2 Months Postpartum

Written May 21st

My biggest take away from this month has been how much I forgot about this time period after Carter was born.  Or I guess I should say how much I forgot about myself and my body. I remember a lot about Carter as a 2 month old! I forgot how disgusting it feels to have a jiggle around my midsection and how gross I feel when I try to button my pants only to discover a muffin top protruding above the waist band.  The first month postpartum I didn't mind too much because I basically just wore dresses and yoga pants the entire time.  Now that I'm feeling better and more rested I've been wanting to wear jeans and they just aren't complimentary. My thighs are also bigger causing my shorts to get eaten while I run. What can you do?! I understand it comes with the territory so I don't want to complain, just want others to know I have the same problem! It's been nice having my best friend just a month behind me postpartum because she reminds me almost everyone has this issue, it's not just me because I gained too much or haven't worked hard enough to lose it.

1 Month Postpartum

2 Months Postpartum

This month I added in yoga to help strengthen my pelvic muscles.  The first time I did yoga my pelvic muscles were so sore the next day on my run I actually had to add walking segments into my run.  I can definitely feel my muscles strengthening back up and I'm not sore running anymore.  This past week I cut back on exercising because my bleeding got heavy again.  At my 6 week appointment I told my doctor I was still bleeding and he said I may have irritated the area where the placenta separated from my uterus, causing me to bleed more.  The bleeding was fairly light but then picked up to a bit heavier so I backed off.  I had been running and doing yoga every day plus walks with the dog and other activities such as park play and walking at the aquarium, etc along with carrying Elise in the baby carrier a lot and sometimes even carrying both children.  I decided to stop doing yoga for a week to see if my bleeding would slow down and I haven't had any bleeding in 6 days!  I plan to add yoga back in next week and hope I don't have any issues.

Walking to the library with Carter.

Running has been going so well!  One day I took off and was a bit bored with just doing mileage so I decided to add in some pick ups.  It felt great to run a bit faster for segments of my run.  Then I started doing runs where I tried to make each half-mile faster than the previous one.  After having done that for a while I then tried doing quarter mile repeats.  One day last week I waited to run until Ty got home because Carter was desperate to play in the backyard and I felt bad making him go for a run instead.  Since I was running without a stroller I thought, why not try some quarter repeats.  I was shocked when I was able to hit 7:20-7:30 pace for my quarters!  Today on my run I did quarters again and on the second half hit 7:20-7:30 pace pushing to double stroller! My longest run has been 4 miles.  After the 5k at one month postpartum I decided to drop back down to 2 miles a day until I felt ready to run longer.  Then I added a mile a week to my "long run" and am up to 4 miles.  I want to take it slow especially because I asked a lot of my body getting up to 3 miles so quickly and running a 5k just under a month after Elise was born.

The double stroller hasn't been too difficult.  I don't notice it being bigger or more difficult to maneuver than the single.  Then I did a run with Carter in the single stroller and I felt so light and free.  It was crazy what a difference it was!  I'm really bad about not noticing when my tires need aired up.  I had a week of running that was just terrible.  The stroller seemed so hard to navigate and my arms felt weak.  I was running 11-11:30 minute miles and getting super frustrated.  Then one day I ran with Ty and he took the stroller for part of the run.  He told me I needed to air up the tires as they were super low! I did before my next run and suddenly I was back to running my regular pace!

My running buddies!

I stalled out with my weight gain this month.  I'm still 12 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight with 18 pounds lost.  I was frustrated at first because I was trying to track what I ate and really make sure I wasn't consuming too many calories, but also making sure I wasn't ever too hungry.  I figure if I'm hungry my body needs the calories and I don't want to cause any problems with my milk production as it is above and beyond what Elise needs at this point and I'd like to keep it that way!  I had been weighing myself weekly, but stopped.  I would realize I hadn't lost any weight and think, "If I'm not losing any weight I might as well eat another scoop of ice cream," and that was just counterproductive!  I remember 2-7 months being frustrating for me with Carter as well because I just couldn't lose the last bit of weight.  But then I ended up losing that weight plus some eventually getting down to 8 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight.  It's nice to know that so I can cut myself some slack!