What do I know about American politics?  I’m just a mom from Canada.  But was I mesmerized by the Presidential election this past year?  ABSOLUTELY.  Completely and utterly addicted – to the point that I didn’t argue when my kids said, “You like Obama better than us”.

So, when Inauguration Day arrived, I made sure I was kid-free for the day, invited two Obama-friendly gal pals over and hunkered down to watch every single possible second of TV coverage.  And it was thrilling to see the first African American President sworn in.  It felt like a new era, a fresh start.  It was moving.

Fighting tears, I turned to share the historic moment with my Obama gal pals and my jaw dropped.  Why were my two friends sitting together on the couch with their shirts off?  Had Obama inspired a Lesbian moment?  What the hell was going on??

I could see crisscrossing, up and down, straight and curvy, a web of thin lines across both of my friends’ exposed torsos.  Laughing, cajoling and commiserating, these two moms weren’t having a lesbian moment (although that would have been perfectly alright) they were in fact telling the stories of their scars from multiple surgeries.  They were cancer survivors.

Forget Obama, the dawn of a new era, blah, blah, blah….here were two women who had been to hell and back and had survived!  AND they were laughing together! I was in awe.  The array of scars across their bellies was a reminder to me of this crazy ability humans have to endure, persevere, over come and amazingly to heal.  At that moment, I didn’t see rivers of scars, but a stunning testament to each of my gal pal’s ability to mend, to come together, to be whole again.

When I turned back to the TV to watch the rest of the inaugural proceedings, there was a  grinning President Obama, his (let’s face it) hot wife and J. Crew clad daughters waving to the crowds.  Then it dawned on me (ZOINKS!):  here in my own wee living room was a personal kind of healing and there on the flat screen TV – on a crazy, colossal, gigantic scale – was another kind of healing.  As Obama waved to everyone, I saw a nation beginning to mend its open wounds and starting to heal from the past.

When I FINALLY turned the TV off late that night – too worn out to follow President Obama and Michelle to ALL their balls – I wasn’t sure what had impressed me more about the day – Obama’s historic success or my gal pals’ personal triumphs.  Either way, I was truly inspired.

 So after I got diagnosed with my pelvic floor injuries from childbirth, I expected sympathy cards, flowers, or at least a casserole – store bought would have been fine.  But nothing showed up.  It made me sad.

 Then my husband reminded me that I actually had to TELL people what was wrong with me.  Why standing, walking, lifting were difficult.  Why I had to give up running.   And why I had to quit work – oh, ya the pain. 

TELL people?  You mean be open and honest?  Are you kidding me?  It would totally freak people out if I started talking about ‘down there’.  I mean, look how long it took us to even say the words ‘breast cancer’.  Try mentioning prolapse at the neighbor’s BBQ or incontinence at the family reunion.   Watch the embarrass-o-meter explode and everyone flee the room.  What?  Did I say a bad word?  Is my fly down?  Boogers in my nose?  Well, I did have a lot of garlic at lunch…

 No I decided, I would  NOT tell people what was really wrong with me.  Instead I would just ooze sorrow and  sadness, and thereby telepathically communicate my woes.  That’s how casseroles would arrive at my front door with pretty floral sympathy cards and neatly typed heating instructions.  That was the plan anyway.

My casserole never came.  I was too chicken to spill the real beans – the hard core facts.   If I’d been really brave, I could have said, “Well my life, like my pelvic floor has been a bit re-arranged thanks to popping out babies.   Standing, sitting, lifting, walking are now a bit of a challenge.  Just maneuvering through a day can be exhausting and painful!”  But I didn’t say a word.  Not one word.

 Yeah, a casserole would have been nice.  But feeling comfortable talking about my injuries would have beaten any extra cheesy tetrazzini.

It’s not about the running.

Oh who am I kidding of course it is!

I use to love running.  I mean, I really, really loved running.  It wasn’t about being fast (no, quite the opposite in fact!), I just truly loved getting out there and for a brief while – just kind of escaping things.  I did run with friends and groups but mostly, I preferred running on my own.  Once I got into my rhythm, I kind of moved into another world where I’d have the BEST conversations with myself: I won all my arguments, slammed the evil jerk at work and solved most, if not all, world issues!  I was brilliant, I was in control and all problems were solved.  It was definitely like entering another dimension – not in a Star-Trek-massive-black-hole-time-warp kind of way, it was more like hey –check-out-me-Wonder-Woman-on-top-of-the-world kind of way.  It was great!  I loved running.

