[4 kids in 5] four year postpartum thoughts on DR and motivation and FAILURE

If you are looking for a twins birthday recap here they are just after birth, 
one year old,  Lo. Lan.
two years old, Lo. Lan.
three years old. Lo.  Lan.

The rest of this is about me, postpartum. If I can even call it that (it just seems so far away?)

This was a year postpartum.

It's a funny thing being 4 years postpartum with the twins tomorrow.

I am still working out an average of 5 days a week.

I still have diastasis, but it is steadily improving.

It is nonexistent below my belly button (where it was not too much of an issue after the first year anyway) which is great and means that part is mostly healed. Above is still a 2 finger gap, which is a miracle considering what I started out looking like (like this and also like a bowl of distorted jello). I truly believe for too long that my abs would never work their way back to each other.

I want to be honest because I have been lacking in motivation to blog lately. I have been lacking motivation in a lot of aspects of my life. Sure, I get little bursts here and there, but on the whole it has been difficult. This post is one that I have been dreading posting about for awhile.

I weigh more now than I did postpartum with any of my kids. Even the twins.

A few pounds stayed on right before the move to utah, then I gained a good 10 pounds with the stress of that move, lost some of it and regained another 10 or so in the move to Indiana. All while still working out and being active the entire time. I went through half a dozen whole30s but never quite felt good enough about it to keep going eating that way because it is SO different from the way my family eats.

I got discouraged.

When I lost weight and bloat from being on the whole30, I still looked "bad". I resigned myself to thinking I would only look good when I got surgery and had to "settle" for the way I look until then.

Every meal I would make my family, regardless of its contents, was spurned. I have a husband who (bless his heart) has a limited array of vegetables he will tolerate and my kids enjoy only a fraction of that array. There's a LOT of veggie eating on whole30. That being said, some nights even making mac n cheese my kids would reject for random reasons.

I got more discouraged.

I learned about intuitive eating and tried that for a hot minute, before realizing I was not truly connected enough to my body to do it properly. Enter more discouragement.

Long story short, I feel so far behind on that journey back to my body that feels "normal". I was watching the new Netflix Beyonce Documentary and she spoke about how after she had her twins she had a hard time finding her groove, feeling like a part of her body again, I still feel so much disconnect and shame from that disconnect when it was such a relatively quick turnaround with the first two pregnancies. I also feel shame and guilt about thinking it would always be easy for anyone, and not understanding why anyone would say it was so hard.

I am so tired. All the time. And if it is not the kind of tired that comes with kids who won't go to bed at night or wake up too early it is the tired that comes from every waking moment taking care of 2-4 very demanding children, the twins who are constantly making messes (today it was dumping out an entire two laundry baskets full of folded clean clothes all over the main floor, not to mention yesterday's leftover "take everything out of A's room and dump it at the bottom of the stairs to jump into.") which I know people are going to tell me to love and enjoy and aren't they so creative but mostly I am just so sick of picking up after their messes, not to mention all the emotional pull from each of the four kids demanding time and attention from my every waking minute... it's a lot. I confessed to Drew the other night that sometimes I fantasize about working full time so that I don't have to deal with THIS all day anymore. But the fact is, I would still be dealing with much of the same, it would just be even MORE intense because it would be crammed into a smaller space in time. So... I homeschool till they get sick of me? Drew would never let me and I am sure I would go nuts. Summers and weekends and holidays are plenty for me.

I just feel like going through this whole parenting thing, I knew what to expect out of the first 2 years---it would be terrible, sleepless nights, I would feel like a cow (in more ways than one), lots of crying, etc. But I had these (obviously wild) fantasies of hitting that 3 year mark and it bringing with it a sense of freedom... I could survive the say without a desperate nap!!! (that was a HUGE milestone with the twins to be sure!) I would have free time that I wasn't pumping nursing or changing diapers and babyproofing and I could just do whatever I wanted to do because life without babies would be easier AND THAT WAS A FANTASY LIE. I don't know how to describe how they are harder but they are! Which is obscene since I spent so much of those first two years wishing they would go faster. But they get so much more complicated after the prek years and I feel so lost sometimes trying to navigate things like diaper rashes (but obviously not from a diaper) for my 6 year old, temper tantrums from my 4 year old, things that there is a WEALTH of advice in the 0-2 year old bracket and then NOTHING. At least nothing useful. There are certainly plenty of moments in my day that I am so happy and loving being at home with my kids and the things we get to do together and I feel so lucky, I don't want to diminish that, but I feel like that is ALL I heard from moms of the 2+ crowd. And radio silence on the difficult parts, the emotional and psychological and all that... probably because after 2 years old kids branch out into so many different learning and love languages and disciplines and all that, and I will say pretty much nothing I have done parenting-wise has worked for any two of my children in the same way so I guess there is something to that radio silence.

