Where's the Exercise Blog Or, The Mom I Thought I'd Be

I originally started this blog for two reasons: I was freshly alone in a new state, so it was nice to get things off my chest, and I was wanting a way to talk about and broadcast my exercise plans and ideas. I wanted to also work on talking about ideas for eating and being healthy in all different aspects. Obviously I knew pregnancy would be featured, as soon as I found out I was pregnant, but I then planned on using it to follow exercise and healthy plans through pregnancy and new motherhood. 

It morphed to involve more of my life and emotional health than I had planned, but then my life was turned upside down a few times and emotional health moved to the front burner. On top of that, I'm in a place where I'm unable to really be exercising much currently. 

So this blog just isn't really the blog I had wanted/intended it to be. I'm still posting about how I'm trying to find my balance of life/food/motherhood/exercise, but it's just not in the way I wanted it to be. 

At the same time, I'm not the mom I thought I'd be.

Good times as a couch mom, he loves to look at himself in the camera screen.

When we decided to chance pregnancy, we were a little up in the air, but we really thought we were in a decent place. We thought we both had new jobs in a wonderful family business where I could do some bookkeeping work from home plus come in somedays to help out with the physical work, my husband could work the shop during the days, and we could be an active together family living just a few minutes from work. 

I had planned on keeping my horse because with both of us working we could afford to do so, and I could lease her out some with my connections there, use her as a lesson horse parts of each week in order to support her costs. I could ride once a week in the evening after my husband got home still.

I did totally expect to sleep with my munchkin.

I had intended to keep up with yoga all through the postpartum period, even gently, and gradually ramp it back up a few weeks later. I thought I would take up running again, even for just very short distances, within 2 months of birth. I meant to attend some prenatal and then mommy & me yoga classes afterward to help keep me involved with other moms. 

I wanted to spend some days at the free pool in our complex, and some days at the free beach in our county - in the Gulf of Mexico.

I should have been able to do some rock climbing again, starting off very gradually after birth of course. I figured we could bring baby in the carrier and just pass him back and forth so we could both do some climbing. 

Someone found this thumb by itself finally!

He found it again, and the shirt says it all.

Instead, here we are about 5 months out....

I'm physically still in pain everyday. 

Running still isn't something I can even think of starting at.

Likewise with yoga. There are only about 5-6 poses I can do that don't cause any pelvic pain/instability.

We can't afford to keep my horse. On top of that, even though she's not sold yet I still can't ride. I haven't really ridden since April. It separates my pelvis.

Rock climbing is also a no-go for the same reason.

Swimming I could probably do, or at least hanging out in the water with baby. But it's not free here, it's very expensive, even more so when it's chilly out, so it's outside of my possibilities.

I might have been able to manage a super light easy mommy & me yoga class - but again with the lack of funds to do it. 

So I hoped to at least be the mom that was out walking around all the time - either wearing or with the stroller. But I can really only manage that with the stroller and not too long of a walk - or not more often than every two or three days.

He's so sweet all cuddled into this cradle. Nevermind those boxes of our stuff that's all being stored...

So instead, I am a sit inside and be bored and sometimes spend all day with the TV mom. Because doing other things has become too painful or expensive for me. 

I LOVE spending time with my little guy, and I WANT to do more WITH him even, but I don't know how to find things to entertain us that don't involve too much time on my feet or any money. I'm at a bit of a loss. 

On top of it, if I ever have another pregnancy, I'm high risk in two different ways. I've had a preemie for unexplained and therefore unpreventable reasons, and I would be a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Those two reasons added together make me ineligible for any out-of-hospital birth center in pretty much any state (with the possible except of The Farm in Tennessee). I would likely get turned down by a home birth midwife, if I wanted to go that route, due to risk. But if I did find a midwife who would do it (and thanks to Illinois, she'd probably be an underground midwife), insurance can't pay her, and there's no way my husband would agree to paying for a home birth when we could have insurance pay for a hospital birth. 

For the moments when I'm overwhelmed with everything...at least I have pretty cocktails?

So pretty much even if I manage to get over my fears and attempt another pregnancy - I'll not be able to have the birth that I wanted. Also, in Illinois it's not legal to have even an in hospital water birth if you're a VBAC. So I'd be stuck either intentionally at home with no medical assistant (LOL NOPE NOT HAPPENING HERE!) or in a very highly medicalized hospital birth. Continuous monitoring, IV, in a nasty ass hospital gown, stuck to the bed essentially with no hope of eating/drinking/relaxing or delivering in a position I want. I just have to give up on anything I was ever hoping for for birth. Even if everything goes 100% perfectly, I'll be treated as a high risk pain in the ass who can't make decisions for herself. 

He's so proud of himself, check out his "big boy" duds!

I tried to get a cute smiley picture, but his hands were impossible to remove from his face.

So I'm grieving. Grieving for the loss of my birth and future births. Grieving for the mom I can't be and the person that I can't be and the life I don't know how to live anymore. Becoming a mom isn't easy, but doing so at the same time as losing your ability to do the overwhelming majority of your hobbies at the same time makes everything much harder. Now having a baby doesn't make it easy to do my hobbies, but Legan merely existing doesn't make it impossible. I could find the time and/or childcare or other support systems to manage to do at least some running, riding, yoga, or climbing if he was the only obstacle - but he's the smallest one. My body holds me back from the largest chunk of what it means to be me. Finances definitely hold back a small part, but not nearly as much as my body.

I worry even more that as we move forward into colder temps that if I don't start getting in some real cardio now - I won't have the lung capacity and cold tolerance to do any outside over the winter. And cardio inside is next to impossible to do for free. So here I am, hoping for the best, but worried. I lost most of what it means to be me with my difficult end of pregnancy and delivery. I lost out on ever having a birth I want when I went into labor with a breech baby in this state at 35 weeks. I lost out on being an athletic mom so far, and I've lost pretty much all of my hobbies other than writing. 

When you strap up a cranky baby that refuses to sleep so you can play a board game!

So all I can hope is that sometime soon I get my insurance card, and then work up the nerve to ask a third medical provider to help me with my pain rather than blow me off. 

I'm working on trying very hard to get out of all of these bad places in my head, but I really don't know how to without being able to drag my body into at least an OK pain free place - preferably one that allows me to practice some of my physical hobbies. We'll see I suppose.

Best damn overalls ever!

I think this look is busy emulating his chubby fluffy bunny next to him. 

Also, I have really funky looking irises. They're green with a brown ring around the pupil. 

And just for giggles, here's a short video of our walk the other day, Barley leads on fearlessly!