So, here we are, nearly two months after my last update. First things, first: Baby L arrived a in May and, following a small hiccup during labour that was easily resolved once a midwife actually assessed us (cue future blog about trend towards non intervention that is largely great but could have saved us c.9 hours of stalling labour if they’d only offered us a check after admission), it ended up being a quick and relatively easy delivery, and we got to watch the FA Cup final before things all kicked off properly too. Result.
What does this have to do with knees? Well, just a few observations, really:
Keeping active during labour is encouraged and, in an attempt to get things moving again when it initially stalled, I spent a lot of time lunging around the room and doing squats. The knee held up pretty well with the only issue being limited range of movement and some low level soreness but, let’s be honest, my attention was largely elsewhere by that time!
If you’re planning a water birth after ACL surgery, ask for a towel to stick under your knee (yes, even in the water) so you’re not sliding around. I wanted to be as upright as possible to make the most of gravity, which meant kneeling up in the pool, and the towel reduced anterior knee pain as well as giving my pathetic hamstrings a helping hand to hold me in the best position.
Forget deep squats as a birth position if you’ve had ACL surgery. Just don’t even go there…!
Where are we now?
So, here we are, just over six weeks after Baby L arrived and things are setting down. It’s also the magic number of weeks before us Mums are ‘allowed’ to go back to formal exercise and to say I’m chomping at the bit would be putting it mildly.
Psychologically, I’m looking forward to getting back into sport and fitness properly after what can only be described as a stop start few years. Adding more physical activity to my life should help me shed the rest of this baby weight too. Yes, there’s a popular movement on social media towards celebrating the realities of the postpartum body - and I’m all for supporting women to do just that - but I can’t pretend that I like mine and the sooner I can get back to ‘normal’, back towards where I was before the second ACL surgery even, the better it will be for me and my state of mind).
(Edit - since writing this, I found out that it's actually an 'eight week appointment' at our GP's as it ties in with baby's first jabs. This means I now have to wait an additional two weeks before I can get back to any formal fitness classes. Thanks for that guys (not)).
So, now seems like as good a point as any to check in with the OKS and CKS scores, which I’ll continue updating each month to track progress.
CKS - 44
OKS - 33
After six weeks of relative inactivity (I’m not sure that eating my body weight in ‘banned in pregnancy’ foods e.g. pate, brie, mussels, rare steak etc. and sitting on my backside feeding the baby really counts as being active), the scores are much on a par with where they were immediately before having Baby L. I haven’t moved enough to make any additional comments, other than the facts that
The nighttime knee pain is back now that I’ve started going out for walks with the buggy; and
Baby and child car seats are really badly designed for people with dodgy knees (stepping into car footwells and twisting round to sort the seat belts certainly seems to do mine no favours, at any rate. Even the 'good' knee is complaining).
Managing the known issues
I’m excited to be at the start of what will hopefully prove to be my return to fitness but also aware I need to pace things and manage the known issues carefully so I don’t scupper myself before I get started again.
I am breastfeeding Baby L so, most importantly, I have to be careful with the knee and other joints as the relaxin is going to be in my body for the foreseeable future (and as mentioned in a previous post, my joints are definitely looser at the moment).
Two other issues to manage (which I mention only as there are papers suggesting these issues are more prevalent in those with hypermobility and it has been suggested that that may be one of the causes of my knee issues) are that:
I still have some PGP issues (grinding in my pelvis and a clicking sacroiliac joint when I walk); and
Diastasis recti. Thankfully this only seems to be four finger widths this time around (compared to seven last time!) but it does mean I have to be careful re lifting and doing traditional abdominal exercises until it has closed properly. If you thought quad setting was the most boring physio exercise you could possibly imagine, you aint seen nothing until you’ve seen the diastasis recti physio exercises, believe me! For an additional laugh, bear in mind that a complete set (5 x 10 reps) takes 30 minutes and I'm supposed to be doing three sets a day. With a newborn. Ha ha ha ha ha!
Anyway, there are a lot of websites and companies that will charge Mums £££ to access exercises to help lose their 'Mum Tum' so I'm going to share the exercises I've been given here, free of charge.
They may be dull but they work.
If you don't believe me, the photo below is of my abs 12 months after they separated last time around, so I know it can be done. And no, I'm not sharing a photo of my abs now, it's too depressing!!!
Anyway, my plan now is to get back to MummyFit from next week and do this a couple of times a week over the summer, adding in some swimming and buggy walking to get my basic fitness back. Then, assuming all goes well, come the Autumn I’m hoping to kick things up a level and have a go at tennis (which my daughter plays so i could do with being able to hit some balls with her) and maybe (much to my husband’s dismay) try my hand at gymnastics again (my daughter’s gym club now runs an adult class one evening a week. In my head, I can still do all the stuff I could when I was doing gym as a kid. The truth, I’m sadly aware, will be drastically different and I know I'm playing with fire knee wise. Still, it will be good for a laugh, if nothing else).
In more sensible developments, I'm also planning to get a few swimming lessons booked in so I can sort out my front crawl breathing and finally start working towards a sprint tri (which should be relatively knee friendly, right?) before my next big birthday.
PLEASE LET THIS KNEE HOLD UP!!!