I have been dreading going to bed since we moved here, every night, just like I did when the kids were babies. But instead of dreading being woken up, it is dreading having to groundhog day my routine of wakeup-change kids clothes-get breakfast-make lunch-out the door to school-gym with twins-home with twins-big kids home-entertain 4 crying emotional rollercoasters who want to EAT ALL THE SNACKS BECAUSE NO ONE ATE THEIR LUNCHES till dinner-dinner-bedtime routine-bed. I know I need to make a change not just in that aspect of my life, but in a couple other parts (like the intentional self-care).

Please do not mistake this as a cry for help (it's not) or depression (it's not) or a need for a vacation (I don't want one right now). This is just me trying to piece together the handful of failures I have been feeling the last little while because that is the best way for me to make sense of it and reflect on it.

FAILING SPECTACULARLY.
That is how I would sum up 2019 so far.

But I am not ashamed of it. I fail every day and every day I keep trying. I am someone who has been fit and in really good shape for the majority of my adult life and I have hit a pretty low blow on that front, not that I am in bad shape, but that I don't look like I am in good shape. I have been legitimately  consistently ashamed of my body for the majority of the last 3 years. I gave myself a grace period for the first year (thankfully, for my mental health!) and then I got real critical, fast.

Thankfully, about a month ago I read Girl, Stop Apologizing. It was mind blowing, more so than Girl, Wash your face. After the first book I attempted a morning routine and a running gratitude list. After the second book (my morning routine has been shot as of late) I started writing down my dreams. The hard part was writing them down and not believing them. Not believing that my body was beautiful and strong. Not believing that I could really be a financial rockstar. But something is happening, slowly but surely, and I am starting to believe. I do love my body, all 20 extra (technically no longer) postpartum pounds of it, almost all belly. I hate writing that last part but it's my truth. The thing I was so afraid of happening to me, staying "all belly" after having kids, it happened. I am trying not to live in the past and compare my post baby self to my prebaby self but I have a 35 inch waist, if you can call it that. This was right before we moved in January, and aside from the spots dissapearing, not much has changed.

I don't have it all figured out but this morning something occurred to me while I was writing my goals is that the one that has been lacking is "I am a daughter of God." One of the most basic truths that have been lacking in my goals and affirmations since I started and I cannot believe I missed it. I included things about being connected to God, making time for things of a more spiritual nature, etc. But that small key was what I have been missing.

"True self care is making the choice to build a life you don't need to regularly escape from"
 I have had that quote on my computer for months but that is also something I have been failing at. I hide in my room, in my phone, in my pantry, in my car, in the locker room of the gym.

I have a beautiful life that I simply need to adjust my expectations for. That this is not the quiet time for glorious free time for sketching and researching and reading books I want to read. This is the time for me to be present and building memories with my kids and in my life because this season will be over soon.
As an abstainer, it always seems like it needs to be all or nothing. Either I give 100% of myself to my kids or to my own self-care. It is really hard for me to split that because it feels so much like finding that balance is harder than the all or nothing, because it is. Because the percentages are always changing, and all the balls being juggled will not all be where they are supposed to be all the time. And sometimes that just needs to be okay.

Failing over and over again just means I keep changing up my approach, my gameplan. While I am discouraged for a moment (some moments longer than others), ultimately I have been blessed and guided to pick myself back up and keep going, keep trying. Much like teaching, much like being an artist, it's all the same. We are all failing, some of us more obviously than others. And I just want to share that in this space to hold that space for anyone who feels that way--to know that it is normal and it will pass. And I am right here, failing regularly alongside my kids and Drew (just kidding, he's perfect and never fails at anything) because that is part of the plan.

