Thank you to those who have shared your stories of comebacks and healings and not healings and everywhere in between. These stories are one thing that is so lacking in the universe of Information For Women.
First its the hush hush surrounding sex ed and sexuality.Then its the hush hush surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. Then its the hush hush surrounding what we have once there is this new body and this new baby! Ack!
No wonder the tweens/teens gobble up the tabloids. They tell such a crisp and clean and linear and beginning-middle-end kind of a story, huh? Meet a hot dude, have an obnoxious wedding (or not, usually not) have a be-bop pregnancy with a tiny rounded shiny (what is that one about, btw?) tanning boothed belly--twins are hot right now, maybe try for twins--, and have a very mysterious birth with no details, prattle on about how you breastfeed and then appear on such and such red carpet such and such weeks afterwards with no baby in sight and unveil your new bod!The end!
The money and work that goes into that story is what we are not told. The time and assistance from outside sources as well as the toll on the mothers and babies is what we are not told. Cause that story is too yucky. and too un sexy. and sex sells and making regular folks feel like they suck and are weird and outside of the norm sells and yeah im gonna say it there is big money in keeping every woman on the verge of insanity/depression or certainly insecurity, and there is even big money in convincing the men that their woman is gross now...
There is no money to be made off of a loving couple, enjoying their family, eating what tastes nice and working out or sleeping when that feels right, wearing comfortable clothes and hanging out spending their time on questioning authority and making music and contemplating life and watching films and enjoying nature with their brood.
So I say that my post surgery body is probably pretty much normal. It just freaks me out because I need to go to websites like Shape of a Mother or The Belly Project just to see anything even remotely resembling my body (its the darn c section lump that I have such a hard time with---and I didnt even have that until I had baby #4). And I say that my post operative pain is probably pretty much normal, and if I need to hear from real women who have had "long" recoveries from surgeries, you guys are right, ICAN would probably be the best place to go. I know some of you are hurting still and some of you are not, and I know it will come and go with the cyclical changes and with activity and with too tight jeans and with all kinds of things...I also did have one kind nurse in the hospital who told me that since I had a tubal ligation that I was healing from not one but two surgeries--somehow that made me feel less horribly terribly "Wrong" as the others in there were so happy to treat me.
It's scary for me to want to try certain exercise moves. I spent so much time "paralyzed" as a mother that doing that to myself on purpose just never sounds tempting. Not only did I suffer from SPD during the last 4 of my 5 pregnancies, but I have had the 3 c sections and many many episodes of "thrown out my back" this past winter where I could only sit in my chair with hot water bottles and have my 11 year old pull me to the bathroom, watching in lame frustration as my house collapsed around me from the toddler mayhem...its really not a good scene when there are so many little ones and no mom.
So it is scary to me to think of getting my ass to some exercise class. I picture the first round of "get down on the floor and..." riiiiiiip goes my right side of my adhesions and they have to call Steve to come get me.
For now, I am walking. A mile a day, (not including all the walking I do on our outings and such) pushing 50 pound Charlie and 22 pound Eska in the double jogger. As fast as I can walk without the 38H's causing too much of a scene, with my crooked foot and my trick knee, I am doing something. In a week or two I will be upping the distance, and yes, that ubiquitous yoga class I joke arond about so much, maybe just maybe will happen, too. (Although a DVD might spare me the imagined embarassment, I get that its good to go out of the house, etc).
I might not ever be skinny again, and I know this is the belly I have now. But if I could get some more stability and less of the your-guts-are-on-fire-and-you-cant-reach-up-too-high-or-else, that would be for me, a great place to wind up.
Also, I really really am going to get a breast reduction when Eska is an old girl and my nursing days are done. I just watched a TV show about some girl with "double D's" and boo-hoo she cant jog and it strains her neck so badly and I gotta tell ya I just thought double Ds?? that is TINY!
