For those of you who don’t want to talk about anything below the belt, now is the time to divert your eyes. This is one of those topics that I was thinking about in the car yesterday and, well, here we are.
I have a seven-month old baby at home. While I was expecting, there were several occasions where I met up with friends that I have not seen in a few years. “Oh, you look great, how far along are you?” quickly turned to “You know, you really do need to do those kegel exercises and also begin yoga now.” Somehow, we got into a discussion about coughing, jumping on a trampoline, and many other things that would become taboo with the birth of my second child. “Things don’t bounce back as quickly after #2 so be aware of that…and we mean your weight, your hormones, and your hoo hoo.” (To be fair, these are my sorority sisters…but REALLY??)
When one of them said “I have just gotten to the point where I can sneeze without peeing,” I had to excuse myself to, well, pee. (In my defense, I was 8 months pregnant. Also in my defense, she is the mother of three, and her youngest is…wait for it…FOUR YEARS OLD.)
I waved it off at the time, but as I’ve gone through the transformation back to normal, I find myself wondering: what kind of extreme measures will I have to make to ensure I get my body back one of these days? Do I have to do kegels for days? Or situps? I am still working through the fog, but as I think back, I do remember a lot of harping about the kegels. So much, in fact, that I started to feel like I was in a Dr. Seuss book…”you can do them in a house, you can do them with a mouse” etc etc. I remember thinking at the time “are they serious?” Well, ladies, the answer is yes.
To that end, of course I Googled “kegels” and lo and behold, there is a woman out there who calls herself the “kegel queen.” I’ll admit that I’ve been too embarassed to see what she is advocating, selling, or whatever, but is this such a concern that there is a market for solutions?! Who knew. For now, I will sit in traffic, or at my desk at work, and think contract-ing thoughts. Evidently I only have to do this for about another year before things go back to normal – ??