I am choosing to let faith overcome fear of failure, because the worst thing I could do is stop trying. It may take me a couple more failures before I am able to "find" the body I am truly comfortable with, but until then I am deciding to still love it and be proud of all it has done, especially in the last 9 years. Time to be braver then yesterday, pull myself up by the bootstraps with a plan and get to work.

#Septemberwhole30 Day 4: We now commence with crazy food dreams, what exactly is the whole30 and recent psoriasis issues

I ate a pizza.
Not just a slice, but a WHOLE ENTIRE PIZZA. (Which I have never done or wanted to do in real life ever)
Crazy thing is, I don't even like pizza very much at all, and rarely eat it unless I am the one making it.
Then I woke up this morning.
And I felt like garbage. Not even a little bit hungry.

*disclaimer: I did not actually eat a pizza...still on whole30*

Weirdest way to start my morning but I am pretty used to it by now, the crazy food dreams for me always start a few days in (usually involving me eating something I am trying to avoid) and stick around for the next two weeks. Most mornings I wake up wracked with guilt and sometimes I have to remind myself out loud that it was only a dream. Even this fourth time around, my brain still finds bizarre ways of coping with not being able to rely on an easy sugar fuel.

Breakfast was the last of my pot roast with guac and an egg that I honestly was too full to finish till about 2 hours after I started eating.

 Lunch was a fun little experiment... I was hungrier now (the phantom pizza must have dissolved back into my subconscious), borderline ravenous and I had some pork (from maybe early last week?) and a bunch of random roasted veggies leftover that I didn't want to eat, so I cut them all up really small yesterday and made some easy ranch I mixed with hot sauce to basically make it taste like Bang Bang Pork and veggies.... divine on top of some roasted SP slices (with paprika and salt)! I went back for seconds on those which was a good thing since as soon as I really looked at most of the peaches I cut up they had already gone bad ;(

 Drew even tried some of the lunch! I think he was wary about it when I was talking about it but he seemed to like it! Dinner was the same but a little less so I threw in my lettuce salad with an egg and some new walmart brand of sparkling water I am loving lately (sorry lacroix!)

I have questions all the time on what I "can't" eat 

on whole30 (I do prefer to say that I "choose not to" eat them)

Basically, I am "only" eating WHOLE foods, quite literally the definition of feeding my body to give it the best possible fuel I can, since the things listed on the "no" list are the things that have been shown in studies to cause some sort of inflammation in the bodies of humans or animals.

The first time I did the whole30. I had a MONSTER headache for a solid week. Probably partly because I was not drinking enough water but mostly because I relied so heavily on foods with a sugar base (read your labels, they sneak sugar in EVERY.THING), it really shocked my body. Each time since then there has been significantly less headaches, and my really bad headaches I usually have on the daily come around 430 pm usually disappear by day 10. Most of the first week of whole30 I go right to "I just want a nap" which lasts shorter with each reset, and I get back to full operating energy much faster, which I will admit is probably my #1 reason for going on another whole30.

I mentioned the psoriasis... It was pretty much just on my ankle and same knee for the last two or three years...

 but the one on my knee is nearly gone, the cuts and sores on my hands have completely vanquished in the last year, and my elbows which were terrible and always bleeding or itchy, are completely smooth and psoriasis free. Is it because of something I eliminated? That is what I am for sure going to find out this round. Hopefully.

See, about four days after I took a break from full whole30 (skipping reintroduction which was a terrible idea as always), I broke out in this rash all over my body, mainly my torso.

 can you see all those tiny red dots? They have now been all over my stomach back and sides for over a week and I have no idea why. I actually have one that has been growing right at that "shelf" my stomach makes when it is relaxed like it is above. This is NOT a "before and after". This is just my postpartum not sucked in (above) and sucked in like I usually try to do in public (below). I feel like because of the lighting and the contours of my stomach (at least) I can see some spots in one picture and other spots in another picture.

I am hoping that in the next 26 days I can figure out what is causing the breakouts and try to eliminate it from my diet completely, figure out what causes the swelling in my abdomen (well more so than my diastasis recti already does) and reduce or eliminate that as well. Wish me luck because here comes day 5...

reflecting on my 3rd whole30 and some diastasis recti frustrations (nearly 3 years later and I'm still as "all belly" as I ever was while pregnant)

So about that Whole30.... it was perfect. It felt easy most days with a couple of friends doing it alongside me and these yummy Fast and Easy recipes I was loving. A perfect 35-ish days of Whole30 eating and honestly I felt so good and I was in such a GOOD funk I didn't even realize it... until I fell off the Whole30 train hard on Superbowl weekend and realized how tired, swollen and gross I felt when I got OFF Whole30.

