose CHAD. He was born at 10:28p, transported to CHAD at 5am (almost by helicopter!), and they offered to discharge me that day, too. I almost laughed in their faces because I couldn’t walk and barely had the ability to go to the bathroom on my own. I stayed another night and then we went to the NICU at CHAD to be with him for the next 5 days. I was delighted to hold him for the first time but remember feeling so weird because we were in the middle of this open NICU (let’s face it, the flimsy curtains don’t do a whole lot for your privacy), and I was still a total wreck. I was in love with him but also felt like “what the hell just happened and WHAT IS GOING ON?”

Yes, that was the short version. I’ve heard this story told many times from moms with babies in NICU, C-section moms, first-time moms, actually just any sort of mom you can think of. We went on to have a pretty rocky start despite Noah actually being a very decent sleeper. Breastfeeding was hard, Adam had a very short amount of time off of work, and I didn’t ask for much help. Noah was about as colicky as they come and our days were spent just trying to make him not scream. It took until about 2 months until we really enjoyed him (and he enjoyed us/the world), and until about 4-6 months until he really came into his own.

Relationships take work, the relationship with your child is no exception. Yes, you have an inherently unique bond that no other relationship ever will, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. You just have to keep working at it and eventually it will come into place.

Feed Your Baby However You See Fit

The decision to breastfeed was probably one of the most important ones we made. I was blind to how difficult it would be. I cannot tell you how many times I thought “screw this, I’m done”, especially in the early days because he wanted to nurse on the hour every hour from about 5am – 10pm. I thought I was going to lose my mind. Sometimes I wonder if things would have been different if we had supplemented with formula, if would have given me a bit of break in the early days and when I went back to work, but I don’t think I would change it. We eventually did switch to formula at about 10.5 months when my supply dried up. All that is to say is just feed your baby however you need to. Sometimes breastfeeding works, sometimes it doesn’t. Some people out there can make you think formula is poison. It’s true that formula can never fully replicate breastmilk, and that breastmilk is basically superhuman liquid gold, but formula is a really great option. My baby that LOVED mama’s milk is now doing just fine and happily guzzling up formula like a champ. Just do what you gotta do to not lose your mind and make sure baby is healthy.

This Too Shall Pass, Don’t Give Up On A Bad Day

These two mantras helped me through the hardest days of our first year. When I was having trouble with breastfeeding I turned to my mom friends and online groups/forums, and the best piece of advice I stumbled upon was “don’t give up on a bad day”. It got me through the most frustrating times and ultimately allowed me to end our breastfeeding journey on a positive note.

This too shall pass is what I tell myself and Adam when we have hard times with Noah – colic, teething, a bad cold, a night of puking. It doesn’t necessarily make it easier in that moment but it reminds us that that hard times will

Mastery? HAHA.

They say it takes 10,000 hours to master something. By that logic, I should be a master parent long before I am actually going to have a piece of expensive paper saying I am a Master of Business Administration and Nonprofit Leadership. I assure you I will get the Mastery of the academic world first. Let's do some math.

Let's assume you're a parent 24 hours per day, because you are. With 24 hours in a day, you hit the 10,000 hour mark at day 416.67. Noah has been on this planet for 373 days, so I am well on my way to all-out parent mastery. Right? ......... RIGHT? 

NO. 

The thing with babies is that the second you think you have them *figured out*, something changes. Like, literally within a day. Every single time I'm like "ahh, okay, yeah, we kinda got his sleep routine down", he's up that night for two hours for no apparent reason. Here's the thing - there's a reason, but who the hell knows what it is. Teeth? Gas? Wants to have a conversation about the Milky Way? Dream? Hungry? Cold? Warm? Who the heck knows. Just give up the notion that you'll be good at anything and you'll be much happier - and, guess what, you probably ARE good at this whole parenting thing. Especially if you're worried you're not.

There’s Nothing More Amazing

There is truly nothing more amazing than growing, bringing into the world, and then raising another human being. Seriously. THINK ABOUT IT FOR A SECOND. Our cells came together and created a human being, which I cooked inside my body for 40 weeks and 2 days (never letting go to the extra two days - sorry, Noah), then he somehow FIT THROUGH MY PELVIS (and other areas) to come into this life. He went from a little (jk he was big) hopeless bundle wrapped up in a nursery crib to a vibrant, energetic, talkative, and (still) darn cute little man. He has brought joy to every single person in his path and we have the blessing of sitting back and watching it happen. I can't tell you how many people tell me they can't wait to see his pictures, they show him off to their entire extended families, and love him so so much. He has his own force and gravity in this world and there are still times I can't believe how incredible that is. 