: )
10 comments:
Yeah, not sure if it's a good or a bad thing that having kids is "in" now with celebrities. It's great to see all these men and women shown with their kids and talking about how they love being parents, but then those perfect postpartum bodies and the invisible nannies & cooks & housekeepers set us all up for the inevitable failure...
I can't imagine 38H--I was an A cup before I had kids, a C after Zari was born and now I'm a D after Dio was born. And they seem SO huge to me already! I think I'd go for breast reduction too if I were an H cup.
hey Joy
I had a breast reduction after my kids were done nursing - 10 years of breasfeeding and traded my 34 H's for a 34 DD. What a difference - back pain be gone - and I never realized how it completely affected my posture. I have been able to stand up straight for the first time in YEARS!
Oh yes, my dear, oh yes. It is yet another thing that makes me want to sign off for good and go live with the pygmies. I can't stand that our culture revolves around making us all feel like shit 24/7 so we can spend money to make ourselves feel better. It's awful.
Being on bedrest, I've watched more TV during this pregnancy, and I feel correspondingly more insecure about my body. TV and fluff magazines are an insiduous poison that screws up expectations of normal, and while normalizing bizarre behaviour. The hair, skin & body tone obsessions annoy me the most. So I turn off the TV, promise myself to bring my own reading to the doctor's office next time and vow to not buy anti-wrinkle cream, even though "I'm worth it".
I was a C before I got pregnant with Greta and went up to DDD (which is also considered F) in a matter of months. Breast pain was the number one pregnancy complaint that time 'round i was just mortified and shocked at what was going on with the chest!
And that was about as small as they ever went back down, slowly inching up to G and then H. Ridiculous. Completely unproportioned. and I like to think I have nice posture, I certainly don't slump around like some tall women do...but if I really, REALLY stand with my upper back all the way perfectly straight, I look like a crazy crazy porno chick or something and my shirt just lifts up in the stomach and ...blech.
Not trying to do any "self-hate" but yeah, I would like to get a chance to jog, not to mention all those other things that would be so nice if I were "medium" chested again someday. Thanks for understanding!
It's too bad we can't do that trade thing we talked about once. I would love to be something other than an A, but it works for now. Well, not really now. I've still got a nursing chest, but I know that as soon as I stop, I'll be back down to nothin', nada, zilch. Oh well, nothing a padded bra can't fix, at least temporarily.
I'm glad to hear that you're getting out and moving. Really, I think it's the moving that makes the difference, not how fast or what kind.
I have found that there is no point in even paying attention to the celebrity folks. They have done nothing to earn my admiration, so I don't intend to look like them either. Besides, I'm sure that a good deal of it is fake and I'm not, so why try to be just like them? Okay, rant over.
This has been a tough couple of years for you, Joy. I think it's perfectly okay that it's taking you some time to recover from it all.
There is book called Womens Work: The first 20,000 years by E. W. Barber.
Most of the book is very early textile history and womens history. But she mentions those very early, very fat, cave Venuses. The author also has an interesting take on division of labor (basically woman traditionally did work that could be done with a nursing baby around.)
Those Venuses have been around for 30,000 years or so. Hollywoods just the bumbling newcomer.
What about Tai Chi? There are tai chi classes for frial elderly people. This can be very low impact, but tai chi is a martial art. I took a beginning class and realized this was all about where you put your feet. When a person is very deliberate about balance and concentrate before they put their feet down their much harder to knock over. Some of the mental benefit of yoga without the physical risk.
Tai Chi!!!
I am absolutely going to do this. Duh. Duh. duh. Thank you for the idea. Seems exactly my speed right now...
here i love to share about tubal reversalis a surgical procedure that restores fertility to women after a tubal ligation. By rejoining the separated segments of fallopian tube, tubal reversal gives women the chance to become pregnant again naturally. This delicate surgery is best performed by a reproductive surgeon with specialized training and experience in the techniques of tubal ligation reversal.
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