Hi all, I’ve missed you! I went on parental leave from the blog at the end of July and gave birth on 21 August. But I’m back! For now it’s going to be once a month from me and I’ll most likely focus on my postpartum fitness journey most of the time.

It’s been quite a ride! From an emergency c-section (luckily everyone involved is doing very well) to figuring out life as a parent and starting an Executive MBA at the same time (thanks to Covid, all classes are online, which is actually extremely convenient for me), I’ve sort of been in a haze for the past 8 weeks since giving birth. Some days, I feel like I’m beginning to emerge from the fog, but other days are still hazy.

Of course, the c-section meant that I was completely off movement for a short while, but once I got out of the hospital, my midwife allowed the gentlest, tiniest postpartum exercises. Thus followed a complete redefinition of “fitness” and “workout”. I’m part of the 220 in 2020 challenge group, so of course the question of what to count as a workout came up. Initially I counted any sort of purposeful movement, even if it was just lying on my yoga mat for ten minutes doing pelvic tilts (not even lifts! Tilts!) and moving my arms about. Then I was also allowed to start walking, so I could add my walks.

After about 4 weeks, I started getting impatient. I was feeling good, and yet here I was doing pelvic tilts. I know, I know. A c-section is major abdominal surgery and You. Need. To. Be. Careful. But I feel like “careful” should be defined individually? For some people, pelvic tilts might be plenty. For others, maybe they can return to a bit more a bit earlier.

I decided to take matters into my own hands. I found a very gentle post c-section yoga video online that felt right, so I did it. I had to make some minor adjustments the first few times, but they were easy enough. My midwife also gave me more exercises. But they were still incredibly boring, so I needed something else.

And then I discovered MommaStrong, an online platform dedicated to postpartum fitness. I’ll write about it in a separate post because I feel it deserves one, but basically there are different stages you go through, starting with “Hazy Days”, an 8-week postpartum programme for the first weeks. The premise is this: 5 minutes a day, be gentle, and there are modifications even for when you’re holding a baby. I graduated “Hazy Days” yesterday, so I’m excited to see what the next stage brings.

Last week, my OBGYN cleared me for exercise and I’ve been doing slightly more challenging YouTube videos since. And in another 2 weeks’ time, I’m safe to go back to the pool! I hope it stays open, since here as elsewhere, there’s an uptick in Covid cases and everything feels very fragile right now.

I won’t lie, redefining fitness after giving birth is hard. There’s no time. A little person wants to eat from me about every two hours, and in the meantime they want to be held, changed, cuddled… My body is completely different after almost 10 months of pregnancy and giving birth. But slowly but surely, I feel like I’m emerging from the haze.