Be A Kid Again, And Enjoy It

Some of my favorite moments every week are getting up early with Noah on a weekend and relaxing on the couch with cartoons on. Get down on the floor and play with their toys with them. See the world through their eyes the best you can. It's so cool to experience the world for the first again through their experiences. I always think about the first time Noah is interacting with something - a pumpkin, a dandelion, the hose, the broom, the taste of hummus. The most mundane of things become much more interesting when you watch a little person experience them for the first time and try to put yourself back in those shoes.

Make Mom Friends

SERIOUSLY. DO IT. 

I am blessed to have some great mom friends, but the one downside is that a majority of them don’t live near me. I don’t have many regrets in life but I really do regret not going to a new moms group/breastfeeding group/baby play group during my maternity leave. Having mom friends is vital to your survival as a new parent. They’re up at 3am when you just changed an epic blowout diaper and want to laugh or complain about it. They’ve experienced the weird thing that your baby is doing this week. They know that when a new mom is going on a rant about something or sharing her struggles all you need to (and should say) is something along the lines of “you are a warrior goddess woman… and you look so pretty!” In short, they’re the best.

The Longest Shortest Time

I stole this phrase from the best parenting podcast I listen to with the same name. The host of the show used this phrase to describe the first year of parenthood and it stuck. It is the best way to explain the first year of parenting. It truly has been the longest shortest time of my, and our, life. The days are long and the year is short. 

I remember in the first few months complete strangers in the grocery store would say "oh sweetie, enjoy every moment, they just grow up so fast." And I would think my child is screaming, I've been wearing the same gross nursing bra for 8 days straight, I can't even fit the amount of groceries I need in this damn cart because the carseat is taking up 60% of it, I forgot the freakin' list and I have no short term memory so I don't even know what the hell I came here for, and now you are in my way and telling me to enjoy this moment. Read: consider what you say to complete strangers in public. Anyway, I digress. So often everyone will say: "He's -insert age- now? Oh my goodness! What a fast -insert amount of time-! Hasn't it been such a quick -insert same amount of time-?" And I'd be like:

But then in moments I see a picture of Noah, I watch him take his first steps to me, I hear him repeat the exact noise I just made, I catch a glimpse of him in the mirror in front of his car seat, and I wonder where the heck my baby went. I know how much change and progress he has made and it blows my mind. The longest shortest time. 

I'll let my Noah take it from here.

The Wonderful World of Birth Injuries

FAIR WARNING

If you don't want to read about the treachery / reality of what happens to *certain parts of your body* during and after birth, run away now. This post isn't for you. 

You've been warned. 

Carrying and delivering a child is probably one of the most OUT-OF-CONTROL things your body can do. There’s a laundry list of things that I wish I knew before, during, and after this experience, and one of them that totally blows my mind is the lack of information about birth injuries. Of all of the doctor’s visits, pamphlets, books, birthing class, etc, that I attended and read through, there was extremely limited information about potential birth injuries. The only thing I felt I knew about was that I could and probably would experience a tear in my perineum (Google (NOT GOOGLE IMAGE) if you don’t know what that is). Other than that, I feel like I was in the dark.

Crazier still is numbers – actually, even crazier is a seemingly small amount of research and studies out there about this. This article is a really great insight into birth injuries and how it affects people’s lives - http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a59626/birth-injuries-postpartum-pain-untreated/ If you don’t want to read that whole thing, here are the highlights:

• A study published last June in the journal PLoS One found that 77 percent of more than 1,500 mothers studied had persistent back pain a year after having their babies, and 49 percent had urinary incontinence.
• A 2014 study of 1,115 mothers — about half who had cesarean sections, half who had vaginal births — found similar degrees of continuing pelvic pain regardless of how their baby was delivered
• Researchers from the University of Michigan likened childbirth to running a marathon — only before a marathon, you train — after giving 68 women MRIs seven weeks after birth. The MRIs showed that 29 percent of them had evidence of fractures they never even knew they had in their pubic bones, while 41 percent had undiagnosed tears in their pelvic floor muscles, which wrap around the vagina and anus
• In a landmark report from the Institute of Medicine in 2011, a team of experts noted that women "have faced not only severe pain, but also misdiagnoses, delays in correct diagnosis, improper and unproven treatments, gender bias, stigma, and ’neglect, dismissal and discrimination’ from the health care system."

I was in that 41% that have undiagnosed tears in their pelvic floor muscles. I recently had a surgery 10.5 months postpartum to finally correct it, and, like you, I kept finding myself wondering “how the hell did this take so long to catch??????” Here’s how.

