AUTO-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT

Brianna Battles  00:01

Welcome to the Practice Brave podcast. I am the host, Brianna Battles, founder of Pregnancy and Postpartum Athleticism, and CEO of Everyday Battles. I’m a career strength and conditioning coach, entrepreneur, mom of two wild little boys, and a lifelong athlete. I believe that athleticism does not end when motherhood begins, and this podcast is dedicated to coaching you by providing meaningful conversations, insights, and interview topics related to fitness, mindset, parenting, and of course, all the nuances of pregnancy and postpartum. From expert interviews to engaging conversations and reflections, this podcast is your trustworthy, relatable resource for learning how to practice brave through every season in your life. Hey, everyone! Welcome back to the Practice Brave podcast. Today, I want to talk to you about the decision to have another baby. If you are somebody who is struggling with that choice. Maybe you’re coming off of a really difficult postpartum experience or a difficult delivery. It is not always easy or intuitive or natural feeling to think about having another baby. If you’re anything like me, I was not even remotely ready to consider that until I was three years postpartum, and by that point, anyone who had a baby around the same time as me had already had their second, or you know, or an additional baby, and I felt behind. I felt like there was something wrong with me, and I felt like why, like this shouldn’t be hard if this is something that I think I want deep down. But there was just so much struggle, and I know that. And I’m not going to focus on on the different reasons that maybe play into that. But I think for a lot of people who struggled in any way, maybe it was their physical body, their mental health, the just the state of their life at that time, it can be hard to think about adding to that because we have perspective, you know that it’s hard, and you know if you like, Cade was a very colicky baby too, so I was like so afraid of going through that. Breastfeeding was hard, the delivery was hard, like everything felt hard at a lot of major life transitions, leaving a career in Division One, ultimately starting a business. Jared was working shift work at the time, and it was just like the thought of doing that alone. Well, not alone, but just doing that again. But now, in addition to having a very rambunctious toddler, just felt like, how do I do that? How can I like opt into that, knowing how hard it’s going to be? But it was this deep knowing. It really was. It wasn’t like this moment of like, okay, we’re ready. Let’s start trying. It was just like this deep knowing of, I have done a lot of work to reinvent myself. I have done a lot of work to trust myself. I am so much smarter now in regard to my body and really understanding what it experiences during pregnancy postpartum, I understand my training better. I have done some therapy, not as much as I should have at that point in time, compared to like where I’m at in my life now. But like I had put in a lot of work to be as prepared as possible to really understand. Like I had started my business, you know, because it was this quest of how can I learn more so that there are variables that can be controlled? Because we can’t control all of them. We just cannot. When you are a mom, when there’s birth and delivery, and that’s just again variables that we can cannot control. But what are the ones that we can control? And that’s like what I really shifted my focus to is what am I in control of? Well, I’m in control of asking for the support that I need. I’m in control of advocating for the resources that I need. I’m in control of my training approach and what I understand about my body now, what it needs now, what it’s going to need later. I am not operating from a place of invincibility or of ego anymore. Like I have been humbled. My whole identity is not attached to what I look like or what I can do. It’s expanded, so it’s like there is so much maturity that gets acquired.

