Notes on Vacation and Recovery

Our vacation to the RI coast was a success.  Elsie and I love the beach, so we really couldn't go wrong.

Beluga says: "Bitch, please.  I haven't worn a bikini since my first calf!"

Bathing suits always bring with them a very acute awareness of body, a phenomenon heavily exploited by promoters of fad diets and weight-loss gimmicks.  That self consciousness can be challenging for the postpartum mom.  Though physical recovery after Laurel has been much faster than after Elsie, my body never bounces back as fast or as thoroughly as I would like.  That is true in all ways, from the shallow and vain to the vital and healthy.

There is still a gap between the body I'm in and the body I remember as being MY healthy body, but the gap is narrowing.  I am really almost there. I have nothing to complain about.  I am very lucky.  (But still human and therefore still prone to impatience.)

I was graced with the single most basic indicator of womanly normalcy on our vacation: menstruation.  Three months.  That's how long it took.  A couple of weeks ago, I saw my temperatures spike on my charts, crossed my fingers, and hoped that they'd stay high.  They did.  Then, after a short leuteal period, my period came, and heavily. 

There are a few times in a woman's life when she celebrates her period.  Often the first time: Hooray!  I am a woman!  Or more likely: YES!  I will no longer be completely excluded from all my friends' bitching and moaning about cramps and tampons!

Then, hopefully YEARS later, when she's sexually active but not yet ready for a baby.  THANK GOD I am not pregnant from that: act of indiscretion with a guy who is -- on second thought -- too douchy for me to be having sex with / broken condom even though I am also on the pill but I had to go on antibiotics for 10 days 3 months ago and OMG I wonder if it might still be affecting my pill!?!! / stain that may or may not be semen on that towel I used at my friend's house -- after all she has a teenage brother / [insert unlikely scenario of super-sperm impregnating young woman against all odds here].

And now.  When I've been harboring deep seeded worries about fertility struggles, and my period has been a no-show for three months when it was expected at 4-6 weeks.

It came.  It came with a vengeance.  I cheered, hugged my mom, high-fived my husband, and then raced to the convenience store before I ruined my pants and quickly returned to loathing my period for being a stinky, messy, embarrassing, obnoxious pain in the butt of a phenomenon.  Ah!  Bitching and moaning about my period.  We're back to normal.

Addendum: This is just to say that hub and I are NOT trying to get pregnant right now.  We are being super responsible.  I need a good, long, serious break from pregnancy.  I also need to build up my iron stores.  They never fully recovered after Elsie's bloody birth, and I was back down to anemic levels after Laurel's much neater and tidier one.  Doctors' orders are 6 months to a year's rest after an experience like ours, for both physical and emotional healing.  We view that as a bare minimum and will reassess at 6 months to see if we're ready or need more time.  We are, however, charting, which means that I am not on the pill at the moment, despite it being my personal favorite form of birth control.  If I wasn't ovulating, or if I was ovulating but wasn't menstruating, we would want to know about that sooner rather than later.