Update: 11 days postpartum

So happy for you that you can now enjoy your new baby rather than being annoyed by the pressure the pregnancy was causing.

Now you can get on with pulling those pelvic organs of yours up and forward. Relax your postpartum belly, raise your chest, and feel your tummy becoming ever so slightly firmer and tighter, and feel your pelvis tilting forward, and getting a nice lumbar curve happening again in your lower spine.

The pelvic tilting (which includes a little movement at the sacroiliac joints), that results from lifting the chest gives gravity the opportunity to roll your bladder and uterus forwards onto your lower abdominal wall, with your solid pubic bones coming together underneath your bladder. So your bladder and uterus are literally sitting on a bone support, rather than being suspended above your still floppy pelvic floor.

This posture will take the downward pressure off your pelvic floor, and separate your pelvic bones at the back, and separate your tailbone from your coccyx. This will stretch your pelvic floor muscles tighter, so they can actually alternately stretch and contract as your walk.

These are the real pelvic floor muscle exercises.

It also moves your pelvic floor from horizontal to diagonal, so it stabilises from the back, rather than 'holding up' from the bottom. It will also pull your uterus and bladder in, forward, and away from your vagina while your pelvic floor becomes stronger and less floppy.

It will also exercise your tummy muscles. As your pubic bones rotate downwards it will separate your pubis and your rib cage, which are the origin and insertion points of your rectus abdominus muscles and your internal and external oblique muscles. This slight stretching of these muscles will make them tighter, and get them working again as you walk, just like the pelvic floor, and help to bring the two halves of the RA muscles back together again at your midline. When they instantly become firmer they provide some support for your transverse abdominus muscles, which are currently very stretched from being the hammock which supported your pregnant belly. So your transverse abdominus muscles can also recover their smaller dimensions more easily. All this will take some weeks and months. It will be slow. It will take about 2 years to complete reversion after this pregnancy. Be patient, and just ditch the idea that it is good to get back into pre-pregnant jeans. That will do your self-esteem and your pelvic floor no good at all!!!

Try some Kegels. Can you get any contraction out of your pelvic floor muscles? Some physiotherapy might get you started if they don't want to move. This happened to me after my second pregnancy (carried low for different reasons). No movement at all until I had a few physio sessions, which woke these muscles from their slumber. Then they could get on with building themselves up again, which they did successfully.

I was pregnant again fifteen months after the second birth. The third pregnancy was uncomplicated, and the birth was the best of all three, with none of the pelvic floor problems I had after the second. I felt good two years after the third pregnancy, but there were still subtle improvements for several years after that! The improvement goes on, now I have used Wholewoman techniques for over six years (and my youngest is now 23yo).

Louise

Wow, congrats on the baby! I'd love, love to cuddle with a newborn!
Good for you! :)

And now, focus on that little baby and try not to worry. The next few months will be uncomfortable, but maybe not, there was a member lately (sorry, don't remember the name) who was so well only just weeks after the birth, so there is hope!
You have plenty of time to heal (well, the rest of your life, lol), do not worry about that. The ligaments will tighten back a lot, and proper posture will help you tremendously to reshape the streched out fascia.

Sending you healing wibes!

Liv

Oh huge huge congrats on your lovely baby! so glad to hear.

as others have said, do try not to worry. it is such early days. gentle posture will do sooooo much, and over time you can start nauli and firebreathing and your uterus will start to move forwards again. so know you have great tools out there, but right now is time to nurse your body, feed that baby, love your family, and get loved too!

take care,
Kiki

Thank you for the update and Congratulations on the birth of your baby! It must feel a little like limbo right now though. Baby is out (hurrah) but you have months of recovery ahead of you from your surgery (boo) and a life time of healing (hurrah). Right now the best thing you can do is rest. You just had major abdominal surgery and other people in your life can take care of you, the cooking and the cleaning. The best part is that your time can be spent loving up every minute with that yummy new baby. Man it goes by and then your baby is 8. Our oldest had her birthday this weekend. 8 years just flew right on by. I am so thankful for the time I got to spend just looking at her when she was a tiny baby :)
I bet your cervix will stay well inside. And of course your ligaments will take at least a year to recover. So, nowhere to go but up. Remember, avoid straining at all costs. No heavy lifting, no constipation, nothing that makes you bear down.
Keep us updated about how you go.

hi christine
- forgive the lack of capitals- i'm typing with 1 finger while i feed bubs!
i think i'm the person liv is talking about- i had my second baby (first post POP) 8 weeks ago and i can tell you i've been on tenterhooks the whole time waiting for everything to come crashing down- but so far it hasn't! I know that can change- but the one thing i'm not doing is letting my worries about pop get in the way of enjoying every moment i have with my beautiful son. so, please, just enjoy this wonderful time, look after yourself and remember what comes down can also go back- with time and effort!