Brianna Battles  04:12

I think once you become a mom, and because I had been so so incredibly humble that first time, it really sort of set me up to go into that second parking scene with a lot of perspective and and just knowing this is what I need and I’m going to do everything I can to advocate for myself. So I think we got parking like somewhere within the first few months after Cade turned three, and again, it wasn’t like this. This moment of we’re ready. It’s just like, okay, I know that I want to have them close-ish together, and we’re starting to get to that point of them being further apart in age than I originally wanted. But so fast forward, I’ll just tell you. That the four-year age gap has continually been a significant blessing in my life, and I’m so glad. I’m so glad they are four years apart. It has been, it’s been beneficial in so many different ways. My boys are very close. It’s been great for our family. I would recommend it. So, so that’s just like a whole other part of the conversation. Um, but we were able to get pregnant, and I felt pretty good throughout my first pregnancy. But again, I think it was this my like I got to implement what I had been coaching at by that point in time. I had learned so much after my first. I had done some mentorships. I had really like gotten into coaching more pregnant and postpartum athletes. I had been sharing more about it. I really like had a deeper understanding of the female body and what it needed. And then more importantly than any of that was the psychological factors that, as an athlete, you have to be cognizant of when you’re navigating pregnancy and postpartum. It’s not just ability based or skill based. It’s not about safety or not, it was really just about like what approach did I needed to have that supported my body now on behalf of what my body was going to experience long term. I knew that I had had a really really significant diastasis, like really significant double digits, like tissue very very thin because I grow 10 pound babies. Super rude, but I knew like I needed to be really aware of the toll pregnancy naturally takes on my body, on top of my training approach mentally and physically, because training approach is never just about the physical ever, but we like to hyper focus on that in our circle, and again, that’s kind of what separates what I do and what I coach and what I teach from mainstream pregnancy, postpartum fitness content. So I knew I had to put a lot of what I talked about into play, and I had to be my own case study. And while that came with like responsibility, it also came with being able to-I don’t know-just like own it more and live it out and put my money where my mouth was. Kind of, you know, because it’s like there’s things we can learn in hindsight, and then there’s things that we can learn by doing and experience in the moment. So I did. I trained throughout that pregnancy, and honestly, it was really a positive experience. I had a good pregnancy, although I was huge. I was-I just gained a lot of weight with my with my babies, even eating well, training a lot. Like I still gain like 50 to 60 pounds at least, and I’m in giant at the end, which is again things we can’t always control because for me controlling that would have not been very healthy psychologically for me and I knew that so I knew where my priorities were and throughout that pregnancy I knew you know there was this decision of whether or not I wanted to have a VBAC or a repeat cesarean and if you would have asked me four years prior, you know, would you want to be back or C-section? I would have said, “Oh my God, I’m sure, for sure, doing a V back. I need like this redemption birth. That would have been my answer, and it was my answer for a long time until I did more healing, a lot more healing, and learned a lot more about the female body and what it experiences during delivery and postpartum.

Brianna Battles  08:25

And I realized for myself that it wasn’t so much about how the baby came out, like the mechanism. It was how I felt in that environment and in that experience. Again, it’s not about how the baby comes out, the mode of delivery. That wasn’t important to me. In the same way that it was important for me to have an improved environment and an improved experience. So that’s what I wanted to create a reframe around, and I knew for me to do that, That meant that I needed to change my mind a lot, and I had worked to do this. So I know when I was talking with my doctor, I got to that point where it was okay. I’m deciding between a VBAC and a repeat cesarean, and for me, I decided to do a repeat cesarean for a few different reasons, and this for me, like I have to keep saying this because I think this gets taken out of context so much. I wanted the same exit path. I did not want to introduce two new areas, like another area of trauma. I didn’t. I didn’t want a baby to come out of my pelvic floor. It’s already come out like through C-section. I wanted to keep it to the same same mode, same mode of delivery, and it’s fine if you feel very differently. Literally, your body, my body, all different. I knew again that it was the environment and the experience that I that I cared more about versus the exit mode, and. And I knew that I wanted, and frankly, I needed control because this was already so freaking overwhelming. This was already like, oh my god, do I even want to have a baby? Because this can happen. Is that? Is that the end? And for me, I didn’t want the uncontrolled variables that oftentimes are attached to a like a vaginal birth where you know it’s beginning to go into labor, and then all the things that can happen in labor and in delivery. It’s a lot of variables there, and again, I knew if I had an opportunity to control something, I wanted to. And maybe this is my enneagram eight speaking, but it’s also the trauma speaking. Okay, so that is where, that is where everyone’s experience is different, and we really just have to respect what is best for each individual woman. And I’m not going to project this onto others. I’m literally just talking about what felt best for me at that point in time. And I was really thankful that I found a new OB/GYN who was a friend and a colleague at that point in time, and she was like, “I support you and what you need, and what’s going to make you feel like you won’t experience what you experienced prior ever again. Like we can’t control everything, but let’s set you up to feel like you’re going into this, essentially just more informed and having that support that you need and that you want. And she was so wonderful. Shout out to Dr. Lena Nathan out of UCLA. She was so good to me and really listened, really cared, really understood, talked through everything. And this is where my crazy comes out. Okay, so I knew that I wanted to again control the environment, so I started looking into gentle cesareans and what that would look like, what that could be like. But that hospital that I gave birth at did not have that policy in place at that point in time. They did not like have a clear drapes. They didn’t like there wasn’t this like policy in the OR of like skin to skin and like kind of facilitating the environment that you would get from a vaginal birth in the OR with a cesarean that just like wasn’t standard practice. And I brought in different research articles that I saw on gentle cesareans and their benefit, and what it what it could look like from a hospital policy standpoint. I brought that into my OB/GYN, and she was like, “Okay, I am totally on board. Let’s get the labor and delivery unit on board and the NICU on board. So then she introduced me to that staff at the hospital. They brought me in, and at that point in time, I had not been to the hospital since I had had kids four years prior.