And I ran anytime, anywhere.  I made it a habit to have a run – even if it was a small one – in any city I travelled to.  And winter was my favourite time to run.  Fully incognito in my balaclava, shielded from the cold in my head-to-toe reflector gear, I was “WINTER WONDER WOMAN” who could conquer the sinister storm and trample the snow with each pounding step.  And after a run on Christmas Day, I could handle anything – just bring on that houseful of in-laws!

Then I had kids and my running ended.  Forever.   

It wasn’t that I couldn’t find the time, it wasn’t that I didn’t have THE coolest baby jogger, it was childbirth.  The labor, the drugs, the pushing, the drugs part 2, the pushing part 2, then the forceps….. .  That’s the last marathon this body will run.  I didn’t have a running injury, I had a childbirth injury.  Now, it’s too uncomfortable, too painful to run.  It didn’t happen over night.  I still ran a little bit after my first baby, but after the second delivery that was it.

It was hard at first.   I’d watch my fellow moms gather across the street and head out on what used to be our weekly run.  I remember the camaraderie, the short-lived escape from diapers, the wonderful mommy insights.  I’d come home sweaty and spent to screaming kids, a cranky husband and a mess and somehow, it was all OK.  I’d had my fix, I’d done something for me, I could handle this!

I still haven’t found anything to replace the running, my little escape from the world.  I’ve tried meditating (what? NOT to talk to myself for how long?), swimming (kept getting caught in the buoy line), even walking (well, it just doesn’t cut it).  Nothing seems to give me the same sense of being in my own world where the trees, the grass, the people just slip dream-like past me.

And just when I think, “Hey I’m over it”, I will hear in the distance the rhythmic tap, tap, tap of a runner’s steps.  A twinge in my stomach and something stirs inside me.  The tap, tap, tap gets a little louder.  (It’s surprising how light runners sound considering the 100 lb+ weight being carried with every step.)  And for a brief moment, I’ll feel the urge to step up my stride, to kick into gear, to shift into that “place” where I once left the earth just a little bit, where I used to escape this crazy world just a little bit and where I felt like something like Wonder Women just a little bit.

.

There’s nothing like launching two businesses in the middle of a recession to bring on the grey hairs and the black bags under the eyes.  If turning 40 nudged me along the aging scale from “frazzled” to “haggard”, then this full throttle recession stress has catapulted me past “frail” to “Depends-clad cadaver”.

To help slow down the aging effects of recession stress, the hubby thoughtfully suggested (DICTATED) that we cull down (STRIP TO THE BARE NECESSITIES) the food shopping list in order to save money.  After a supportive (NOT) conversation, we mutually agreed (TOTALLY ONESIDED) to take just a few items off our weekly shopping list (LIKE CHOP IT IN HALF).  While I calmly (CRAZILY) explained there were two children to feed, I was kindly (NOT SO KINDLY) informed that toast was good for all three meals. (HUH?) While I wondered how ALL my fellow moms from the past SEVEN years had somehow missed sharing this sage nutritional fact with me, my husband (GHENGIS KAN ) and I cheerfully (TEARFULLY) and in the full spirit of team (KEENING CAME TO MIND) took a few (NEARLY ALL) items off our regular shopping list. (PLEASE NOT THE $6.00 BOX OF ORGANIC GRANOLA!  BUT IT’S GOT THE SPECIAL SEEDS.  I REALLY REALLY REALLY NEED IT!).

At some point I came to.  I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened. But I realized this:  the old paradigm of finding comfort/coziness/safety in food was gone. Food was now about – survival.  The new reality started to settled in – no more organic cheese filled hamburgers from Whole Foods, no more fancy sauces to be used ONCE and no more impulsive purchases of sale items to be used in some recipe, some day, some decade, some century….   (BUT I’LL REALLY REALLY REALLY NEED IT SOMEDAY!)

