Being My Own Inspiration (or how I am getting my postpartum sh*t together)

Four Five Six weeks.

Of newborn stuff. Sleep deprivation. Middle of the night feedings. Night and day confusion.

Four weeks  Five weeks Six weeks of postpartum recovery.

For me that meant c-section recovery. Which was lot of sitting terrified that everything that can go wrong with my incision would. Again. Because last time that happened. All of it. I don't think I felt "normal" again for at least 3 months. So suffice to say I am babying this recovery as much as I can.

And four weeks five weeks six weeks of not really worrying (or caring) about what I was eating.

Some Easter candy here. A pizza or two there. Whatever was easy and available that was what I ate. To be totally truthful, I did balance this a little bit more than I thought I could. Shakeology is super easy so at least I was getting that in every day. AND thanks to some amazing and wonderful ladies we had some dinners dropped off too. Otherwise I am pretty sure we would have had takeout EVERY night for the last month. Because newborns are hard. And recovering from a c-section is hard too. I spent a lot of my time sitting. Not allowed to go up and down steps multiple times a day. Not getting up and down from my comfy chair too many times a day. More worried about making sure everyone was getting what they needed in terms of much more basic needs (like food, water and bathing although the bathing was sometimes overlooked) than making sure I had a very balanced, color coded happy Fix meal plan on the fridge. AND considering it has taken me an additional two weeks to even start to finish this little blog post I started, it is suffice to say that I have been more than overwhelmed.

In the last three months we bought a house, moved, had a second child, attempted to unpack and live in the new house, dealt with the stomach flu, newborn night confusion, constipation and general fussiness on top of normal crazy springtime stuff (and when your husband works in the construction industry springtime is FULL of crazy stuff. Crazy stuff we call normal.)

I am in fact sitting at my dining room table, looking at my neighbor's gorgeous flowering trees and wondering where in the world did the snow go? Because through the bleary eyes, midnight feedings and projectile vomiting springtime officially sprung. I made it through the requisite "recovery period" and am trying to come up with a plan to get myself and two small children to my 6 week postpartum appointment. While I sit in the midst of my half unpacked boxes, the weather has changed, preschool is wrapping up and I am waiting for inspiration to hit me.

Except it won't.

I know it won't. Because it didn't hit me last time.

Truthfully, I don't know that I had a good night's sleep in the first year of my daughter's life. With two I am guessing that is an ever rarer occurrence than seeing a unicorn prance down my sidewalk. Waiting for me not to be tired, to have the TIME and the ENERGY, waiting for someone else to inspire me to get my postpartum shit together is NEVER going to happen.

Because the only person who can make it happen is me.

I was trying to remember the last time I felt good. Felt great. Felt super awesome like I could do anything and I came up with two instances.

This past November between 20-25 weeks prego. Working out like crazy. Eating well. All the first
trimester yuck had been gone for long enough and the third trimester of aches and pains and nothing fits hadn't yet started. I was proud of how much I was able to do in this pregnancy compared to my first pregnancy. I had awesome energy and felt pretty damn amazing.

And

A little less than a year ago from today. The day we went outlet shopping and I bought some bright obnoxious hot pink workout pants that I absolutely loved. And I could pull them off. The day I really came to terms with accepting what non scale victories were and how important they were.

I know without a doubt I want to get back there and the only person who is going to get me there is me.

Six weeks until I know I am ready to start the well traveled road back to where I was with a little extra baggage. (Because now I have two girls and we don't pack light!) I know I will have to start slow. I know I will be frustrated because things won't move as fast as I want them to. I know I will have to keep myself from pushing through until I am really and truly recovered from this surgery.  I know that I will struggle to look at this as a recovery, doing a little more each day than jumping in headfirst.

So I am starting now. This week with a brand new 21 Day Fix approved meal plan and whatever the doctor clears me for after my appointment later this week.

And accountability is something that has to happen. So along with my super awesome, Insanity certified, now expecting and due in October sister, I am co-running a 21 Day Fix accountability group. 21 Day fix veterans, beginners, 21 Day Fix extremers or even 21 Day Fix dropouts (and we both fall into that category!)

Not only will we be there for accountability but you will have access to all of my Fix meal planning tools including my 3 weeks of meal plans and recipes.

We are kicking off on Monday May 11th!


To join us fill out the application below:

Fill out my online form.

HTML Forms powered by Wufoo.