Brianna Battles  12:47

And so then I’m like finding myself back in the I don’t know what is it called, like the labor and delivery wing, you know, and or like the postpartum recovery. I don’t actually remember where I ended up being at, but it was like back in the same environment that I remember being in when I was having kid, and it was super weird being back there. And honestly, I felt like I was not really somebody who has like panic attacks, but I felt like really panicky, like just like my whole body was uncomfortable walking in there. And I was like, shit, like oh. But thankfully, the nurses were so kind. I met with like the head of nursing in NICU, and like they listened to me, they heard me out, and they were like, “I think we can make this happen. Like, I don’t see why not. And God, that felt like this such a like simple but really big victory in so many ways because it was like okay, I’m doing this and I’m controlling something, a piece of this process, and you know that we had like very candid conversations that like look at this might not happen if shit hits the fan like we can’t guarantee it but like we’re gonna do everything on our part to help facilitate a improved experience in your C-section delivery, and I was like, “Damn, this is. I felt heard, I felt seen, I felt validated-all the things that we need women to feel as mothers, and I was starting to feel that. And this was like about halfway through my pregnancy, so I just kept continuing to have, you know, good conversations with my medical team, good conversations with Jared, my husband. He’s working with a pelvic floor physical therapist that time to help manage my diastasis. And there’s only so much you can do, but I wasn’t like actively, you know, contributing to so much more pressure and whatnot, I was doing what I could again. 10 pound babies over here-it’s just awful. So they they tend to grow straight into my belly button and stretch out that tissue a ton. And again, every body is differently. That’s how I. That was what I. Experience during my pregnancy and how I carried my both of my boys, so trying to manage my diastasis, trying to just manage all of my different variables that I could. And I probably saying this all out loud. I’m like, yeah, a little bit of a control freak, but I had to be because again, this was like a big deal to even decide to have him. And I was like, if I’m if I’m going for this, I’m gonna do everything I can to again just control. God, I keep coming back to that word, but it’s so true. It’s so true, and I’ve had to work in a lot of ways to let go of control. The older I’ve gotten and whatnot, but during that season of life, that felt like the only way that I could go forward with being like mentally okay during pregnancy and early postpartum, so I’d lined up a therapist. I was working with a pelvic floor physical therapist. I was really being like far with my training. I was like, okay, I have nothing to prove. I’m not trying to see how heavy I can lift. I’m not going to keep seeing how far I can keep running. I’m not trying to like train from a place of ego. I just want to keep my body moving because I feel better when I move. That was a big part for me, so it was like a lot of growth as an athlete. Just a lot of perspective there, and overall, I was feeling good. I wasn’t like managing any crazy symptoms beyond my inevitable diastasis. And towards the end of pregnancy, I had a little bit of like SPD. It’s like sharp shooting pain in like my pubic bone. Like the last week of pregnancy, Jared had to like help me out of the bathtub because I was stuck. I was like literally stuck in there. I was like, I can’t fricking sit up, dude. Like I’m an athlete. And then like had to boost my butt into bed because I couldn’t.

