Birth Story Part 2- Recovery Begins

Time seems to go by so fast when you have a newborn. She is now over a week old and still doing great. She sleeps a lot and (knock on wood) has been a really good baby. I think maybe God thinks we paid our dues with my first, haha!

One thing I can say about my pregnancy and post pregnancy this time compared to last time is my recovery has been 10 times better. I feel like it is further confirmation for me that by staying active and continuing a healthy lifestyle makes all the difference in the world. It wasn't that I was inactive my first time around but I was much more regular with my exercise and kept the intensity higher than last time too. I definitely didn't eat as well with my first pregnancy (don't get me wrong, I cheated plenty this time) but overall ate much healthier. 

While I was in the hospital the nurse asked me if I was a runner. I laughed and said I would not describe myself as a runner but I will do up to a mile when I have to! She said she thought I was because my resting heart rate was so low, it is 48. It really proved to me that the high intensity crossfit workouts have put me in the best shape of my life. 

Now for the recovery. 

I don't know what it is with me but I was once again looking forward to dropping 10 or 15 lbs in the hospital. I hear of so many women that do this, but with my first I retained so much water that I gained 5 lbs after I gave birth and this time I lost a whole 2 lbs in the hospital. A mixture of the petocin and epidural make me retain water so I once again left the hospital with nearly all the weight I had gained, yet to lose. It didn't take long though and in the first few days I had lost about half of the weight and as I write now, I only have 5 lbs and a belly left to lose.

I had planned to take about 2 weeks away from working out before returning to the gym, however that didn't happen. I really felt good in the days after so at day 5 I decided to go in and row. I go crazy sitting at home and since my little girl has been pretty easy so far, I brought her in, set her next to my rower and got a good sweat on. It really felt good. 

I decided to do a WOD the next day which showed just how far out of cardio shape I have gotten. Being pregnant I did not push myself into that high HR zone so I have lost a lot of my metcon. I really don't feel like I can run yet as even a light jog doesn't feel good in some areas yet, if you know what I mean. Returning to my fitness regimen is hard and only going to get harder as I can do more things. There are times where I feel that people judge me for returning so quickly, however I am a true believer everyone's journey through pregnancy and postpartum is different. No one should feel bad for taking a couple of months post to recover and I shouldn't feel bad for jumping in when I felt good enough to. 

I don't think I will be doing much direct abdominal work for at least 6 weeks because of my abdominal separation (although surprisingly it has already shrunk from 2 fingertips down to 1 fingertip width). Running might take me another week or 2 before I feel up to it and getting inverted might also take a couple more weeks. The good news is, with Crossfit there are so many things I need to get better at, I have plenty I can do now to keep me busy until I am ready to get fully back into it.

I have gone back and forth on whether to show any post pregnancy photos but I think it is important that people know realistically how pregnancy and birth changes our bodies. I know with hard work I will be able to get most of my figure back, but there are things that will always be a little different. 

2 days post birth

One week post birth