Helping Women Live Longer, Healthier, Happier Lives! |
 Mother's Day by Geralyn Coopersmith, MA, CSCS It usually it starts with someone saying, "I scored 45 points in the Pee Wee League Basketball Championships" or "I had a growth that looked like Richard Nixon removed from my backside". I love this game!! Typically I lay in wait and then when I've heard from everyone, then I jump in with, "Well, I was in labor for FOUR DAYS!!". Invariably ooohs and ahhs ensue and as impressive as the Nixon growth is, I usually win. (Although there was that one time one of the managers had been shot in the neck and still had some bullet fragments in there. Okay, so she won that one. Gunshots to the neck beat prolonged labor) But usually I win. Because it's kind of hard to top that. Especially when I add in in that I was doing "natural childbirth" up until the bitter end (when I had to have a highly unnatural c-section under general anesthesia). It's funny when you're in shape and pregnant everyone on the planet tells you that "you're so fit, you're just gonna pop that kid out". It doesn't necessarily work that way. I've known fit people who were in labor forever and de-conditioned women who practically delivered in the car on the way to the hospital -- and vice versa. The point is from the very start, NOTHING can prepare you for motherhood. It's kind of like going to Paris. People describe it, you've seen photos, you have ideas about what it will be like in your head ...but until you get there you don't know diddly. In fact, I was so completely ignorant that I actually wrote a four- page "birth plan" describing this peaceful, granola-crunchy, zen birth. I don't know who coined the term "birth plan" (it had to be a man or a woman who had never given birth) but whoever it is, they need to be seriously bitched-slapped. The very phrase, "birth plan" is an oxymoron. There is stuff you can "plan" for -- and then there is "birth" which does what it damn well pleases, dragging your clueless ass along for the ride. And things continue on from there. You've heard about the sleep deprivation, but until you have a kid you really don't understand what that is. I thought, "Sleep deprivation? Get real! I'm a personal trainer, I get up at 4:30 or 5:00 everyday anyway. I'm already sleep-deprived. What's the difference?". Well, the difference is as a mom you're getting up every 2 or 3 hours round the clock to feed and change a tiny, little, defenseless person whom you're terrified of killing accidentally. "Watch his neck!!" "Don't drop him!!" "What was that sound he made?!" "Is he breathing?". You just get through the trauma of delivery and then it hits you -- that was just the beginning and you have no idea how to do this. And that's the truth. No matter how many babies you've been around, or how many siblings you have -- it's different when its your own. It's on-the-job training like you've never experienced. To give you some idea of how psychotic I was...I used to imagine my infant son singing that old jingle for The Army, "we don't ask for experience...we give it!...You won't read it in a book...you'll live it!" But you do learn...day by day they teach you, you make your mistakes and you adjust. At about five weeks you get that first real smile, the one you know wasn't "just gas" and it sinks in-- okay there's a huge upside here, too. And before before you know it you're the veteran. Talking to your pregnant girlfriend on the phone as you change a diaper with one hand, giving advice to the "newbie" and laughing inwardly as she tells you about the "birth plan" she just wrote. Happy Mother's Day!! (Love you, Mom!!) Disclaimer: The information contained in this newsletter is not intended as a substitute for medical care. Not all exercises are appropriate for all individuals. Please consult with your doctor before beginning any exercise program. Geralyn Coopersmith, MA, CSCS is the author of Fit and Female: The Perfect Fitness and Nutrition Game Plan for Your Unique Body Type and the creator of The Best Me Ever -- A Complete Weight Loss, Fat-Burning and Muscle Sculpting System |
