The grief for a strong body during recovery.

Postnatal Recovery with Karen Ellis

During a period of recovery, your body often requires you to rest and let it heal.

This is exactly what I needed to do during a three-month period after foot and ankle surgery last year where I couldn’t put weight on my foot and ankle.

My body grew bigger, much bigger in a small amount of time. It was hardly recognisable to me. I talked about this in my podcast episode ‘My body is way bigger - A Personal Share’.

But another thing that happened was that my body got weaker. I spent a lot of time and effort over lots of years to have a body that I moved around in with strength and ease. It was something that was really important to me. Joining in with the monkey bars in the park, running uphill, climbing trees. I wanted to be the active mum.

But suddenly I wasn’t any more. And it hit me - I felt grief for my past strong body. I grieved for all of the things I used to be able to do and now can’t.

I hadn’t quite come to terms with this when I recorded the last podcast episode where I spoke about my recovery.

In truth - I still haven’t - I am still grieving and I can not fully find a way out. For me, it looks like more surgery soon - so there is a way to go.

But after a mum in The Postnatal Recovery membership talked about missing her strong body that she had pre-pregnancy. I know I wanted to at least talk about this - even though it turned out that I couldn’t fully get my words out…………