and it may be that your symptoms won't get any worse before they get better- i've got everything crossed as this seems to be the way for me so far! that said- i'm very careful that EVERYTHING i do is in posture, i'm watching my diet really really carefully and i'm keeping up with kegels too.

i also have a 2 year old, so i often do more than i probably should- but i'm really careful about how i do it! i have found that straining on the toilet is by far the worst thing i can do- so i eat lots of fruit, beans, vegies and i take chia. i stopped eating meat too and that seems to have helped.

hope this post makes sense- i have baby brain big time! oh, and also watch your posture when you're feeding- lying on yoiur side is good, or i like sitting cross legged on the floor or bed with a pillow under bubs to bring him upto boob height. then i also stick my tummy out over my thighs, keep the curve in my back and do some kegels.

good luck clever mummy- enjoy your baby, worry about meeting your cervix again only if it happens.

Hi Christine_80

Don't even think about talking to your hubby yet. Just get used to talking about it with us first, then when you are ready to think about the possibility of talking to him about it we can suggest ways you can say what you have to say. You are not the first to be uncomfortable about talking to DH and you won't be the last. Often the guys suss out that something is amiss, and they often think it is them, which is sad. Honesty and openness is the way, but don't do it until you feel ready. You will know when it is time. You just have to learn a bit more, and lose some of that fear, which will eventually happen. You can help yourself by educating yourself.

The biggest secret of all is that most guys really don't notice, and are all too pleased to be of help with 'repositioning your pelvic organs' in the way that only a man can. ;-)

They are just grateful to find out that POP does not stand for End Of Sex Forever!

I personally think that the desire to not have sex yet is a primitive way of ensuring that postpartum women look after their little babies instead of leaving them as dinner for a predator, and going off looking for sex.

Just go with the flow, and keep posting.

Louise

Ah, I have a diff't view! Ithink that if this is affecting you and how you are feeling,s omeone who loves you would want to know. I was a wreck, and was very open with people. I figure i wanted the support of the gerat people around me--and when i told them, it was amazing how many women opened up back! so i would encourage openness. not with the person at the grocery store checkout, but with close friends and family, and husbands... they love us, they want us to be ok. And, i needed more help if I was going to look after my body. So friends did my lifting, people helped out--and letting them know why really helped.

Just wondering and if that was alright? You are right that things will be different- but this is your second baby right? So not so different from sex after the first baby :)
It's a big leap- you will take it when you are ready. or maybe when he's ready enough to talk you into it ;)
As far as talking with DH about it-for us it was kinda unavoidable. The midwife let us know we needed to watch the stitches after the second birth- when we were looking at them we noticed the bulge- both decided it was no big deal and just moved on. After the third birth I had stitches that ripped out and dh looked at them to be sure that was what was going on. Then when I had symptoms of pressure and heaviness a few weeks later, dh was involved simply for his ability to see what was going on more easily than I could.
I don't know. We kinda just 'go there' most times. If he's sick I listen to his lungs, if he's throwing up I get him a cool rag and hold it to his head while he pukes. We are pretty hands on around here. And we have both always had a fascination with bodies.
If you are not like that I can understand how less said is better. It did take me a very long time to discuss the emotional component of pop, my pp changing body, my feelings. But the physical stuff we can do!
I did keep a stiff upper lip and assure him that everything was fine, we would be fine, sex would be fine and so far it's all been true, even if I didn't know for sure when I was saying it.
My dh needed that reassurance from me. The 'no big deal' attitude. And I needed for myself to feel relaxed and sexy and not worried about pop.
As far as sensation for me and sensation for him- well, I figure mine is the only one he has access to- so like it or lump it. And for me, I avoid pain during sex- if it hurts even a bit- I don't keep on going- I fix it.
It was interesting actually, after our first birth I had a great deal of tearing and then scar tissue and sex was about impossible. It was actually nice to slow down and figure out my new body and how to make it tic (or hum or whatever).
You know, I kinda figure, this relationship is a for life kind of thing. He's gonna know things about me I wouldn't share with anyone else- He's gonna see parts of me no one else ever will. It's good that way. And of course we are growing older together and we will each have our trials. If we make it through life without any pain or injury what kind of life have we lived? This pop thing has made me realize that there is so much pain and injury among our species. Why would I get to walk away untouched? Surely our dhs will go through some tough physical aliments as we age. I want to be here for him when that happens.
Good luck. Just do what feels right. If you think you need to protect him from this, do it. If you think it would be weird if he knew- keep him in the dark!
It's a very selfless thing to do.
If you need him to help you through it, tell him! He's your man.