My postpartum journey after having 5 kids in 6 years
I’ve gone back and forth, back and forth between sharing about my postpartum/weight loss after my 5th pregnancy, or keeping this topic private. But Friday is my birthday and I’m feeling all, “I’ll do what I want to!” So if you want, you can listen to me go on about pregnancy, weight gain, and weight loss below.
In all honestly, I have placed “body image” as a fairly low item on my list of things that define me, but I will also be the first to admit it is partially because I have never really struggled with my weight. More so, it is because I have a pretty healthy view of my body, its function, and the importance of a strong and healthy body over a body that looks a certain way. Thus, as a disclaimer I should also say that I have NEVER had six pack abs, or have I ever been super skinny. I danced ballet through most of middle and high school and ate my weight in Dairy Queen french fries to make up for the hours I spent in the dance studio. (No Joke. There was a dairy queen next door to our dance studio where we spent about 3 hours every night of the week and 3+ hours on the weekends).
I ended up quitting ballet, mainly because it took up all of my time, and I was a high schooler wanting to live a life outside of the dance studio. I said goodbye to pasty legs and ballet tights and traded them in for tanned legs and a short skirted cheerleading uniform. I quit dancing, but kept eating the DQ fries at the same rate I did before, and quickly realized that wasn’t a recipe I could keep up with on cheerleading exercise alone. So I started to run. I ran every. Single. Day. for eight years, all the way up until I was about 6 months pregnant with Tylyn (basically stopped running the day after my wedding. haha). I wish I could say that daily exercise during the first 6 months of my first pregnancy helped keep the excess pounds off. It did not. I gained so much weight with my first baby. And I just didn’t understand why. I truly hated gaining so much weight in pregnancy. I never felt like myself. And I have never felt like myself in subsequent pregnancies either. It made it all the harder to see other pregnant woman simply “glowing” and loving every minute of pregnancy. I disliked just about every minute of all of my pregnancies. It honestly impresses me that I did it 5 times over!
Again, I’m not sure why I am sharing this other than to pop any myth bubbles that might exists surrounding pregnancy and weight. My doctor during my first pregnancy echoed the “you should gain about 30 pounds during a healthy pregnancy” that I had heard from multiple other sources as well. And yet my poundage was double that every single time. It wasn’t until I was pregnant with Jacson, and using a midwife for the first time, that the emphasis on my weight gain finally diminished. I never had gestational diabetes and I was perfectly healthy in every other regards. Everyone experiences pregnancy different. Everyone gains weight different during those 9 months too. Comparing myself to other women in pregnancy was the first time in my life where I really started to have a different relationship with my body and the way that I viewed it. I wish I had a big epiphany somewhere along the way that allowed me to accept the weight gain and wear it proudly as a sign of the 5 miracles I was bringing into the world. But I didn’t.
So now that you know my experience with weight gain, let me go into the postpartum, weight loss aspect of pregnancy-- the 4th trimester. I love seeing “transformation” pictures of people’s post pregnancy weight loss. But I have also learned that they are a source of comparison for me. “Like, She just had her baby 2 weeks ago and she is already back to her old self!” It’s rare that I see those same “progress” photo’s that admit, “hey, I’m 3 months out and still holding on to these pounds and stretch marks.” So maybe in sharing my journey it can encourage the ones of us that have a harder time with the weight loss and that have to put in a little extra work as well. On the flip, I do not want it to seem like I am complaining about my size or shape in any way! I just want to echo the sentiment that postpartum is different for everyone. Some people struggle emotionally, some people are elated in the postpartum. And the same goes with physical aspects of postpartum recovery.
Here are the facts for me:
I have been pregnant 5 times in 6 years.
I have nursed each child for 12+ months.
I have done “minimal” exercise in the past 6 years. I could probably add up the number of day’s I have actively exercised into a couple of weeks total.
I have relied on a very strict carb free diet to shed pregnancy weight after each birth.
And lastly,
I did not lose all of my pregnancy weight after Emmy was born and before becoming pregnant with Via. Thus, I started my 5th pregnancy at a higher weight than usual for me. And Thus, I have a bit farther to go in my weight loss and general strength recovery this time around.