So most of Feburary I have spent struggling to find motivation for much of anything. I didn't want to blog about Whole30, I didn't want to wake up early or go to bed at a decent hour, I didn't feel like reading any of the half dozen books I am working on, I had no motivation to paint or draw or make meals anymore, I didn't even want to work out (which is an all time low for me!). I effectively hit a post-whole30 black hole and here's the issue: I LOVE the way I ate (the meals were SO GOOD!) and felt on Whole30. But my kids hated it (AKA every meal I made was met with disgust), my husband was supportive but relieved when I was done with it, and taking sugar out of everything is SO STINKING EXPENSIVE. ($8 bacon...as in, $8 for like 10 slices but it was made without sugar!! Madness!). I was really, REALLY hoping that doing a Whole30 would be the springboard I could use to put me on the path back to health I never fully found after having the twins.

I did lose a couple of pounds I needed to lose in January. I lost a little bit of body fat. But then I looked back on weight and measurements I had taken this time last year and I was THE SAME Literally. To the 1/10th of a pound and to the inch, exactly. Which was a hard hit. What was all this work and prepping and everything for if it wasn't making a difference? I had even been doing my Mutu workouts for a month solid, never missing a day, getting weekly PT massages to help my mess of a midsection and I still looked 5 months pregnant. I threw away all my heels. I got all zero-drop/minimalist shoes. I stopped running (because it was putting a lot of pressure on my DR). I varied my workouts, tried crossfit for 6 months (which made it worse), I changed my diet and I saw ZERO results. I am back to where I was a year ago, which was not a great place to be at. So where do I go from here? Am I seriously destined to live the rest of my life with people telling me how great I look to be pregnant with #5?? I have been doing the same MUTU workouts for 2.5 years and I still can't get past week 2 because my Gap won't close up smaller than a "2". I have read more articles and done more research on Diastasis Recti than I have for all papers I have ever written, combined, in both high school and college.

I still cannot believe the twins will be 3 years old in two months. I am happy and excited to be entering this new stage of life that doesn't involve baby things, where we are so close (with Lan at least!) to going without diapers, and can manage without naps if we need to. But I am terribly disappointed in my body and how far behind I feel in relation to the twins age. I work so hard in the gym, on the "proper" core exercises, and while I do not always eat perfectly, I did for a month and observed basically no change in my body (aside from an initial deflation of the bloating/pregnant looking belly).

I'm not looking for a pity party or a quick fix... I am just grateful I have this space where I can finally put down all the feelings that have been building up inside of me for years. Frustrated and disappointed when I have been trying to hard to be grateful and proud. But I will not stop working hard. I will not give up. This is only a small moment in time, and hopefully, God willing, I can look at this post in my newsfeed in a year or two or 5 and recognize and really appreciate the change that will have happened to my body. Because I haven't found the right fix for it yet. But I will.

I will.

2017 New Year's Resolutions- January Recap

Genesis? DONE.

I can't say I actually expected that to have such good timing. Granted, I wasn't studying from Genesis every day (I have to share that study time to plan for weekly FHE's or my CTR7 class, and I also try to get in some study from the monthly study guides at TSS), but I did start back at the end of November, and it being one of the few books of the Old Testament I have ever read (Ruth being another one, obviously!), I am blown away by how much I have been able to learn with the assistance of the student and teacher's manual for institute. Yes, it took a lot longer than I expected it to (reading all those ensign articles from the 70's was really a trip! Fascinating but definitely made the study more intensive but at least for me, more enjoyable). It was the first time I have ever started reading something without a specific end time in mind.... this year-long study of the Old Testament for me is about the JOURNEY, not about getting it completed by December 31. So I may only get through half of the OT, and I am okay with that. The things I am learning in the OT has gone hand in hand with what I have to teach my 8 year olds, my children, and what I am learning as I study other gospel subject matter. Everything is connected and that connection is Christ and this gospel plan we have set up for us. It is incredibly well designed and I cannot wait to see what I learn from Exodus in the next couple of weeks. And because I have no visual to show you all those hours spent reading, enjoy this little work of art little a made at the library today (and requested I take a pic of course):

From TSS, I have really had the chance to dig deep on a few topics since November: Obedience, Gratitude, Charity, and now Discipleship. I cannot thank Breanna enough for introducing me to this site and opening my eyes to a new way of study (which has probably been introduced to me before, but this made it much easier in my opinion!).