Brianna Battles  16:36

Our bed was kind of high back then, and he had to like shove my butt in the bed because I was just so giant. I was so so so big, and like our life was so chaotic at that time. I feel like when you get pregnant, you kind of really are like, let’s have all the chaos all at the same time. So like we had just moved. Cade broke his arm on moving day. He was he had just turned four, so you know like a four year old. Imagine like four year old Cade in a cast-it was insanity. So there was just like a lot going on at that stage in life, and then I found out that my mom was going to be moving out of state, and that that really crushed me because again, I was like, “Wait, I thought I was going to have support, and I put in all of these different resources, and like I’ve expressed that I need help, and like that’s so hard for me because I am like strong, independent woman, blah blah blah, and like I just like that just all felt devastating. So I’m like, oh my god, I’m already struggling so hard to manage my brain and to go into this feeling like happy and confident. And now there’s just a lot of life stressors, and like I was just trying so hard. I was trying so hard in every imaginable way, and I’m not gonna pretend that I was totally fine because I wasn’t. But I was truly doing my best to just like follow the plan, trust the process, like stay focused, like keep the main thing the main thing, and I knew that that was just like trying to focus on having chance and protecting my brain as much as I could. So there was like just a lot of things I had to let go of, a lot of things I had to compartmentalize. I think that’s a big, big thing for me during both of my, all of early motherhood, honestly, was just having to compartmentalize in a lot of ways, and it was a coping mechanism. I cannot say that it was super healthy, but that was what I, that was what I did at that point in time. And so, you know, this decision to move forward with the C-section or just with a baby in general was not something that we took lightly because it just felt like, God, are we we’re opting into this? And it just feels like it’s going to be so hard. It’s going to be so hard because for me, pregnancy wasn’t easy on my body. I hated what I looked like. I didn’t like how I felt, and so I were compensated by what I could keep doing that first time. And so the second time, I was trying to not do that as much, but then there’s like no dopamine as much, you know, like it’s like such subtle dopamine, and that was not fun. I was focusing a lot on my business. I was actually creating the entire first iteration of the pregnancy postpartum athleticism coaching certification through my first bargaining, so instead of pouring myself into making working out my whole personality, I made curriculum for the coach course and launched that at like eight months pregnant, and then hired my first person because I was like, wait, I need to like maybe have maternity leave, and and I don’t know how to answer all these tech issues that will be inevitable. So it’s like I poured myself into my business at that point in time, and I mean I’m so glad that I did. So I’m so glad, but again, it was like very much compartmentalizing and keeping myself busy and occupied. So that I wouldn’t-I don’t know-that was just my way of like protecting my brain. I think I’m kind of processing this out loud as I’m saying it. And now let’s talk about gender disappointment because that was a thing for me as well. I was so freaking convinced that I was having a girl because I don’t know. I was raised with my mom and my sister, I just I know girls. I had coached girls and women. Like I just, I guess I felt like yeah, I’m all about girls and like girl power and women supporting women.

Brianna Battles  20:32

And then I saw that I was having a boy, and I was like, what the fuck? You know what I mean? Like what? Two boys, and it wasn’t just like the two boys thing. I think it was that I was afraid of it being the same exact thing as Kate, because a girl was like automatically different, right? Like that would automatically be a different experience because of the gender alone is the story I told myself. So thinking like, oh God, like another boy, it just felt like it was going to be a similar situation. So it was hard for me to separate that it could be different when it almost was like confirmed my bias that it would be the same just because of the same gender. I don’t know. It maybe doesn’t make a lot of sense listening to this, but that’s how it felt, and I had like this weird grief and disappointment. And I had talked to a lot of boy moms, and they’ve all echoed similar sentiments of like, you know, you just hear that it’s different, and you think about as they get older, and there’s so many different ways boy moms can mind fuck ourselves and get just have to focus on just raising raising these sweet boys and doing your best with it because you cannot you cannot predict the future. I think the only way we can do that is by nurturing a really solid relationship with them at at their young ages. That’s a whole other podcast topic that I don’t feel fully qualified to speak on just yet. But I mean, there was that element too of just being like having that little tinge of like disappointment early or like you know at that point in my pregnancy. So let’s talk about delivery because I think that’s a very pivotal moment in my life because I had having chance was a miracle in a lot of ways, and I went into birth feeling optimistic. I had talked with my OB/GYN the night before, and she was like, “With an anesthesiologist, is they’re aware of like your preferences, the NICU team is there. They’re going to be aware of like they’re totally aware and supportive. Our nurses, everybody, like they were. She just like affirmed me and was just so supportive the night before. And then that morning, I went in early. We had music playing. Everyone was so friendly. You know, Jared was with me. My mom was with me, and I just felt like, okay, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be okay. I was so big, so big and swollen. And then I met a nurse who was so kind to me. She just, and she was the one who’s like, gonna give me the updat roll and stuff. And she like, she just looked at me and she’s like, “Oh, we got we got a big boy in there, don’t we? And I was like, “How did you know? And she’s like, “She I think had had seven babies of her own and have like so many grandkids. And she’s just like, “Oh, I know we have a big baby in there. And she was just so kind, and I started like crying. I don’t know, you know, pregnancy hormones. I’m not even a crier, but that just like she just like held me as I was getting the epidural. Like she like literally, I’ll never forget that. She just like hugged me and like brought me into her her bosom, like like just like she like snuggled me. And I know this sounds weird to feel like a grown ass woman, but I was like, oh my god, I just got like nurtured so hardcore, and like I loved it, and she just kept telling me that I was like going to be okay and that I was doing a good job. I don’t know. I’ll just I’ll never forget that because that was like what I wanted. Right, was to like feel different in that environment because I had been so freaking traumatized in the OR and in my delivery experience with Cade, of like just the urgency and the rushing and feeling like I didn’t know what was going on with my body. It was like an out of body experience. I was hardly conscious.

