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Post partum returning to pole not what i expected
I used to have some amazing skills in pole. Hang spring, gemini climbs, jade, supermán. I used to have rock hard abs and didn’t own any real shirts just crop tops because I felt like I earned my right to dress how I pleased. I was always overweight as a kid, but pole and aerial has been the thing that had put me in my best shape. Five months ago I had my first son via c section. I was on hospitalized bed rest prior to his birth for two months. It seemed like I instantly packed on day after I gave birth. Everything was swollen. I had put on 60lbs! I could barely walk for a month without pain. I had no clothes that could fit me. I had no shoes that could fit me. I thought ” how did this happen? ” I was active most of my pregnancy walking and swimming, eating healthy. So once I fully recovered from my C section I was determined to hit the gym. I told myself I had all the tools to bounce back, how hard could it be? I started slow, with just the low seated bike for 30 mins, now five months later, i’m doing aerial yoga, I got my split, back, I run on the treadmill, I got my invert back, working out 3-4 days a week for 1 hour… and still I look the same and I’ve gained another 15lbs. I see all my friends who’ve recently had children just shrink back down and here I am. I feel like the only woman in the world who is going through this. I feel like it’s not fair my birthing experience was taken away from me with a hospitalization and a c section.
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4 Replies
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I’m sorry you’re feeling frustrated. I know many, many women don’t bounce back super fast from c section and it can make the healing process much more frustrating.
Not sure if it will help, but for me, sometimes the best way to start healing mentally and physically is to embrace the new body or life situation. Your body gave life, that’s incredible. You can invert and do splits that’s AMAZING! Most women would look at you and be in total awe! Letting go of something you perceive as a negative experience can be very difficult but moving past it (at least in my experience) is worth it.
Focus on the great things you can do, avoid comparing your birth experience or life for that matter, to others. That’s when we really get in a pickle. The longer we compare and hold on to the anger or frustration the less energy we will have to heal and enjoy this very short life 🙂
I hope you feel better and you are NOT alone! xoxox
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I know this frustration too! I have 2 kids, both by C-Section. Something that I didn’t learn until after my second kid is that sometimes, children change us – it can be hormones, it can be bones shifting (seriously my rib cage grew, as did my shoe size, and never went back). My second daughter was also VERY sickly, so I wasn’t getting the sleep I was used to – so there are so many factors to weight and how our bodies change. I personally will never be the size I was before I had kids, but I am WAY WAAAAAY stronger.
Today is my 2nd daughters 5th birthday, and I can say with absolute certainty that things will get better. I recommend something very similar to Veena’s actually – is to work on adjusting to what you can do now. Focus on goals that achievement oriented, vs. weight oriented. If tracking is your thing, you can measure yourself (vs. weigh yourself). Having a child is such a life change – we often focus on the physical, because that’s what the media (women’s magazines, the internet, and the like) tends to focus on. Instead, focus on how much more resilient you are now. Here’s what I hear from your progress:
– You got a great baby out of it – even if it wasn’t the way you wanted and you didn’t feel great during the process!
– You are managing to work out multiple days a week for an hour! Some women I know can barely do that with four and five year olds (or more)! This is a huge accomplishment!
– You got your invert back! You got your split back! (I didn’t even have my split when I was 18 and dancing full time!) YAY YOU! 🙂
– You’ve done this all IN FIVE MONTHS! Your baby isn’t even a year old yet! I bet they aren’t even walking or thinking about it yet! That is INCREDIBLE!This time, truly, will fly by. I have to think very hard about my kids first year(s) because they are such a blur – you’re tired, you’re confused by parenting this new thing and everything is new and confusing and there always seems to be someone doing it Better Than You. It’ll be OK. I promise.
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I had my first C-sect after 19 hours of labor. They couldn’t get my son out. We both almost died. The second one was elective because after the first, I felt I had done my bit at the whole birthing /motherhood thing. Love my kids, most definitely, but the C-sections did damage to both my physical and mental shape. Fast forward to the age of 52…. that’s when I started Pole. I don’t know that I ever would be able to do some of the tricks a lot of you gals can do, and while that is incentive to keep pushing, the actual Poling and being with other women that have varying abilities, always empowered me, and made me feel… even with a messed up scarred abdomen, that I was strong and had some of my sh!# together. It made me feel sexy and confident, because Pole is hard and most shy away from it. I guess I’m saying that I think you will be OK, because it will be Your journey. And truthfully, no matter where you are on the ‘scale’, yours, or what you suppose others think, you’re still a Pole Diva… and by default, Pole Divas’ ROCK! P.S. I’m 60 now, and I still Pole.
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I feel you, being hospitalised for 2 months must have been hell. I had to stop pole/lyra at 30 weeks of pregnancy with baby #2 as I strained my abs- I was so annoyed with myself not being able to do dance after that- every time I tried to even just do conditioning I got paranoid I’d pulled a muscle again.
Baby #2 is 3 months old now, and 3 weeks before he was born I had to go to hospital as they thought I might have had preeclampsia. So I was in for observation, checking blood pressure, CTGs 3 times a day, urine and blood tests. It was frustrating as I felt fine and hospitals are boring if you feel fine. Luckily I was allowed to go home, but did have to keep going back to hospital for extra blood tests.
I can understand your frustration at not getting your weight back. I was never skinny, after baby #1 I got down to 60kg and I looked good, had the beginnings of a sixpack… I’m 7kg away from that aim now.
Actually getting full workouts as a mum is an achievement in itself.
I’m on maternity leave with baby #2 and breastfeeding. Sometimes he sleeps while I train (less often), usually he lies on the floor or in his bouncer watching. But he doesn’t always lie happily long enough for me to get a good workout. Then on weekends when my 2 year old is home from nursery it’s juggling his feeding patterns with her, keeping her off the pole long enough for me to train AND stopping her from doing inappropriate things to her little brother (feeding him playdough, jumping over him etc). She isn’t interested in the pole when I’m not using it, but sometimes when I want to pole, she wants to as well. Luckily not always.Getting rest days in between training sessions and/or cross training is important. I noticed this myself a couple of weeks ago, squeezing in an extra training day on the day after an intense session on the grounds that I would be going to my parent’s the following day and not poling for a week. The extra session wasn’t as good (not as pretty, not as much stamina).
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