I started out this OT study mostly in the mornings, before I knew the kids would be awake (and back when I was working out mid-morning at the gym, you know a whopping two weeks ago!), I have since made the official shift to working out at 6am for crossfit (second day, and I love it even more!), I am still figuring out how to get my study in, currently it is during naptime but for the sake of getting more stuff done during naptime, I may have to shift towards before the gym... I'll start tomorrow and see how that goes. Regardless of when I study, I have found that putting it first has blessed my life in ways I never thought possible. I was still running on too little sleep but I was less tired (Still tired!) and my thoughts were pointed in a better direction throughout the day. I still struggled this month with that post-home-from-school-till bedtime routine... it is HARD. My diet (or lack thereof), my temperament, my willpower, everything suffers during those hours (because we spent about 99% of the 6 or so months preceeding it, going outside and playing as soon as school was out! and we would do that till dinnertime!! It was amazing!!) because nothing I offer as activity is ever good enough to quell the whining and the crying and the general cooped-up-edness mood of myself and my kids so we end up watching movies to survive. But I want to do more than survive the winter. I want to enjoy my kids as much as I do the first half of the day for the second half. But it will definitely take a lot of work on my part and I am just barely feeling up to the task. Time will tell. And thankfully, past February, while it is still cold in March we have rain and puddle jumping and not as many freezing temp days that we can get outside and it's all uphill from there.

Where was I going with this?

2017 I definitely have a handle on a few things (depending on the day). I am enjoying my time more with my kids and am working to be better at meal planning and grocery budgeting (not the couponing, just the actual "spend less than I plan on spending, only shop once a week, planning out meals that use up what we have") which in my mind goes hand in hand with eating more healthy (if I only have $$$$, I am not going to spend $ on junk food when I need to spend the $ on good quality foods that will actually fit into our meals or snacks, fill us up and keep us healthy! Because that's what our family NEEDS these winter months, to stay healthy!!). Added incentive to "make those abs in the kitchen" is that what I pay for crossfit exceeds more than I have ever spent at a gym including childcare, so I don't want that money to go to waste!I still have 13 pounds to go to get to the place I was before I had kids (which some days feels like nothing, other days feels insurmountable), but I am determined to take care of it in the next 3 months so that I can get on in my life to worrying about something else for a change. "Losing the baby weight" has literally been on my "to do" list for the last SIX YEARS. I'm over it. My diastasis gap is "only" at a "2" (!!!!), which is totally normal!! It is a welcome relief and also a nice show that what I am doing is working and my core is getting stronger. I have less fears when it comes to doing something to cause injury because I know that my back is better supported by my core than it has been in over two years.

I had a "vision board", inspired by Jenn, that I made at the start of last year. It hung by my bed and it was the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw before I went to bed. I loved and hated it depending on how I was doing that day. But overall it helped me and so I hope that this year's board will do the same. 2017's is currently a blank slate, but I am sure it will start filling up over the course of the next few weeks (since I just cleared it off today!). Definitely deciding on simple resolutions and putting them up all over my house, on this blog and where I can see it regularly and be reminded of my goals has been helpful. And I am seeing the increased capacity I've been desperately searching for for years. I am not perfect, but I feel more confident in my ability to make better choices and of course, I am trying, which is the most important part.

"Start Where You Are."

2017 Resolutions

One of the nice things about blogging is that when you make resolutions (as I always try to do), it keeps you accountable because it is easy to look back on. Don't knock on me for loving the newness and "fresh-start"ness of January 1.

The word I picked this year was DISCOVER. (Last year's was SIMPLIFY, 2015 was "To accept myself unconditionally right now" (I couldn't think of a simpler word that summed it up, but it was truly a lifesaver, what with spending 1/3 of the year pregnant with twins then the next 2/3 of it dealing with a VERY different and difficult postpartum body than I have ever had to deal with), 2014 was STRONGER).