Brianna Battles  24:32

Like I just was like holding, literally holding on for dear life in a lot of ways with Kade. And so then to feel so loved, so supported, so heard in that you know, that moments prepping for the C-section that like rewired my brain because I was like, “This doesn’t have to be fucking horrible. It doesn’t have to be like traumatizing in this environment. I’m, and so then I got wheeled in. I had Jared and my mom in the OR with me, and they were. Playing music, and my OB/GYN Lena, she was like, “Okay, do you want to play by play? And I was like, “Hell yeah, I want to play by play. I want to know exactly what is happening. And I know that freaks some people out. No, I wanted to see. I wanted to be part of it. So we had the clear drape, and then she’s like, “Do you want me to drop the drape? I was like, “Fuck yeah, I do. And so I couldn’t like fully see everything, but like I was propped up like the anesthesiologist like brought me upward so that I would be able to have that moment of seeing him like come out of me and again because like hard to see over your belly so it’s not like I was seeing like guts and everything everywhere I don’t know unless I just blocked that out but like you know I got I got the play by play, and again, I understand this would freak some people out, but I asked for that, and she would be like, “Okay, we’re doing this now, we’re doing that now, and like walk me through these steps of the C section, and then when it was time for him to come out, she was like, “Are you ready to meet your baby? And I was like, “Yes. I felt like a little disassociated, like kind of the like I don’t know, it’s just like out of body experience, you know. But she brought it like the the drape was dropped, so and I got to bring him to my chest right away, and you know they they checked his Zapper scores and everything like right on me, and I got to like have him on my chest, and he was crying, and he was healthy, and he was giant, and we were like, “Holy shit! And the entire staff was like, “Oh my god, this is the biggest umbilical cord we have ever seen. And I wasn’t clocking all of that at the time. I just was like, “Oh my god, it’s here! He’s here! It’s happening! We’re both okay! Like, it’s fine! And like, I was like trying to like tell my nervous system, like it’s fine, you did it. Like it actually just happened, and it happened fast, and it’s okay. And you know they were like just being encouraging, like just kind of wrapping us up, letting us just bond and have that skin to skin, which is what I missed out on with Kate. I did not get that, and that is something I think will always break my heart a little bit, and so it just felt like this full circle, like healing moment to have that with chance, and it just reaffirmed my hope and my point, which was I don’t care that it was a C-section versus a vaginal birth. I care about that moment and how I felt, and it felt like I was able to like redeem it and like reclaim that part of motherhood that I didn’t get that first time, and that was so powerful. And it’s something I just I won’t forget because of how I felt, and I got to have him there, got to breastfeed him in the OR, and I had a lot of help and support around me. Jared get like delayed cord clamping, and then Jared was able to cut his cord. So it was just like it just simulated what we would have experienced if I had been not in the OR, and that just just the whole experience felt better. I felt protected. I think that’s probably a really good way of wording that is like I just felt like my space was protected, my energy was protected. What I had been so specific about, like I felt supported and protected.

