Prolapse: A Postpartum Conversation Women Rarely Have

 

 My second child was perhaps a few weeks or months old. I honestly don’t remember exactly how old, but I was still a nursing mum with a toddler to look after. I think my husband was away at a conference or taking a course. The details are hazy now, but in my memory of that day, he wasn’t around.

I was sitting on the toilet, can’t remember which of the two toilet businesses I was doing but suddenly, I  felt a mass between my legs, big enough that I could see it when I bent to look at my pubic area.

 My first instinct would normally have been to contact my husband’s cousin, a gynaecologist practicing in the US whom I had often called about pregnancy or women’s-health concerns. But this time I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew that explaining what was happening might involve showing him what I was seeing, and I simply wasn’t ready for that.

It was evening. My GP’s office was closed, and I had no idea whether what was happening qualified as an emergency.

So I called two people: my cousin Deborah and my friend Akunna, both midwives. They independently told me essentially the same thing. It looked like a prolapse. From the photographs I sent, neither could tell exactly which organ had collapsed, but they reassured me that I didn’t need emergency treatment.

I booked an appointment with my GP the next day and was referred to a gynaecologist. Eventually, I had a diagnosis: stage 2 uterine prolapse.

I was 31.

A mother of two.

Slender (far from obese).

These factors suggested my risk of having a prolapse should be low.

I was referred to a physiotherapist and given exercises to strengthen my pelvic floor. With time, things improved considerably. The pink mass that had frightened me that first evening was no longer visible, and the obvious sensation of something being where it shouldn’t be disappeared.

That however does not mean that the prolapse had ceased to exist. There continues to be small reminders in my everyday life. Certain sex positions feel painful, tampons are no more good enough for use during my periods even when I started using larger sizes. I still use tampons but always with a pad or liner to trap any leaking blood. But the final confirmation that the prolapse was still there was when I had to remove an IUD 5 years after it was implanted, my GP initially had difficulty locating it and was about referring me to a gynecologist. He found the IUD when I mentioned the prolapse. 

Women talk about so many things. Yet anything involving vaginal and pelvic health can still feel strangely difficult to talk about. Perhaps part of the problem is that women are so often expected to present a picture of perfection. Pregnancy is celebrated. Babies are celebrated. Motherhood is celebrated. But some of the physical consequences that can accompany those experiences are spoken about far less freely.

That silence matters.

My prolapse has not stopped me from living my life. In fact, six and a half years after having my second child, I went on to have a third. I had worried that another pregnancy and birth might make things worse, but that was not my experience.

Most of the time, I barely think about the prolapse. Occasionally, when I have had a lot to eat and drink, I can feel that familiar heaviness or drooping sensation inside my body, but nothing like what I felt that first evening.

I am sharing this because bodies do not always emerge from pregnancy and childbirth exactly as they entered them. And perhaps we would be less frightened when something unexpected happens if more women felt able to talk honestly about these experiences.

This is my experience. I am not ashamed to admit that I do not have a perfect postpartum body.