a little more on postpartum recovery, and my goals moving forward.

A while back, I posted on a few things that have helped me recover incredibly well from this birth.  Honestly, I'm not sure if I've ever had a more restful, nourishing, smooth recovery period after a baby, and I really think it's because of how intentional I was in preparing for the postpartum phase, as well as how committed I was on the back end to protecting and sticking with those decisions.  This post goes into detail about how cocooning, napping and good nutrition have made a world of difference for me.

There are a couple of other things that I feel have helped, too: Ab Rehab exercises during pregnancy, supplements, and not pushing my body to be 'normal' too soon.

Diastasis recti exercises during pregnancy. 

I started these exercises up again toward the end of my second trimester, after I stopped feeling so sick, and did them until I was too huge to do them comfortably.  (About six or eight weeks total.)  I'm going to go into more detail on this later this week, but it significantly narrowed the ab separation that was very large during pregnancy, and my current gap is much smaller than it was after Rocco (Baby #5) was born.  I have much less work ahead of me to get it to close again completely.

Supplements. 

I go into more detail in this post about the supplements I take, but I was very diligent through pregnancy and postpartum to supplement my diet with thyroid and hormone helpers.  Right now, I take a raw prenatal, vitamin D, kelp, selenium, magnesium, calcium, collagen and zinc.  I also take fermented cod liver oil - in capsules, because it's disgusting and I don't want to have to taste it!  These helped me reach equilibrium again after my health crashed in the postpartum season after Laurelai, and I try to stay on top of taking them now to help my body continue to run smoothly.

Not getting physical, physical.

I had told myself that I would wait at least twelve weeks before even starting to try to get my body back to 'normal' functioning.  I think this is so important!  I try to think about it like any other intense physical recovery - surgeries, injuries, and illness all require a bit of waiting and resting before getting too physical.  I wanted to honor what my body has done, and protect myself from injury.  So I really have spent the last three months resting and recovering, and am so glad I have.  But now here I am, fifteen weeks postpartum and ready to start moving again.

I'm getting ready to begin again with my diastasis recti exercises, and I'm going to start some other light exercise as well.  I'm also gearing up to tighten up the reins on my diet.  So get ready, because throughout the rest of the week, I'm hoping to fill you in on my current ab separation, and my plans for moving forward with that (I'll even post current photos), as well as what exercise I'll be taking up so that I can get moving again without pushing myself too hard, too quickly.  And I'll hopefully give you a rundown of the nutritional plan I'll be focusing on to help me start looking and feeling like myself again.