 BUTTER.  Of all things, can you believe it, butter was THE biggest issue.  The thoughtful husband (NOW OFFICIALLY CUT OFF FROM ANY REMOTE CHANCE OF SEX THIS DECADE) suggested (NOT KINDLY) that I not get STICKS of butter as they are $1.00 more expensive than regular blocks of butter.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  That’s like suggesting you play hockey without a cup.  That’s like saying, forget the Ferrari, a Toyota will work just fine!!!  I really really really need STICKS of butter.  Martha Stewart, in all her recipes, says to use STICKS – not big fat blocks of butter.  How am I supposed to make scones (OK I ONLY MADE THEM ONCE) and croissants (OK THEY SUCKED) with big fat blocks of butter?  How am I supposed to measure EXACTLY how much butter I’m putting in without the handy measuring grid on the wrapper of each stick?  Just how am I supposed to figure out ¼ of a cup of butter from a big fat block of butter?   Martha says STICKS, so I really really, really need STICKS.  (COMPLETELY IGNORED BY THE MACHIVELLIAN FREAK SHOW I SOMEHOW MARRIED)

So that’s how big fat blocks of butter entered our house.  At first, I viewed these metallic wrapped bricks wearily.  I worried how I’d cope when I next forayed into Martha Steward’s “Baking Handbook” without my beloved STICKS.   I was nervous when I tackled some Fudgy Chocolate Brownies. (WHERE’S THE CONVENIENT MEASURING GUIDE?)  But somehow the brownies turned out OK.  So did the White Chocolate Chunk Cookies.   Although I knew Martha was shaking her head in disgust (HEY LADY, YOU WENT TO JAIL, NOT ME!), I started to get a bit comfy with big fat blocks of butter.  In time, I realized that I didn’t really, really, really need STICKS of butter. I also didn’t really, really, really need fancy sauces or special smelly cheeses.  In the end, going back to basics was kind of, well…. liberating!  (DON’T EVER TELL THE HUSBAND I SAID THAT).   

Now, I no longer have a refrigerator door SO brimming with bottles of one-use sauces that the refrigerator used to keel over whenever I open the door.  Now I have JUST what we need.  And strangely – I feel calm.  So, in the end all that stuff that I thought I really really really needed, I don’t really really really need.  It’s OK to just savour the essentials, enjoy the basics, to go simple.  It wasn’t all that extra stuff that I thought I HAD to have that protected me from the scary world.  I realize now it’s my family that helps buttress me against the ills of the world.  And when I hang out now with my family, I feel really, really, really grateful for what I’ve got.  Although, I’m not sure if the food-budget-crazed-dictator husband has fully retired, he’s at least been down graded to benevolent oligarch…and he JUST might get lucky this year….we’ll see.

I came across this video from a past Tyra Banks show. I loved it!  Dr. Debbie came out with a puppet called “The Wondrous Vulva”.  Too funny!!!  Apparently the entire show was about women’s vaginas and normalizing what’s going on “down there”.  I loved Tyra’ s story about her mother.  Apparently, Tyra’s mother told Tyra that “down there was just another part of your body that needed to be looked after like your eyes, ears…”  Kudos to Tyra for having the gumption to do this show.  Here I am brainstorming ways to help moms feel more comfy talking about “down there” after having babies, meanwhile there’s a PUPPET already out there doing the job.  Great job Tyra and can’t wait to meet TWV puppet.  Now I think I’ll call my puppet “Car Wreck”.  How sexy is that???

Here’s the deal, over the past five years my mother has slowly, by small degrees been slipping into dementia – not full blown Alzheimer’s but a combo of dementias –  apparently there are quite a few ways to lose one’s mind.  Whatever the official medical term, we in the family talk about my mom’s condition as “the curtain coming down”.  And how appropriate given my mother was a pianist.  

Gone are the days of having conversations, sharing stories or laughing together. Now, I’ll drop by the retirement home and mom and I will have lunch together.  It’s a quiet lunch.  She asks the same questions several times: “How are the girls?” (I don’t think she remembers their names.) “How’s Mark?” (She remembers my husband’s name but I haven’t heard her say MY name in a long time….has she forgotten?)  She tells me the story about the lady at the next table a couple of times and she is continually surprised when she sees one lady in particular, claiming “I thought she was flying home to Germany!”  No point explaining the lady lives here permanently.  