Here are the unfortunate, visible results of having 5 pregnancies so close together:
The hormone changes in pregnancy affected my skin in significant ways. I have basically developed a sensitivity to dairy, probably because of the excess hormones all mingling together and making my skin say, “ENOUGH!” (I am very scientific. haha.) Most noticeably, over the years I have developed warts (that have come and then gone when going off dairy), raised white bumps on my shoulders (also disappear when I go off dairy) and toenail fungus (the absolute worst aspect of it all! I will spare you the photos). I know what you’re thinking: JUST STOP EATING DAIRY! I try, but it’s HARD! Lol.
My tail bone sticks out a whole inch from my spine! I hadn’t realized how severe my tail bone displacement has become until about a month ago. I knew it had shifted during my pregnancies. But during the past 2 pregnancies, things must have taken a drastic turn. As soon as my stomach and back began to regain some of their shape it became glaringly noticeable! I have a huge nob that sticks out the base of my spine. This might help explain the terrible sciatic pain that I experienced during the last 2 pregnancies as well.
Stretch marks :( I managed to make it through my first 4 pregnancies with very few stretch marks to show for it. But again, the 5th time around something changed. I would like to contribute it to the fact that My skin had been stretched out for 1 year and 9 months, as that is the full length of time of my last 2, back to back pregnancies. The analogy that comes to mind is of a latex balloon that has been inflated for a very long time and slowly loses air over the course of a couple years. And once it is finally all the way deflated it looks like a shriveled up, wrinkled bag of it’s former self. That is basically what my tummy looks like right now. An old stretched out balloon.
My boobies. HAHAHA. I have no idea what the end result will be for these dear friends of mine. Pray for us! LOL.
After my first baby, Tylyn, was born, I was hanging on to about 15 extra pounds of baby weight at 3 months post-partum and I had had enough. So, I finally gave in to my husbands constant suggestion of cutting out carbs. He was in the middle of baseball season and following a strict workout and diet the entire 8 month season. His perfectly sculpted abs during my pregnancy didn’t help with my displeasure of my weight gain. Anyway, I gave in and decided to listen to him. I cut out carbs and dairy entirely for an intense 14 days and saw immediate results. I swear I lost 20 lbs in 2 weeks. This type of diet may not work for everyone, but it clearly worked for me! And I promise I wasn’t starving myself. I was eating a lot of food.
So after my second birth, I did the same and again lost all of my baby weight. Again, with my 3rd, again lost all of my pregnancy weight. I had gained and lost 70 pounds 3 times over in just a few years time. I felt like superwoman, or maybe just a very dedicated actress preparing for many physically tolling movie roles. HaHa!
Next came my pregnancy with Emmy which was riddled with emotional hardship, and surely affected my physical body as well. And with only 3 months to recover before I became pregnant again, I never got back to a comfortable physical place.
And here I am now, 1 year and 9 months later, recovering from not 1, but 2 births. There are days where I clearly “over do it” physically. Like when I painted the girls bedroom and the next day my back was in so much pain I couldn’t even stand up or sit down. And again when I decided to install wall moulding in my living room. My body clearly can’t keep up with my ambition and energy level. And here I am, 5 days away from my 29th birthday (ok, it’s actually my 31st but that can be our little secret), and I don’t want to be an old lady with a broken back already. So I have decided to start up a new workout routine. We have a state of the art weight rack and bench and weights in our garage basically collecting dust at the moment. My main motivation for writing this post is for accountability. Because once I publicly say I am going to do something, I do it! I have also decided to “kick off” my new, healthier lifestyle with a strict carb free, dairy free cleanse. Tyson and I will have an all out cheat dinner on Friday for my birthday and then right back to business.
Lastly, I will leave you with these embarrassing tummy pictures that I am sure I will regret posting in 10 minutes. At the very least they may serve as decent "before" pics to help motivate me to stay away from all the carbs! Alas,
Cheers to another year, and hopefully a healthier year too!
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