Believe it or not, I had never given birth to a ~9 pound baby before. I didn’t know what was normal and what wasn’t, and if they told me anything in the hospital before I left I certainly didn’t retain it. I had the standard fraught-with-fear-postpartum-first-bathroom-trip that everyone does, which went fine. Every trip to the bathroom after that was fine, or as fine as it could be, until it wasn’t. I started experiencing fist-clenching, searing pain when I went to the bathroom. I assumed I had the dreaded postpartum hemorrhoids (very common), loaded up on stool softeners, and treated with over the counter stuff. I had my 6-week postpartum check up with a midwife in our practice and brought up my pain. They did the standard pelvic exam and I was told I was healing very nicely, especially my stitching for the episiotomy. I think the first mishap in this process was that they focused on the tear they knew I had (because they gave it to me), and I didn’t speak up enough about the pain I was in. I did mention it, but I didn’t insist on further investigation because they said I was good to go.

I was NOT good go. Definitely not good to go. Over the next few months I went through ups and downs. Sometimes the pain would all but disappear, sometimes I was nearly in tears at work and wondering how I was going to go back to my desk for the rest of the day. I didn’t seek immediate treatment because it would get better, and I would think “great! I’m healed!” and then the pain would come back. But then I would think “well, it got better last time so I just have to tough it out for a little bit and it will heal up again, hopefully for good”. Eventually I called the OB-GYN again, and then started the battle with my insurance company. It took about two weeks of a back and forth between the OB’s office and my insurance because what the OB wanted to prescribe wasn’t covered, but when I asked the insurance what WAS covered they said they didn’t have a list (??????????????????????? I know.). I tried three different prescribed treatments, some did make an improvement, some didn’t. The OB finally suggested I go to my primary care, so I had to get a new PCP with my new insurance and then get the appointment set up.

My PCP saw the tear and sent me to a surgeon. Surgeons actually like the avoid surgery, so the surgeon gave me one last ditch effort of a prescription that had to be specially compounded (not covered by insurance) and had about 75% success rate. I had to use that for 6 weeks. By the time I ended that course of treatment I was about 10 months postpartum. That treatment made slight improvements but not enough, and by the end of that I was back to where I started again.

Finally, at nearly 10.5 months postpartum, I had to have a surgery to correct the tear, and they actually do that by slicing surrounding muscle to manually “relax” the muscle so the tear can heal, which seems kind of counterintuitive but it works with about 99% success. The surgery itself takes about 3 minutes total, but because it’s such a sensitive area I had to go under a spinal anesthesia. My spine is a whole other story, the short version is that I had mild scoliosis and a twist in my spine, so getting the injection in the right spot was tough. I had four different jabs in the back with a pretty hefty needle before they got it right. Thankfully the recovery was relatively quick and I was back to normal within a few days.. and PAIN FREE!

I stumbled across this photo and couldn't stop laughing

The surgeon told me at the follow up that my tear was “pretty massive”. A “big tear” in the pelvic floor is actually quite small, small enough that if you had a cut on your body elsewhere the same size you wouldn’t notice it a whole lot. The pelvic floor is so sensitive and packed with so many nerves that even the smallest tear can be pretty excruciating. My tear was internal and large enough that internal muscles were actually exposed. I laughed and said “huh. No wonder it hurt so badly!” Sometimes you just gotta laugh.

The more women you talk to, you the more you realize how common this sort of problem is. The nurse that works with my surgeon had the same thing happen. When I told them about my birth they immediately asked “vaginal birth? Episiotomy? Mmmhmmm that’s why”. One of the nurses attending my surgery fractured her tailbone with her first baby (AND SAID IT VERY CASUALLY “oh yeah, I broke my tailbone with my first”. Excuse me?). Many people will share this information freely in the right setting. I told my mom friends and a very select few people what I was going through. Other than that, I was pretty alone in the experience. When I had a flare up I was in almost constant pain but felt to embarrassed or weird to share, so I just toughed it out. But now here I am posting it on the Internet. Ah, how times have changed.

So why the hell share all of that? Well, I wish I had read someone else’s story like this. I wish I had demanded some other treatment, another opinion, something, to avoid months of pain. In the grand scheme of my life this was a relatively minor, however, it affected my personal life, my work life, and my body. I know now what to say to the doctor’s now, and hopefully this at some point helps someone else understand how common these problems are despite there being so little conversation about them.