Brianna Battles  28:16

And I’m somebody who is usually the one doing all of them protecting of everybody and everything, and I had to, in this effort of like seeking control, I had to let go of control, and I had to be, I had to like receive the support when it wasn’t on me anymore. I had to trust that others could facilitate what I needed, and I was just so grateful. I was so grateful that happened. I recovered well. Was able to go home within a few days, and I think in a lot of ways, staying in the hospital was like really positive because I got to just like bond with him. I had just him, me, and Jared there, and like we got to have that, you know, him and Cade meeting for the first time also changed my brain chemistry forever. It was like so awesome seeing my insanely chaotic little four-year-old with a cast on, like just become this mushy, mushy little boy who just was like so excited to have a brother, and it was just so sensitive and so sweet, and like just so nurturing, and it was natural. Like him doing skin to skin with his brother. Like I’ll just, I’ll never forget that. Was like this is the moment I fought for, like so hard. This, this right here. I just remember watching that, being like, this is, this is it. That is what I fought for. It wasn’t even necessarily like my moment was really powerful, but it was like what I was the gift I was giving Cade, and ultimately the gift I was giving them both through each other. That was that also healed a part of me, I think, and. I think when you’ve experienced trauma, grief, struggle, whatever through motherhood, there are just certain certain moments throughout your motherhood where you’re gonna like reclaim pieces of you that have felt lost or have felt hurt or feel jaded, and I’ve been ex. You know, it’s almost like glimmers. Like you just you notice, you become someone who notices glimmers, and that was really powerful. That was really powerful to have that in that capacity and in that moment. And I just went into like this, like I was so okay, just being home and not feeling this urgency to like get back in the gym and do this and do that and like prove anything to myself. It was so nice to not have that urgency. It was so freaking freeing to be free of my own like dopamine chasing, to be free of my own expectations or comparisons, so it’s like again, I just had this perspective where I was like, God, I know, I know what to do with my body. I know that I don’t need to rush this. I know I can just literally be here and experience postpartum the way I wish I would have been able to the first time around. But I was too busy surviving, too busy trying to like, I don’t know, out athlete postpartum kind of. It was like my way of compensating for how much I was struggling the first time. That I wanted to like redeem that experience too with chance. I wanted to just be like be on the freaking couch and be okay with that for the first time in my entire life. I wanted to sit on my ass, be with my baby, figure out breastfeeding, and not have this like obsession and urgency about my body or about my diastasis or about I am exercising again or about setting some kind of like fitness goal. It was just freeing to be like, chill the fuck out. You have your whole life for that, and you know that now. You know, like it was just so freeing to be there. This is probably the only podcast where I’m dropping f bombs and talking about like extremely emotional, sentimental birth experiences. But here we are. You know, just it was so refreshing to have that kind of perspective, and I was very grateful for the kind of growth I had experienced between Cade’s birth and Chance’s birth-that four years apart, almost exactly. And I knew that, like, I just wasn’t going to hold on to. I wasn’t gonna be as rigid as I was with Cade, because I attached my worth to like what I could do.

Brianna Battles  32:48

So it was like with Kate, I was like, I have to keep breastfeeding and I have to do it for a year and I will never give him formula and I will never do this and we’re gonna this sleeping and blah blah blah. I was like really crazy with nap times and with chance, I was like, okay, I can’t do that. Like, I need to keep a really open mind about what nursing looks like because I don’t want to. I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want to pump like insane woman for my milk supply. I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want to do it. It’s just nope. I refuse because that will hurt my brain, which will then hurt my my precious like first year postpartum experience, and I don’t want to do that. I’m not going to put that kind of pressure and expectation on myself this time. So having a lot less like rigidity in every way as a mom was life changing, and you guys know I’ve explained how much I like control, but it was so freeing to be like, it doesn’t matter. This stuff, this stuff right now, or just didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. I just needed to be. I needed to be patient. I needed to be flexible. I needed to be open minded. The more willing I was being, like the easier it all became, because like I was a different person. I was becoming a different person, chance birthed a different person, and that was like I don’t know. It was just like a new. I was so afraid of everything being the same that I didn’t realize that it was impossible for it to be the same because I was not the same. I was not the same person either was four years ago. Therefore, it could not be the same experience because I was different. And this whole time, I had been so focused on, you know, hoping that the birth and the baby and the delivery and all these other variables would be different. And the whole time, I was overlooking the fact that, like, of course, it was going to be different because I was fundamentally from the inside out a different person because motherhood changes you. It’s supposed to. That’s a good thing. I think we we grieve so many versions of ourselves while totally overlooking the fact that we are reborn. We are we are becoming. And that can be a really brutal transition for some of us. Some others do it a lot more gracefully. Can’t relate to doing anything gracefully in my life. I just don’t. I learn everything exceptionally hard. But this was like it was just overall such a healing experience because I was different. And oh man, it’s not to say that it did not come with struggle. It did. I had to compartmentalize so many aspects of my life, you know, early postpartum to protect it. So there’s things around me I just had to like let go of, things I just had to like really kind of hyper focus on. Hyper focus on that baby, and I was hyper focused on using like my creativity and inspiration into my business, and I was really positive. Like it was like honestly, I because I had launched that coach certification and a baby, kind of like within a few months of each other, there was like so much newness that like it really allowed me to nurture both of those things. It felt exciting. It felt healing. It felt like you know, that was just such a great era for pregnant. It was from athletes in general. Like it was really the messaging was catching on. The interest was there. You know, people had had similar experiences as me, and they were like so. Like it was just like really validating. Like so much of it was validating. It felt, and that was after like you know a period of getting your ass kicked in so many ways, career creation, getting a message out there. So it’s like it was finally catching on, and then I was like living it too, like personally, like so professionally and personally. Like these things were like aligning, and it was just like a really special time.