So much of mom is gone now.  Bright, chatty, Martha-Stewart pales in comparison, making casseroles for anyone in need – all of that vitality is fading, disappearing behind the descending curtain.  Yet every once in a while there are snippets, even flourishes of her old self that let me know that mom’s still here – even in a very edited, reduced, muted way.  Whenever my girls visit, she comes to life.  And look out if there’s a social event – all of a sudden she’s Julie McCoy, Your Retirement Home Director. 

But it never lasts long.  The other day after a bright moment, she asked if I had finished my Christmas shopping. (I’m going to pretend she knows it’s May and she thinks I’m THAT organized! Or my heart will break into a million pieces)

So my mother lives in a world that’s neither fully here nor there.  She’s betwixt and between, caught between what was and what’s becoming.  She’s entering her world behind the curtain.  I know I have much to be grateful for:  I still have my mom, she recognizes my children, she’s not angry or in an altered state.  But, she’s also not really here anymore.  And I guess on Mother’s Day, it hit me that I really missed the mom I knew.

I had no idea at the time of course. I thought everything was “fine”! My only thoughts were:
1) keep the baby alive
2) keep the husband at bay
3) make sure everything appears totally normal

I don’t think ‘I’ was anywhere on the Agenda. And three years later after the second child, a house renovation and a return to work – ‘I’ was still no where to be seen. Somehow, ‘I’ had completely disappeared. When my husband suggested I do something for me, I looked at him like he’d suggested I get a Brazilian. What? So, when I did finally get my act together to have a night out, what did I do? I went scrapbooking. How sad is that! ‘Something for me’ meant sitting at my dining room table organizing photos of my kids.

In hindsight, it makes sense. When I frantically tried to push out that first kid of mine, I also pushed out part of me. Big chunks of me ended up on the floor with the placenta and all the other goo from the delivery, only to be mopped up and incinerated with the rest of the hospital waste.

Maybe that’s why moms are so focused on getting back their bodies – maybe “going to the gym” is more about picking up the bits and pieces of ourselves off the hospital floor and slowly putting ourselves back together.

And now I get what mommy sites like www.yummymummyclub.ca are all about – helping moms find some semblance of their old selves – a wee smidgen of their former self-esteem so that overtired, stressed out, feeling-as-sexy-as-a-log moms actually brush their teeth in the morning or put on jeans instead of the same old stretchy maternity pants.

Who knows, maybe us mom are genetically coded to put ourselves on hold for a few years. But what I do know is if your sense of self is a tad on the shaky side before you have a baby, whoa Nelly look out, you’re in for quite a ride when that little critter pops out!

- Andrea

My physiotherapist and I were bemoaning the lack of information and help for moms and their pelvic floor. We started to brainstorm how to make talking about the pelvic floor friendly, safe, even hip (god forbid). We threw out ideas: What about Ho Ho Home Parties? Madonna as spokes person (makes sense, she’s not shy about anything, I’m pretty sure we’ve even seen her pelvic floor in her book Sex) or….and as we chatted a horrible feeling started growing in my stomach, it careened up my spine and basically punched my brain. As if to say, “You idiot, where have you been? I can’t believe it’s taken you this long to it figure out? “WELL APPARENTLY IT HAS!” I air punched back.

And there it was: the huge, overwhelming, nauseating realization that this wasn’t about a stupid website, a few Kegel Parties (more on that later) or some press coverage (would LOVE that). No this was WAY bigger, this was the mother of all marketing jobs, this was the re-branding of the THE MOST stigmatized part of the human body. I wanted to throw up but I just couldn’t bring myself to mess up another mom’s house. As a marketer I was completely overwhelmed. This was an impossible task; undo centuries of negative attitude, take on religion, eradicate age-old traditions, eliminate arcane practices? I could just picture the work-back schedule: meet marketing team in consciously understated funky office, brainstorm, research, approve crazy smart new positioning strategy, brief way-too-cool creative team, execute ads, press releases, social marketing, brochures, conferences, events…. oh, did I mention there’s no budget! Rebranding the AIG executives into tax-loving, share-my-bonus philanthropists would be a WAY easier job!