Endless Life of Lists

I'm a writer. Not in the sense that I am going to write the next great American novel, but in the way that I need to write things down (usually by hand) in order to fully understand and remember them. I would hand write my notes in college, I write out my day at work or else I forget to call this person or that. I'm also sort of the "family manager", and unfortunately child rearing has rendered my brain mostly useless. This does not bode well when you're planning and coordinating multiple schedules and lives, so enter: lists. 

Lists are great, but sometimes I feel like a slave to them. They can be daunting, they can show you what you haven't yet accomplished. My life has revolved around my frozen breastmilk inventory list for at least 6 months now. I obsessed about how much I had in the freezer, prided myself when I hit 100, 200, 300, 400 ounces. If you think I sound insane, please, ask any breastfeeding mom how many ounces they have in the freezer and they will be able to tell you down to the ounce. I set an arbitrary goal of having 1,000oz frozen by the time I stopped nursing at a year. You know what they say about setting goals, though - you are just a speck floating in the vastness in the universe and sometimes you don't get what you want. That's what they say, right?

Teenager-esque cynicism aside, I am not going to reach that (again, arbitrary) goal. As with all things in parenting, I thought I kind of had a grasp on things and then they changed. By ~6 months I had almost 500oz in our freezer, so I assumed in another 6 months it would be double that. Mother nature had different plans, and for some reason unknown to me decided I was fit to bear children again (that's a fancy way of saying I got my period back). 

Me to the universe when my body decided ovulation was a good idea

You can't fight hormones. Between that and the stress of our move my supply absolutely tanked. For weeks and weeks I tried every natural remedy out there: fenugreek, chugging water, eating high-fat foods, getting more rest (HAHA JK), lactation smoothies, you name it. None of it helped. I started burning through our freezer stock and instead of facing the music that I would run out sooner than hoped, I ignored it. I usually crossed off each bag I used and after a month or two I just totally stopped.

Yes, that list is as stressful as it looks. 

I also started to get sick of my pump. I've read may posts of people saying they want to burn their pump in a fire, run it over with a car, etc., by the time they're done nursing and pumping, and now I get why. It's the reason I haven't had lunch somewhere other than a windowless room alone for over 8 months. It's the reason I'm always the last to go to bed. It kinda sucks. Around 8 months we got Noah on a new eating schedule that had him eating bigger "meals" less frequently + baby food meals, and I followed suit. I went down to pumping (or nursing him) 4 times per day. I finally was able to use one break at work for something other than pumping (a glorious day). Then, about 2-3 weeks later, the late afternoon session got less and less productive, and it came to the point where it wasn't worth it for me to go through the fuss just to get an ounce or two. 

Enter, mom guilt.

We live in a very pro-breastfeeding culture now, which is wonderful. Our hospital, pediatrician's office, and practice of obstetricians/midwives are very supportive of breastfeeding. It's still not easy. It's becoming more commonplace for people to nurse past 1, and the American Pediatric Association strongly encourages breastfeeding for the first year at least. I told myself that ever ounce I could get was beneficial, that I should at least get to a year. This made me feel guilty when I wanted to cut out a pumping session - if I can still get an ounce or two, it should be worth it, right? Here's the thing, though, as a parent you're going to be putting your child's need (and maybe your partners needs) before yours for their entire life. Sometimes you have to do what's right for you. You can't be there for your family if you're miserable. 

By 10 months (aka, like, last week) it was time to face reality and come up with a plan - A LIST! I took a full inventory of our freezer stock again to find I had about 180oz left, and that may seem like a lot but if we used just that to feed him it would last only a little over a week. I had three choices: pump more during the day (not appealing), pump in the middle of the night (REALLY not appealing), or start supplementing with formula. 

As I've said before, I know formula is great. I don't give a hoot if you breastfeed or formula feed. It just felt like I wasn't meeting my goal if I start supplementing with formula. I honestly don't know why I had such a deep desire to make it to year with nothing but breastmilk. I had a meek conversation with Adam (aka me trying not to cry and Adam telling me it was fine) about it, talked to our pediatrician (who immediately asked if I wanted some resources about upping my breastmilk supply, see what I mean?), and got some of their formula samples. I was immediately faced with my next list; INGREDIENTS. 

I read the ingredients list on the formula the pediatrician gave us and immediately marched our butts to Babies 'R Us. I quickly found out there weren't many other options. CORN SYRUP? SOY? Soy is the enemy in our house! What is the hell is DIACETYL TARTARIC ESTERS OF MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES?! This is the best one I could find at the time, "best" meaning non-GMO and supposedly easy on the belly.

