It’s been a terribly long time since I wrote a blog. I have plenty of excuses on why I haven’t written one, but blogs don't take that long to write, so they were pretty lame excuses. Basically life got in the way. Having a toddler who is constantly on the go, summer vacations, Yoga training, running a small business, trying to have some semblance of a social life and regular boring life stuff too, is why I haven’t sat down in a while to write. But my renewed commitment to myself and to you, is I will be writing more regularly.
A big reason I've been MIA is I’ve been working extra hard to fix my vagina. Yes, you read that correctly. No, my vagina isn’t broken, but it experienced trauma from, alas, giving birth. Right about now you’re probably thinking, but you gave birth 22 months ago! Surely your vagina is back to normal by now, right? Well the sad part is, nope, it isn’t. Sure, all of the working parts are in order with the occasional sneeze snafu (yes, after giving birth you sometimes pee a little when you sneeze) and she even looks great, per my OB who complimented his work twice now. Sometimes I wonder what that man must come face to face with. But even with all that, sex is still painful. Not the entire time, but every time my husband and I are ready for sex, I now understand Madonna's "Like a Virgin" but it's not fun, it hurts like hell and all I can say is GO SLOWER! For the longest time I thought my girl would eventually be alright, but around 16 months I realized I needed to do something.
The next step was contacting my OB who then referred me to a specialist. The specialist then ran a couple really fun tests (just kidding, the tests were NOT fun at all), but what can you expect when going to a specialist for a broken vagina. The specialist then referred me to a PT. Yep, now I go to Physical Therapy regularly where my time there consists of different pelvic stretches, and her fingers in my who-ha stretching and pressing inside my pelvic floor muscles. During this time of the appointment we usually discuss politics, which honestly is probably why my muscles won't relax (no, Ben doesn't bring up politics during sex, just every other second of the day it seems like). When my PT met me for the first time she was surprised my husband and I could even have sex. That’s how tight my pelvic floor muscles were. Basically birthing an 8 lb 4 ounce adorable turkey really caused trauma to the muscle floor. Even going to a PT I still have work to do, I recently just ordered my first set of dilators, HURRAY, MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME! Not sure what a dilator is? Go ahead Google Search it, I dare you! But just maybe when your not at work and when the kids aren't close by. ;)
So why am I sharing this personal information with you? Because I really want to make my friends and family uncomfortable, lol JK! I believe it's important we women are a lot more open to the trauma our bodies go through when giving birth and we learn from each other. No one in my family or close friends had any of these issues, so when this happened to me I was at a loss, I didn't know what to do. I wish my doctor would have mentioned this to me after my 8 week check up, but he didn't. So the reason I'm sharing this story with you now is because it's up to YOU to do your homework. After the baby arrives, and you've been checked by your OBGYN get a referral and go see a PT. Even if your Doctor or Midwife says you don't need to, do yourself a favor and do it. It is so important that you have someone who specializes in the pelvic floor muscles to check you out too. Whether you birthed vaginally or by c-section, it's really important to have another set of hands inspect you. Things are starting to get easier for me and the ol' gal, so there is hope. The key is she's broken, not destroyed. She'll be fixed one day, probably just in time for another Begley sized head to ruin her all over again. But next time, I know what to do way sooner and I hope you do too now!
Not everyone experiences this, so don't be afraid if you are pregnant or thinking of getting pregnant. Just remember to keep this in mind, as knowledge is power.
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