A couple of things I plan to DISCOVER:
1. Joy in motherhood and in being a wife.
2. The Old Testament. I have found an institute study guide to help me study the body of scripture I tend to have the most amount of difficulty understanding (and to be honest, I started studying it about a month ago). I am loving what I am learning and look forward to it almost every day.
3. My Core. I am done comparing my body to how it was before babies (and especially before the twins!), and most importantly, I am ready to start fresh and just focus on getting my best, healthiest body ever. The stronger my core has gotten over the last 20-ish months, the better I feel (but I still have a long way to go!).
4. Gratitude, not just in the good in my life but in EVERYTHING.
5. Myself. I don't have any clear direction on what this entails right now, but since it is the first year since 2009 (that's EIGHT years, if you're keeping track) where I will not have to spend (at least not that I am planning on, knock on wood) at least part of the year pregnant or breastfeeding, I figure I needs to learn more about what "Ruth" is all about, something I started trying to do late last year. I am hoping #1-4 (as well as continuing to cut out time wasters that don't make me feel better) will help enlighten me along the way, or at least make for a good start.

A few things I have found to help me keep my resolutions is to write it down in a few places (here, my phone home screen, my bathroom mirror, etc) where I can see it and be accountable to it. I usually mull over ideas for the whole month of December, and whatever sticks in my mind come Jan 1 is what I end up going with.

Let's do this.

my last run (indefinitely) and joining the barefoot movement

I have a confession to make. Back in May when Drew and I took a much needed 10 year anniversary trip to Costa Rica, I ran. Every day. Up to an hour each day because it had been AGES since I had been able to run and I had the time to do it outside and the weather was amazing and the sun woke me up between 5-6am and... why not?

Prior to this trip I could probably count on one hand how many miles I have run in TOTAL since giving birth to the twins last year. It was a terrible idea, and one that messed me up for the next month, forcing me to be within reasonable distance from a bathroom at ALL times. It was terrible, It felt like I had JUST given birth (and was a good reminder why I cannot have more children), I felt betrayed by my body, a body I had willingly sacrificed for growing and breastfeeding 4 beautiful children and while I could handle the deflation and loss of my most feminine parts, not being able to run again, was it worth it? I struggled with this for what felt like an eternity (although it was only a few weeks) but thankfully after that time I returned to "normal" and haven't dared to go for a run. Until today.

I've been Mutu-ing like I should for the last two weeks pretty solidly, so I figured, ONE easy mile should be fine, right?

WRONG.

And it should be noted (in case my sisters read this), I had NO problems running after little d or after little a. It has only been since the twins. I don't want to say I will NEVER run again, because I really truly cannot wrap my brain around never getting to run a 5k, much less a half marathon again. But 2017 will not, in fact be the year I focus on running. I will continue to focus on rebuilding my core, which again turns us back to Mutu.

In the Mutu program (which I purchased last year, and no they don't pay me to endorse them. yet!), one of the things they encourage you to do is to go completely barefoot...walking, shoes, etc. No more heels. And to that, I initially said, sure, I only wear high heeled shoes on sundays, no big deal. But the more time I spent on my feet barefoot at home and then would wear heels for even just those three hours a week... I would be in so much pain for the rest of the day that over the course of the last few months and especially the last few weeks my amazing collection of beautiful shoes has been whittled down to a single pair of church shoes (the closest and most comfortable pair of black flats I could ever find, on their last legs but I will wear them into the ground!), a pair of running shoes I may as well give to one of my sisters at this point, and also these new guys:

the Vivos definitely took some getting used to... the first few days of using them I was sore in places of my legs that I have never really been in my life but the longer I have been wearing them (two weeks today!) the less of a difference I feel between when I do and do not have shoes on.

Just over two weeks ago I started to feel some pretty serious pain, which after a visit to a podiatrist he attributed to my bunions and a toe that would need to be shortened surgically someday (both of which I plan to hold off indefinitely on, since they are expensive surgeries that would require a long time off my feet) and he felt my only option was to purchase expensive orthotics that would essentially do the same to my feet as a belly binder/corset would to my stomach at this point in life... it would not just be putting a band-aid on the problem, it would also weaken what is already a weak area (I have very little arches in my feet and very little abdominal muscle in my belly). So I figured if I felt like Mutu has been the best option, I would continue to do what made sense to me. I purchased these shoes the next day, gave away my remaining heeled shoes (keeping one pair of rainboots until I can find some that are barefoot) and haven't looked back. And my feet have not since hurt in the way it did so frequently while I was pregnant with the twins, or more recently before my foot doctor visit.