The turning point for me was realizing that Noah has already been consuming things other than my breastmilk for 4 months now, and that many babies get only formula and are totally fine. I also tried to channel some of the outwardly-chill demeanor people tell me I have and remember that he was still going to get mostly breastmilk and I needed to not act like it was the end of the world.

Because it wasn't. He does fine with a few ounces of formula per day, and it's what is going to ultimately get us to our goal of a year of breastfeeding. I don't know why I saw it as a monumental "thing". It wasn't a thing at all. It's just how things went. Take a chill pill, self.

Love/Hate Internet Relationship

Long time no see, my very few followers!

It's been a busy few weeks with the holidays, moving, and balancing work. Moving is essentially my worst nightmare that I've been living about once a year (sometimes more) for the past decade or so. Moving during the holidays with a very demanding infant exaggerates the misery of moving tenfold. BUT! It's done. DONE!

And that's my introduction to why I hate the Internet.
*I don't actually hate the Internet.

I have a love/hate relationship with Google, as many parents probably do. I can't tell you how full my Google search history is with baby-related things. Information is easy to access and crowd source, and it probably has cut down on a lot of anxiety for me for some things but heightened it in others. Overall, the Internet is a great tool, but there are some pain points:

1. Milestones
The Internet categorizes babies and assigns them milestones, which some babies meet and some do not. For example - "many four month olds sleep for a six-hour stint at night", "she may at least settle into a more predictable pattern for naps and bedtime" "SIMPLE SLEEPY TIME ROUTINE".

Noah was up all night every night at four months. In the woes of my sleep deprivation I eventually started just feeling like a bad mom, like I was developing bad habits for him and maybe doing something wrong. That is not the case at all, but when you read about what "should" be happening you tend to wonder why it's not, even if you are a very rational person. 

2. It shows you how little sleep you get. 

It's one thing to know that you don't sleep a whole lot, it's another to see the number. 

*Yes, this is an actual log from my FitBit. 

3. "Why It Works"

Listen, I do welcome advice, I promise. My ranting may not make it seem like I don't, but I ask for and take advice from friends, family, and, yes, the Internet. However, I am always peeved at how simple these tidbits of advice make something very difficult sound. Take for example, the dreaded world of SLEEP TRAINING. Sleep training is often a high-stress, tumultuous time, with many different "methods" and opinions, and many parents being driven to the brink of psychosis as they navigate these rocky waters. Look at this crock of shit:

"Drift off to sleep" "sleep deeply" "without interruption" "make a brief visit" "offer a quick pat" "let him fall back to sleep on his own"

Yeah. Okay. 

4. Childless Adults With Little Responsibilities 

I know that people other than parents get to be tired. Parents don't have a monopoly on that. However, 99.67% of childless adults have the opportunity to make up for the their tired days by sleeping in (or at all) sometime in the next 48-72 hours. I can promise you that every single time a person without children posts something about how exhausted they are, every person that has ever had an infant does this:

There are moms and dads out there that literally haven't had a decent night's sleep in easily a year. Word of advice: never say "oh, you must be used to it". NOPE. NOOOOOOOOOPE.

5. People That Think Dogs Are Children

Please lay down your pitchfork and let me explain. I love dogs, I love them a lot. I have been trying to get a dog for a long time (finances and living situation being the biggest hurdle), I am obsessed with petting every dog I see, and I want to talk about your dog. However, if you try to tell me your dog is the same as having a human child I will give you one of these:

I understand the parallels (expensive, though humans are by far and away more expensive, waking up at night, early mornings, feeding them, having someone care for them, playing with them, vet/doctors appointments, etc). I joke with my friends about their dogs being like kids, and that's fine because they are people that understand their dog is not a human child. I even consider dogs family members, and I grew up with a few dogs that were like another sibling to me and were really hard to lose. All that being said, I can tell you right now that your dog is nowhere near the responsibility of a child. /endrant.

6. Endless Opinions

Never in my life had I come across more experts than a Facebook comment thread in a parenting group. If you want some reality-show-style garbage entertainment, find yourself a thread pertaining to any of the following topics: starting solid foods, breastfeeding, sleep training, car seats, potty training, just to name a few. The Internet is truly an incredible way to crowd source great information, get fast answers from genuine people who have been there, and realize that you're not the only going through "it", whatever "it" is for you, alone. Unfortunately, though, it's just a fact that lots of people are downright mean online, because it's much easier to be shitty to your computer screen than it is to someone's face. 

I say this all half in jest, because of course I'm not going to stop utilizing the Internet as I go along this parenting journey, and I know it has provided me with a lot of benefits thus far. But really, if I see one more person say how tired they are I'm going to go off the grid like my mom.... ;)