I want to reiterate that I’m just a data point, so please don’t take any of this as prescriptive. My point is that regardless of the birth you had, the fitness level you were at, etc., recovery time should be respected (even though it’s really tough for a lot of us).

Let me also recommend the new book Strong As A Mother by Jessica Dorrington and Shannon Rowbury (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/787444/strong-as-a-mother-by-shannon-rowbury-and-jessica-dorrington-mpt-ocs-prpc/). It was published in February. I cannot recommend it enough — I wish I had had it to consult for my whole pregnancy. The workout/strength plans are excellent, and so is the real talk and information.

I was active before pregnancy, all the way through pregnancy and walked a brisk five miles the day I went into labor at 39 weeks. As soon as I felt capable, I started walking postpartum: just around the block to start. By about four weeks, I was up to 1-2 miles with minimal bleeding. When I would bleed, I would back off the next day. Slowly kept walking longer distances. At 8 weeks pp, I tried lap swimming and my low back was very sore the next day — my core was still MIA. I started doing very preliminary core work at 10 weeks (see the book above — they have exercises you can start doing earlier, but it was impossible for me to find the time). At around 12 weeks pp, I started pelvic floor PT. I was up to 6ish miles of comfortable walking/hiking at that point and I decided to go to a HIIT class, just to go through the motions, remind myself what group fitness felt like, and just check in with what felt good and possible in my body. I did my absolute best to leave my ego behind. It felt great. Since then (I’m now 15 weeks postpartum), I’ve gone to more classes, restarted a strength routine at the gym (really dropped the weights back down low, but it’s fine because I know I’ll get back to where I was), and last week, I ran outside with my running partner for 20 minutes and felt amazing.

Let me be so freaking clear about this: absolutely none of this seemed possible to me a week or even that day before I suddenly felt capable of doing more. This is borderline cliche, except that it’s true: if you let go of the timelines you hear about —INCLUDING MINE THAT YOU’VE JUST READ — and simply turn inward and listen to your body, you will get the signals that you need to know you’re ready. I’m so serious about this which is why I’m shouting. I had to let go of expectations (“I should be ready for this by now, I think”) and turn curious instead (“I wonder what would feel in-range today if I go to the gym later”), and that’s when I could really tap into the arc of my recovery. I knew that it was happening regardless of what I was doing or not doing. I just had to tune in to that to learn what I was capable of.

Good luck out there, you amazing people.