Suddenly pink flashed in my head. Oh god, was I going to pass out now? No, it was the pink from a breast cancer ribbon. I breathed. It’s going to be OK – if we can talk about breast cancer now we will eventually be able to talk about moms’ pelvic floors in a normal, not whisper-behind-our-hands way. It’s just going to take time.

I looked up to find my physiotherapist friend staring at me. Oh god, I thought, did I throw up and I not realize it? NO, she was reacting to the last brainstorm idea: The Happy Hammock! It could work, I said, “the hammock represents the pelvic floor muscles…we could give away hammocks at a trade show…we could get t-shirts….know any hammock companies…..”!

What happened? Did the Toronto physiotherapists skip Pelvic Floor 101? Or are some physiotherapists just too chicken to deal with this part of the female body? Gee, that’s professional. Kind of like a banker saying, “I’ll look after just part of your investments.” Or a cab driver who refuses to drive down streets with long names. Or a plumber who only deals with curvy pipes. Well we know doctors are chicken to talk to moms about their pelvic floor: only 2% ask women what’s going on “down there”. So I guess, physiotherapists are too. Cluck, cluck, cluck.

Let’s not discount the wonderful physios who DID go to pelvic floor class. You brave souls! You survived the REALLY SCARY class and us moms are extremely happy about that – eventhough we have to drive for ages to get to you.

I remember coming home from the hospital clutching four pieces of paper the nurses had given me: one a picture of the perfect breastfeeding latch (like that ever happened!), another on how to count the baby’s pees and poos, a list of emergency phone numbers and a reminder to sign up for baby massage class (BABY massage? Where’s MY massage?). But not one piece of paper about ME. I rifled through my hospital bag after we got home desperately looking for something, ANYTHING, to explain just what was going on “down there”. But nothing. Not even a microscopic legal disclaimer saying: Psst, due to the use of forceps you may have sustained an injury to your pelvic floor. Nothing.  Zilch.  Nada.

At the six week follow-up with my gynecologist, I was looking for the BIG EXPLANATION but all I got was “You’re fine. Everything will heal in time.” In time? Like what kind of time? Seconds? Days? Months? This millennium? When? No answers came from the clammed-up doctor. In hindsight, I wish I had taken some forceps to his prostate!

Not even the moms wanted to talk about stuff “down there”. In my mother’s group it was all about the babies. I do remember one day we were having coffee and someone opened up about a broken tail bone and someone else complained about painful sex. It felt like we were having an illegal conversation, as if at any moment we would be arrested by the Motherhood-Is-Pure-Bliss-And-Don’t-You-Dare-Think-Otherwise Police. Someone finally said, “We should write the X-rated version of Motherhood!” We all had a good laugh and that was it. The moment was gone. Vanished. Back to talking about our babies!

But, but, but…..I still don’t feel right “down there”? Googling at 3am between breastfeeds was frustrating to say the least. I didn’t even know WHAT words to search: down there, postpartum, body after baby? And all that ever seemed to pop up was ANOTHER photo of some movie star’s perfect body out jogging two seconds after delivering triplets!

Then one night, in the haze of exhaustion, squirming from sore boobs, I discovered the words PELVIC FLOOR. What the hell’s that? New linoleum? Fancy tiles?  And so began my journey.  Over the years, I’ve uncovered a ton of important stuff about moms and childbirth – stuff that for some reason, no one wants to talk about. It’s like the whole world took a secret oath: Don’t mention ‘pelvic floor’ to moms.  Frankly, I think it would be easier to find Bin Laden then to find a doctor or physiotherapist to talk about my pelvic floor!

And so my journey continues as I try to take the “Omigod, don’t go there!” out of talking about a mom’s pelvic floor. And I’m determined that when (and if) my girls have babies, they’ll come home from the hospital with a piece of paper ABOUT THEM, about how to look after themselves “down there”.  And if all that piece of paper says is “www.afterbabybody.com”, well at least that’s a start in the right direction.