It isn't easy to feel like you are working so hard to attain something that seems so unattainable. Maybe the only way my stomach will be flat or my feet will never feel pain will be with surgery. But until I reach that point where I feel like I have exhausted every believable option that I can do on my own, I won't quit trying.

"Mommy's Broken": dealing with DRA after twins/third pregnancy

At around the six week mark when I went in for my checkup, I knew something was not quite right with my body. I had a little abdominal separation with little d, and sure enough, I had a pretty wide gap after the babies.. (But of course it goes without saying that they were 110% worth it!!)

Yeah... You don't go from here to Babies out without some sort of consequence... (That would be my Twinner underbelly at 37 weeks)

Diastasis Rectus Abdominus: For everyone else, it is just those two lines of central abdominal muscle that run underneath the ribcage. For me, those abdominal muscles have been pulled so far apart from each other, they resemble more of a circle than two parallel lines...otherwise known to me as 'I'm going to look pregnant for a looong time because my insides are sticking out between my "abs"'. Lovely. Remember this?

Hello, intestines sticking out between my two day postpartum "abs".

But then again... Worth the sacrifice. Not complaining, just saying it needs fixing.

My OB brushed it off, saying it was totally normal and with time and ab workouts I would be healed so I believed her and went ahead for the next two months doing bootcamp, weight lifiting and even running as back to normal as I could. But nothing felt even remotely close to normal. So I started researching diastasis rectus abdominus (DRA) and the more I researched the more depressed I became... I wasn't supposed to do pushups? No planks? No high impact aerobic exercise? That sort of stuff was my bread and butter of working out... I JUST SPENT SIX WEEKS DOING NOTHING SO I COULD BE HEALED AND WORK OUT THE WAY I WANTED TO!!! I wanted to scream at the computer screen. But I kept working out the way I wanted to, feeling guilty for it, until it all came to a head around 3 months postpartum when I realized I was gaining weight AND the gap inbetween my abs was getting LARGER. (I may down and all my excess skin fills in my DRA gap... Functional or just gross? Maybe a little bit of both. Either way, I miss my belly button.) 

(3 months pp here)
What I was doing wasn't working.

But I didn't want to resort to a binder/splint (its the dead of summer, can you blame me?!) or spending 100's of dollars I don't have on a diet and exercise program that may or may not correct my DRA. So I found this article on Breaking Muscle and decided to give it a try. I signed up with my email with them and they sent me a three month training plan...

BUT. I would have to drop out of any and all classes I was doing and just focus on this plan. It was a painstakingly difficult decision to make. I LOVE pushing myself to the limit and breaking a horrible sweat during my workouts...cheapest form of therapy and stress relief I know, and they were telling me I had to stop it? FINE. So roughly a month ago I swapped out my favorite classes at the gym (I still miss you, Bootcamp!!) and made one of the hardest decisions of my postpartum fitness life: to focus instead on managing my eating instead of expecting my calories to be blasted during workouts, which is basically what I depended on the last two times and is the only reason why I lost any weight at all after my pregnancies. I love food. LOVE it. And I love working out hard. So it goes hand in hand that I can work out HARD and then eat whatever my heart desires. Well, not for the next three months.

(Today in my favorite running skort, 4.5 months pp first thing in the morning and flexing my "abs"... I don't think it's too shallow of me to want to have a smaller belly than my chest. Slowly but surely they're coming together.)

So, I've done it. As of last week I finished phase one of three. And today I got the sweet reward of getting to do a "45 min run/brisk walk" and I actually broke a SWEAT. It was glorious and the first time I have broken a sweat at the gym in almost 5 weeks. Because to be honest, workouts like deadlifts with no weights and lots of brisk walking was just not doing it for me... but I persisted because I knew it was working. I could feel it. It was not always easy (although the workouts always were haha...) and there were some days I just wanted to give up and stay the way I was forever: miserable.

