Extreme Morning Sickness, wanting a 2nd baby

Body: 

Helooooo,

I am so happy that I found this forum and have read through many of the posts in last few days. It is a relief to know that my emotions are not unusual and that there is hope for some type of recovery. Even after all my reading I still have questions so I thought you may have some good insights.

I am 34 yrs old and am now 20 weeks pp with a healthy little girl (my first baby). She was 9lbs1oz, 3 ½ hrs of pushing in many different positions, the baby got stuck on my tailbone so the delivery was assisted with forceps. I experienced 2nd degree tearing. Noticed some strange tissue around 3 weeks and then the bulge/golf ball around 6 weeks when I started walking more for exercise. Diagnosed with a Grade 2 cystocele and Grade 1 rectocele and uterine prolapse. Prior to pregnancy I was a high performance athlete with a strong pelvic floor but throughout the pregnancy I was very inactive due to severe morning sickness and nausea throughout so my muscles atrophied a fair amount. I have been going to pelvic floor physiotherapy since week 12 pp and have experienced an improvement in my pelvic muscle firing/strength but no lifting of the bladder. My physio doesn’t think it will lift at this point. I can also do a few more mild activities such as light biking without making it worse which has been an emotional life saver for me. However, the occasional jaunt across the road to get out of traffic sends the bladder bouncing. I just ordered the WW book and DVD to start working on as well so I am looking forward to the outcome of that. So……. here are the questions I would love to hear your response on:

1. I would really like to have another child. Through your experiences I have read that a prolapse may not get worse but here is the complicating factor for me. Will consistent (10 - 20 times a day) morning sickness throughout the length of 9 months cause my prolapse to get worse? Has anyone been really sick during a POP pregnancy and still maintained their POP?
2. How long before noticeable improvements and return to sport? I’m not looking to do high performance stuff anymore but some downhill skiing, cross country mountain biking, windsurfing…. would make me really happy.
3. If I move from a grade 2 to a grade 3/4 with another pregnancy am I only dreaming to do these type of activities again?
4. Does stopping breastfeeding make a big difference? I have been told by my physio it’s negligible.
5. Is there a style of Yoga that is beneficial? Or has Pilates been of benefit or at least not make things worse?

I look forward to any/all responses!!!!

hi there and welcome to wholewoman

you can have more babies without further prolapse damage if you focus now on healing and managing prolapse. this program is not really a quick fix and then back to regular life. its small yet significant lifestyle changes that will keep your pelvic organs where they belong even if you go on to birth more babies.

I only have a few min right now, so cant get into the explanations, you can explore the site some more, but continue to ask. others may chime in and I can try to get back to you in more detail a bit later.

but quickly....

pelvic floor muscles will not -can not- lift your bladder. they just are not designed for that sort of thing. this is not to say that your bladder cannot be lifted - it can! we are using posture to do it. it works. 20 weeks pp is still early. impossible to predict really, but I am not convinced that your bladder cannot be lifted a bit towards its ideal position.
how long? again, impossible to predict. my guess is that the more completely and consistently you maintain posture and do the exercises the more quickly that will happen. but some of us (myself for example) find ourselves improving really slowly.

many sports are doable with prolapse, the key is to figure out a way to modify what you do so that you are doing what you are doing in a way that is still consistent with proper positioning and not pushing things down/out.
also the more regularly you are 'in posture', once you are in a stable place, you may find that you can do things every now and then that are not 'good for prolapse' but that wont worsen things. not sure if I'm making sense right now, am extremely sleep deprived.
breastfeeding has had no impact on my prolapse. neither has weaning. bf can impact your estrogen levels and estrogen can affect vaginal dryness but estrogen cannot lift your bladder. some women do find that lubricants are helpful though (for symptom management, lube cannot lift your bladder either!)
and the extreme morning sickness {{{{{hugs}}}}} I am that way for only a few weeks and then a few months of once a day puke. I dont' know how you manage with m/s to that degree. vomiting was definitely NOT gentle on my prolapse. I'm sure that if you become pg again, you will get through it somehow, and then you will deal with whatever POP you have after the baby. like you are dealing with that now. prolapse is really quite manageable (before you start messing with surgery that is, once someone has had a prolapse'fix' the whole program has to be modified and its a whole 'nother ball of wax)
I don't know much about yoga or pilates, but check out nauli. that can lift your bladder.

got to get back to managing the chaos here

and congrats on your baby!!

Seasong, you raise a very interesting question. Obviously something like vomiting, which generates a huge amount of pressure in the abdominal/pelvic area, is not gentle on POP. So I'm wondering, for those of us who now have a POP and want to have another baby, can we get sick in WW posture? I'm laughing at the thought of this, but it's also a serious question. Perhaps we could stand over the toilet and bend forward from the hips, sticking the butt out and maintaining the lumbar curve, instead of kneeling and being in total spinal flexion while puking. I'm not sure whether it would be possible to maintain that position (kind of like the position for firebreathing), but it's worth trying.

now why didn't I think of that?
whenever I got caught needing to vomit without a nearby toilet I bent over a ziploc bag (carried them with me for said purpose) but never thought to get into firebreathing type position. its a good idea, I think, worth trying. I'd be curious to hear how it works.

I puked lots this pregnancy...and managed to get myself into a pretty good position each time...sometimes right on hands and knees, other times trying to bend from the waist and keeping my butt out...it looked rather odd, but I really didn't care too much at the time!! Helped me not to pee my pants when I puked either!!! (oh the joys!)

The second and third trimesters were so great when everything was pulled up tight too!!!

There's my two cents!

Even though this is a serious issue, it's still striking me as funny. I didn't even think about the stress incontinence while puking! I'm sure I'll have that issue since I have stress incontinence when I sneeze. Glad to know someone has tried the WW posture while having morning sickness and found it to work. Phew!

Thanks for your responses. I am waiting for my DVD/book to come in the mail to start the program - the WW posture. The good thing is I don't have to make any decisions any time soon. I'm going to a good Chinese med doctor to see if I can address the severe morning sickness (hyperemesis) item. The only downside to that is I won't actually know if the treatment is helping until I get pregnant again!! Glad to be part of this forum.

Haven't posted for a while - but read your post and thought I should. I am on my second pregnancy now - 3 weeks to go - and preparing for a normal birth. I vomited 10 times a day with my first (to 20 weeks) and was so worried before I got pregnant again that it would be the same. Anyway - haven't been sick once with this wee boy (first was a girl) last time I could hardly function. I was on meds to sleep so I wouldn't vomit thru the night. Fingers crossed for you that it may be better too. I have bladder and rectocele and my prolapses haven't been a problem while pregnant. They are there but I don't feel them at all - even at the end of the day - not looking forward to going back to how they were. Good luck with the next pregnancy!