Brianna Battles  36:36

And I put a lot of like a lot of energy into that because that was the first time I ever felt good postpartum. You know, I before it was like everything was like I was just struggling so much, and this was the first time I felt good. And you know, my body it it had taken a toll for sure. Pregnancy had taken a toll on my body for sure, in like you know, still pretty significant diastasis, which we knew, but still, I was kind of like working with the circumstances that I had. I can’t. I know I’ve talked about this before, but just for any of you listening that are new, I had had a hernia, umbilical hernia mesh repair done when I was maybe like about a little over a year postpartum after my first baby, and I was told, “Oh, it’s not a big deal if you have another baby, like no big deal, it’s fine, the mesh will hold. And honestly, I probably didn’t even need that umbilical hernia surgery back then it was really like more of a symptom of actual diastasis, not a hernia. But we did not have words or knowledge for that back then. That was 2014. We’re really talking the way that we are now online about intradominal pressure and diastasis and fascia and approximation of the abs and core coordination, like none of that was a thing that was being talked about. But I know, like, I just kind of like trusted that that was like, okay, well, guess we’ll fix my like weird belly button issue then. So fast forward to being postpartum with a second baby after having a 10 pound baby and gaining 60 plus pounds is huge. That mesh has been really distorted, really distorted through that process. And again, this is something I was like, I could not control that. And what what could I have done about that? You know, and you know that just that like led to just doing what I could control through my rehab, through really strategic progression of exercise by keeping my ego in check with my training and my returning to training, really intentional and just also trusting that my body would recomp because I had the fundamentals of being an athlete. I knew how to train, I knew how to eat, I knew how to move my body. I was also breastfeeding. I was like doing all these things, and I knew like I can trust my body to rebuild. It will. It just does. And like there’s a soft, squishy era. But I was kind of like, I literally remember being four months postpartum and looking myself in the mirror and being like, I don’t love it, but I also don’t hate it. It’s okay. Like it’s literally just okay to be a lot squishier right now. To have giant boobs, to have a belly that has stretch marks and looks a little distorted in my belly button. I just remember thinking, like, I’m so grateful that I don’t give a shit the way that I did before. Like it was really freeing, and like eventually, by probably nine months ago, as perdum, I looked. I was like leaner than I was before I got pregnant. It’s just like when you don’t put that additional mental and physical stress on your body to almost like force recovery, your body actually recovers faster. I mean, that’s not what anyone wants to tell you, but it it is true. I think we try. Hard to like force recovery and returning to performance and all the things that you want to do early, but in some ways, like taking your time, like is the fast track. And I was really grateful that I did it because I had two comparative experiences, and it was just really like really refreshing to the mentally have the space and freedom to do what I needed to do, and my body actually followed along. You know, I’ve spent 40 minutes now talking about this season of my life, and while it was not not everything was like perfect and straightforward, it wasn’t. It was a very like powerful motherhood experience. I think when I had Cade, I felt like I entered motherhood at a deficit, sort of.

