Stronger

The slow reclaiming of a postpartum body

Photo by Robert Walker

I know my postpartum recovery is going well when my YouTube search switches from "postpartum recovery" to "beginner calisthenics."

It’s bodyweight strength — functional. Anti-injury, in theory: push-ups on wooden bars for the full range of motion. Shoulders, back, deep core. Something I can do in the early hours while my baby sleeps.

In the day, there’s outdoor work that needs doing. There’s firewood to split, trails to maintain. If you fill the wheelbarrow with wood chips, you work shoulders and back with the pitchfork, then core and glutes to push it stably over the bumpy path.

Hauling rounds of wood is the same, but with more squats to the ground — exactly what a postpartum mama needs to work. So I find myself splitting wood in a nursing bra, because this is how I get back to myself.

Today, I have a splitting maul: a heavy wedge on a long handle. I backswing up over my shoulder, core engaged, hard downswing while the hands slide together. It’s strength and cardio together in a useful, repetitive motion.

I’m splitting with my left, trying to balance out a weakness. It’s slow going; both strength and technique on that side are poor.

I grin wryly as my twelfth left-hand hit still fails to break the wood — but persistence is part of resilience, and I need it now more than ever. The top of the round is crossed with scars. But I raise the heavy blade to the left once again. The force goes somewhere. With enough hits, it will split.

And then, when the block rips open and fresh wood meets air, I stop. Pre-pregnancy Kelsey could split wheelbarrow loads of rounds into a firewood heap. Postpartum, three is enough.

My knees creak. My wrists have a worrisome looseness. Relaxin levels stay high six months or more postpartum, so I have at least another month of hormonally sabotaged joints.

Plus, I have to go in and feed the baby.

It’s a luxury, the wood splitting time. Babies are needy creatures, and most of my hours are two tasks at once: holding the baby while carrying a near-daily load of dirty laundry (spit-up, cloth diapers, his clothes and ours).

I miss him after an hour, but I’d really like five minutes — to change his diaper trash with both hands free. To set up vaccinations on the phone without keeping him engaged with my spare hand.

My left arm must be getting really good at static holds: I flip a family’s worth of French toast at the stove, baby braced in a one-armed grip the whole time. It’s a different kind of strong than I’m used to being, but I’ll take it. It’s necessary.

I had always imagined aging as a gradual process. But if you grow a baby in your body, this is not the case. It’s a hard fight just to feel normal, and skin elasticity is gone. My baby is stronger every day, but I’m still much weaker than my pre-pregnancy self. I don’t get to know what will come back.

My episiotomy scar is a weak, tender rope. I had thought my abs healed, but now I can fit most of a finger in the gap again. The calisthenics go on hold because my wrist threatens to give way.

I feel heavy, because I am. I gained fifty pounds in pregnancy, and I’m still using the extra weight to feed my baby. Mothers who diet often tank their milk supply — so better that I’m big and that my baby chubs up.

Lifting our giant baby is a test to anyone’s back. My shoulder gets sore, but Robert’s back gives in a more sudden, excruciating way. He’s lying on the floor for a few days, and has to take a whole week off baby-carrying — so I have to double mine. We are both extremely conscious of posture when lifting.

One night, Robert wraps his arms around my middle to lift me to the hangboard he’s mounted. I freak out at the sensation, gasping for him to put me down, right now.

I’m stunned by my reaction: it doesn’t hurt, but the belly feels wrong. Maybe it’s a weak core. Maybe it’s leftover instinct from carrying a baby in there. Startled too, he puts me down.

Another day, I overdo and get a migraine so bad I vomit enough to fill both mixing bowls Robert brings me.

I can barely open my eyes, but I still have to feed the baby — back arched beside me in the bed. He’s good at this now, little mouth reaching, latching. I barely have to help.

Luckily, he’s sleepy; even the noise of gentle footfalls are sending waves of nausea through my body. My gentle baby, recently possessed of a shrieking voice, cuddles contentedly. I’m fine in the morning.

For the baby, milestones click suddenly. When he was tiny, I had prop his back with a pillow if I wanted free hands while feeding him. Now, he can roll to his side and stay there. We find him that way in the crib.

The baby rolls over: at first just off of pillows, but then properly onto his stomach. The first night he figures it out, I stand beside his crib for several minutes of the wee hours. He rolls over; I flip him back; he flops; I flip.

He desperately wants to sit up, to stand. Now that he enjoys tummy time, you can see in his face the desire to move forward in space: head up, elbows propped, feet swimming — absolute faith. He doesn’t crawl yet, but eventually this will work.

I see the merit in it. Sometimes, I lie on the floor beside him and copy his movements. They’re surprisingly hard, great for the core.

My body and I are reaching a compromise. I must be dropping weight, because none of my clothes fit — again. When I see myself in pictures, I look solid, heavy. Even so, I recognize more of my old shape — and ability — returning. And as for the new things — perpetually fragile wrists, boobs I can roll up like cinnamon roll dough — they are at least becoming familiar.

I finally make it to the store that carries sports bras in my (new) size. They don’t have anything in stock, but they ship me one that should work. I put it on right away. I bounce on my toes. I run a few steps. I grin. I can work with this.

Catching myself in the mirror after a workout, I’m pleasantly surprised. For the first time, I look like the me I used to know: flushed, happy. Strong.

My mom likes to quote me, at twenty, asserting that while I would be willing to backpack further in a day, “after eight or ten hours it’s not as fun.”

Yesterday, Robert and I took our new “all-terrain” baby jogger out on the bigger trails — his idea to have “long walks day.”

Baby swayed gamely as we wheeled him over tree roots, up and down mountain bike routes. We packed sandwiches and ate them on the trail. But when the baby was over it, so were we — a grand total of about four miles. My hips and pelvic joints were sore when we got back.

That’s progress. We didn’t stop except to feed the baby. I didn’t worry at all that I might pee myself — quite unlike two months ago.

The midday sunlight wends softly through the dripping moss of the forest, surrounding and illuminating our family of three: our first-ever hike. These trails are nearby. We’ll go again soon.

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