First off, the lack of education you’re sent home with after this massive abdominal surgery should be malpractice. It’s truly incredible. 

I did not plan for a C-section at all. I mean, I planned for the possibility of a C-section as far as my birth plan went, but I was not at all prepared for C-section recovery on the backend of delivery. I had a 72 hour stay in the hospital. So we were there from November 22 to November 25. We went home the day after Thanksgiving.

In the hospital, I purchased MammaSteFit 16 week C-section lifting program, as well as their C-section scar mobilization program. I know that scar tissue can wreak havoc on your insides and tissue mobility. So it was important to me to learn how to mobilize that area and not be afraid of it essentially. 

I know that some people don’t experience a lot of pain after having a C-section. But that was not my personal experience. I was on oxy for I think 7 to 10 days from the C-section. My pain was very high for seven days and then on the eighth day, it just dropped significantly. It was like I turned the corner. 

The pain for me was in standing up, and I think I also had pain just from also pushing at a 10 vaginally. Because the pain I was experiencing was around the incision, but also just extreme heaviness in my pelvic floor. And near my rectum. 

At times, I felt like I had to walk bent over. So the nurses let me know that standing up really tall and straight was actually beneficial for me, so I tried to do that as much as possible, but that was also very uncomfortable. 

The lack of mobility was a big mental hurdle for me in postpartum. You already lose so much autonomy. Feeling unable and just not being able to move with intention was one of my least favorite parts of early postpartum.

I found that as far as returning to exercise. I really wanted to move my body a lot sooner than my body was going to allow for. At around three weeks I really really really wanted to move with intention. More than walking. But at that point, I was still finding that, even in moving around my house more , I would get more bleeding, or have more pain the next day.

For instance, at the three week mark, I just did some very gentle mobility, unweighted, lunging, thoracic, spine mobility, and breath work, and I literally had more bleeding the next day, because that was too much. This is just my experience, so take it with a grain of salt . It’s not meant to scare anyone. It’s just literally meant to pull back the curtain on a fit person recovering from a C-section.

Around week four I was feeling a lot better and able to generally walk more and move more without an increase in bleeding. My bleeding was actually almost completely gone at week four. And so I had Mamma stay fit schedule my program start on January 2 which was my six week mark. 

I had a five week postpartum appointment, and I was completely cleared for everything, meaning sex, movement, exercise. All the things. She did an internal exam, and my uterus was healing really well, and I only had a two finger separation in my core. So that gave me the external affirmation I needed to move forward. Because let me tell you, I felt like I was in a brand new body postpartum. I could not tell where anything was in my midsection from muscles to organs. It felt very strange. And sometimes even four months postpartum. It still feels weird.

Right at six weeks I began moving and following the program. It was four days a week. And when I say working out or lifting, I mean unweighted kneeling hip hinges. It’s far stretch to call these workouts.