Vaginas. Part 1

By: Brianna on 12:47 PM

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{{Part one of my journey on to better pelvic floor health. I hope you will continue reading as I blog about a topic that needs more attention in this country.}}

This post is going to get personal.

Real personal.

And if you know me, I'm not shy about, ahem, PERSONAL things.

So here we go!

Vaginas. We're going to talk about VAGINAS. Right. Now. More specifically, my vagina.

I had a fantastic home birth with a considerably short 'pushing stage' and a half-assed push with a 9lb 6oz baby flying out of my hoohaa after barely crowning. Not the most ideal situation when you don't want to tear. Thank goodness for all those fab hormones, I didn't feel it a bit when it happened. After, well, that's a different story.

My extensive second degree tear was sutured in the convenience of my bedroom while I held and ogled over my new baby boy in all his chunky delight. I found out later that one side of my labia was hanging on the other side. And that my midwife thought it had been flushed down the tub! (Now THAT would be quite the story!!)

I dealt with all the 'normal' issues post-partum but really struggled with the stitches bothering me and was afraid to have a bowel movement because things were pretty painful. (My vagina is cringing as I type this. Is yours yet?)

My poor vagina.

I remember going to a post partum appointment and not even bringing up the tear. Paul looked (despite the previous warnings from another friend that saw his wife's tear!) so he knew what it looked like before it was stitched. He was VERY concerned about the tearing and that things would never 'be the same.' I reminded him that things would never 'be the same' because, uhhhh did you miss what just happened to get your sweet new baby into this world?!? Regardless, he finally went to a post partum appointment with me to make sure I had the tear and sutures looked at. It was healing nicely and I was thankful for the wonderful healing properties of pereniums!!

Ok, so, fast forward a few months and I still wasn't comfortable having sex. I was scared it would hurt but was told that I needed to do 'it' to stretch the perenium and that it would get better with time.

Well, we are 15 1/2 months out. And I'm still experiencing pain with intercourse.

It's not an enjoyable experience for me and a sad one for my dear, dear patient husband.

Along with the tearing and the issues that have arose with our sex life; I deal with other pelvic floor health issues. Urinary leaking (coughing or laughing with a full bladder makes me wish I just wore Depends daily), hemorrhoids and painful periods are all symptoms of poor pelvic floor health.

So, FINALLY, I made this a priority.

After an interesting, and some may say incredibly immature conversation with my husband and his jokes about my vagina since I've had a baby (he was almost the victim of losing an arm or eye, or his set of testicles--probably the latter), I got in touch with Tami Kent, a women's health physical therapist and author of Wild Feminine (http://www.wildfeminine.com/).

She quickly offered me an appointment within days. So here I am on the eve of changing things up.

Here's what I've heard about Tami Kent and her amazing work:

-Vagina Whisperer (need I say more?)
-inter-vaginal massage
-that a part of your vagina that is tense is linked to your relationship with your mother (hmmm....)
-that women's pelvic floors are connected to their entire being and by balancing the pelvic floor, the whole woman is able to be closer to coming into balance


All kidding aside, I'm very excited to work with Tami and see what improvements are in store.

I'd also like to add that a blog post without a picture is hardly a blog post in my mind, but I couldn't think of any 'appropriate' pictures (nor did I have any inappropriate personal ones to share) so I figured it was best to just not include any ;)

Much love!