One morning in particular the kids were being exceptionally difficult and I think it took us an hour to get from our front door to the gym childcare. SIXTY MINUTES. That's rediculous and that was even with doling out bribes left and right. Finally, just before I dropped of the kids, the bigger of the four whining that they didn't like this gym blah blah blah... I lost it. "MOMMY IS BROKEN, DON'T YOU GET IT?!?! I AM BROKEN AND I CAN'T GET FIXED UNLESS I GO TO THE GYM AND DO MY WORKOUTS!" Curious, little d pressed for more information and I promised to show him when we got home. Sure enough, after we got home from the gym, I laid on the floor and pulled up my shirt to expose my belly. Little a came over to look. Both watched and touched my belly, mesmerized by how much skin there was and how oddly shaped my midsection was. But the message got through to them and we have never had a difficult time getting them out the door since then.

I'm only down a pound since that turning point a month ago. But at least I haven't gained weight! I am feeling better and more comfortable and I definitely feel like those deep core workouts (that never quite feel like workouts) are helping. Running today, while only in short bursts and like 40% of what I am used to doing, it felt more normal than I ever hoped. So sure. I still look 4 months pregnant. But I am feeling better each day, and I am in no absolute rush to get looking back to normal, no deadline this time other than my desire to feel more back to normal.

So sorry I don't have those perfectly tucked in abdominal muscles like so many mothers seem to have, pictures littered all over the Internet or Instagram of "better body 6 weeks after baby(ies)!" That I coveted and held some sort of sick hope that maybe that could be me if I worked really really hard. But there are some things you can't plan for and DRA is one of those. I post not to discourage anyone but to show that this is real life, even if it isn't glamorous or perfectly the way Hollywood tells us postpartum looks like.

They are the result of a lot of hard work on my part but they are hopefully a good starting point and it will only get better from here. I post this because in my other two pregnancies people I knew (and some I didn't) would frequently comment to me that well OF COURSE I lost all that weight, it was SOOOO EASY for me because I am naturally thin blah blah blah... but that is NOT the case. Each pregnancy has been quite different, most of the 140ish (total from three pregnancies) pounds were hard fought but this pregnancy has been my hardest by FAR to come back from. Maybe it was third pregnancy, maybe it was twin pregnancy, maybe it was because I gained the most... regardless I am bound set and determined to come out of this and enter my 30's with the best body I've ever had. My body in my early 20's was slim (but a "skinny fat", if you will) from all the running and cardio I did, late 20's I have gone from 110 to 160, back down to 112 then up to 150, down to 115 then up to 165 and everything inbetween. But I have been able to consistently strength train and keep most of the definition in my arms and occasionally my legs (which chaffed for the first time in my entire life during my run today, thank you very much). I have changed the way I look at and eat food. I choose quinoa over rice and Ezekiel bread over just about any other because I can actually eat it and feel a difference: I feel FULL after a serving or two, as opposed to regular rice or bread that I could probably eat an entire bowl or loaf of.

I have been perfect in my workouts. I never have a hard time with those, especially when it is so basic and simple like the training plan for DRA. Eating has been more of a challenge, but for the last month I have been trying to eat smaller meals 5 times a day and include protein in all those meals and for the first time since I had the boys I am not nonstop starving (probably because I am constantly eating haha) and am able to pay more attention to what I eat. But I'm not perfect in my eating and I have daily treats and I eat too late or too much and you know what? That's ok. Once I am getting more sleep I'll worry more about the nutrition aspect of my life. ;)

Anyways, long way of saying one month down and two months to go. And then if this (free) program doesn't work, only THEN will I be willing to pony up some money for another plan. Maybe. Have I mentioned enough that they are worth it? ;)

While I am sure posts like this make me seem superficial and preoccupied with my middle, 98% of the day I am proud to say my thoughts are filled with my kids: caring for them and loving on them and playing with them and enjoying their sweet littleness for the small amount of time they are that way, because I made a decision a long time ago that I would not waste away my days worrying about my image when I could be enjoying time with my babes so that when I look back I have no regrets. And I am pleased to say that in almost five months, I have napped midday and had ice cream and slept in and not showered and occasionally raised my voice and done all sorts of crazy stuff but while I have no regrets, I definitely have been blessed with lots of learning experiences.

Baby Lan with his little sad face... Wish we figured out that reflux before the one month mark, poor babe!

And sweet little old man Lo. Those forehead wrinkles though...