Brianna Battles  40:55

And when I had chance, I felt like I had a burst of confidence as a mom for the first time, maybe ever, and it just like again, it was like redeeming, it was healing, it was empowering. That’s probably the better word. It was like, yeah, I went from being at this like deficit to like feeling empowered, like truly empowered, and so much of it was because of the amount of work I put in about the about my overarching approach and understanding and maturity and perspective gained through the fire. It was advocating for myself in so many ways, and it was just really shifting my mindset, my approach, my belief systems-all of it-and it was able to yield such a powerful postpartum pregnancy experience, motherhood experience. You know, and Chance is so different from Cade. He was from the moment he came out. I was like, “Wow, he literally like looks way different. It’s like this giant white baby and Kate had come out like very olive skinned color. Like so, their coloring was very different. Temperaments were very different right away. Nursing was different. Like everything was different. But again, I was also different. So like, I think that’s a big, big part of that, and it was just I just had different perspective, and I was very grateful that I did. And if you’re somebody who is afraid of having another baby because you’re afraid of what’s going to do your body, your brain, your life, your whatever, you are not alone. It’s just not popular to talk about. If you feel like you’re the weird one who’s not ready to have another baby when your first baby turns two, like you’re not alone and it’s okay to wait. Someone I remember this man told me like, “Oh, that’s too bad. They’re four years apart. They won’t be as close. Oh God, he said that’s me when I was pregnant, and I was so pissed off. I was like, “I don’t even know you. What the hell? And it’s just funny because my boys-they play together every single day, every day, and they have their whole life. Like they’re so close, and I feel like they are trying to prove this guy wrong, and they-they don’t even know that this was ever said. I just want you to listen to this podcast episode, and I want you to feel understood. And whether that’s your decision to have another baby, your thoughts on a C-section or a vaginal birth, or on you know the control factor, whatever it might be, motherhood has so many variables, and there’s no one right way. There’s no, there’s just no right or best way. There’s just the need to normalize more stories and experiences about what it’s like to become a mom and to evolve your motherhood experience and what that looks like, and that’s exactly my intention with this podcast episode. You know, chances he’s named that for a reason, and he has been like the joy of our lives. He has such a funny, pure, like just so, just like this, the most loving personality, and you know, we just we laugh because like we’re such a feel like we’re such a bro household in a lot in a lot of ways, and then like he’s just this like sensitive, like caring, loving, sweet child. He’s also very much a bro, but like I don’t know, he’s just he’s he’s healed a lot of us. Like he’s softened my heart so much, and I am so grateful for him. We are going to be celebrating his ninth birthday, which does not feel real. It’s so weird being in the mid of motherhood. And honestly, I love that I have a reason to revisit this topic and revisit these conversations because that’s your powerful part of our becoming of our evolution. And if you coach women, this is the big part of of God of everything of like just truly understanding them, understanding how to support them, that it’s not about these freaking like timelines or guidelines or do this or don’t do that. Like there are so many layers to truly knowing how to support mothers and female athletes through pregnancy and postpartum, and I think this conversation kind of helps examine some of that, and I’m grateful that you’re here. Grateful that you listened to this episode. If you liked it, tell me.

Brianna Battles  45:51

I put these out there into the into you know the universe, and I don’t always know like if these podcast episodes resonate, especially the solo ones. So if it does, I’d love to hear from you. Thank you so so much for listening. We’ll talk soon. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Practice Brave podcast. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review and help us spread the work we are doing to improve the overall information and messaging in the fitness industry and beyond. Now, if you are pregnant and you are looking for a trustworthy exercise program to follow, I have you covered. The Pregnant Athlete Training Program is a well-rounded program for pregnancy with workouts for each week that are appropriate for your changing body. That’s 36 weeks of workouts, three to four workouts each week, and tons of guidance on exercise strategy. We also have an at-home version of that program. If you are postpartum and you’re looking for an exercise program to follow, the eight-week postpartum athlete training program would be a really great way to help bridge the gap between rehab and the fitness you actually want to do. From there, we have the Practice Brave Fitness Program, which is an ongoing strength conditioning program where you get new workouts each week and have a lot of guidance from myself and my co-coach Heather Osby. This is the only way that I’m really offering ongoing coaching at this point in time. If you have ever considered becoming a certified pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach, I would love to have you join us. Pregnancy and postpartum athleticism is a self-paced online certification course that will uplevel your coaching skills and help connect the dots between pelvic health and long-term athletic performance, especially during pregnancy and postpartum. Become who you needed, and become who your online and local community needs by becoming a certified pregnancy and postpartum athleticism coach. Thank you again for listening to the Practice Brave podcast. I appreciate you, and please help me continue spreading this messaging, this information, and this work.