We had the incredible honour of getting to share Kim Crossman’s pregnancy journey here at Capsule through her column, Pretty Pregnant. Well, Kim is no longer Pretty Pregnant – 10 weeks ago she welcomed her precious first baby: a darling little girl. And, just 10 weeks ago, Kim – staying true to her Type A personality – handed in a story just a day after giving birth, sharing all the twists and turns of her birth (that went completely differently to the way she expected) and, sharing a first look at her gorgeous little girl: Coco Joan.
Pretty Pregnant has become Pretty Postpartum and Kim has been generously sharing all the ups and downs and startling discoveries of postpartum with us. If you haven’t read her updates you can read her story about Coco’s birth here! Her update at two weeks here, a month in, here, at six weeks, here, eight weeks here and ten weeks here, 12 weeks here, 14 weeks here , 16 weeks here, 18 weeks here and 20 weeks, here. In her last update, Coco reached five months, which you can read here. As we move further along in her journey, you’ll find us catching up with Kim every month.
Six months. How are we here already?
I must admit this is the first blog I have felt sort of anxious and nervous about writing because I had some feedback that really rocked me a few weeks ago, causing me to pull back slightly from sharing my journey and then I have felt in turmoil in many ways since.
I had two people share that they are petrified of birth because of me sharing my prolapse journey and it broke me. I spent so much time in the build up for birth advocating for positive birth stories and not trauma dumping on pregnant women and now in sharing my story I have done exactly what I set out not to do.
I had the best birth. Was it slightly complicated and somewhat spicy let’s say? Sure. But I wanted to always share with the underlying vibe of, I would do it all again today if I could. I loved it so much. Yet in wanting to also honour those who have been following who have had birth injuries, are going through menopause or experiencing similar symptoms, or are just along for the ride, to hear that in my openness some of the takeaway for others is fear, that hurt me.
I know I can’t control how people choose to receive me or the things I share, but I certainly want people to feel informed and entertained, not for me to unlock a new possible pending trauma. So that’s why I have been a little quiet, trying to navigate how I tow the line of being honest, but also fun and real, but also entertaining haha. So bear with me.
One of the worst parts of a conception journey, pregnancy journey, birth and new motherhood is the negative commentary from others unsolicited. The sleep now, wait till they start talking back, enjoy your freedom now comments have always given me the ick. For those of us who have wanted this for a long time or those of us that are really enjoying motherhood it seems like an odd thing to trauma dump or always focus on the negative. I don’t think it’s ever meant with malice, I think motherhood is challenging and there is some solace in that. That’s another reason I have felt insecure at times writing about things. When I want to dive into some of the struggles, I never want it to come across that I am in any way ungrateful or would want anything other than the journey I am on. I think that is perhaps the challenge with it all.
I am now asking my friends with kids and new mums, what’s the best part about this stage and trying to focus on the good.
I do know that in sharing my journey with a birth injury it has in fact helped some people who didn’t realise their symptoms, whilst common, are not in fact normal and there are things we can do to help support our pelvic floor before things soften again in menopause. More on that soon.
Let’s get to the good part, the wonderful Miss Coco and how the actual hell she is now six months old.
Yep I’m crying and typing.
She smiles at me when she feeds, she has started giggling and my ears can’t get enough of it, she is engaged, she loves Honey and Tilly the dogs and is almost sitting unassisted at times. I can’t articulate in a way that will do the feeling justice of what my heart is going through as it feels to be expanding outside my body in a way that seems to grow daily. She is just magic.
I can totally see why people have more and more babies, and I will say I had seen videos of people wanting to eat babies toes. “Oh I just want to eat you up.” I always thought how odd, or strange. Now I catch myself pretending to eat her feet daily and saying yummy yum yum haha.
All that to say what I am enjoying most about this stage is her joy. Seeing her yell and scream with delight when she gets in the pool, waving her arms and legs when she sees someone she knows, finding her voice. Giggling. Omg the giggling. I had been told that the sound would melt me but had no idea its effect on my soul. Oh I want to bottle it up. I feel like it could totally bring about world peace. And how I see people soften when they hold her or receive a smile from her. She’s like a magic little being and I am more in love with her every day.
I want to be the best mum possible for her because she deserves it and I think that’s why at times I struggle. I want to bring her as much joy as she brings me and I worry that at times in my desire to do all that I am missing the stages happening in front of me.
In all honesty my confidence was at an all time low a few weeks ago. Something about hitting the six month milestone, I didn’t realise I had so many expectations on myself about what I might look like, feel like and be like with a six month old baby and not feeling or identifying with any of it.
I put a story up asking if any mums had an identity crisis after baby number one. About 75% of you said yes, and then someone put it more articulately than I could that it wasn’t so much an identity crisis but a shift in how you view the world causing some disorientation. And that landed for me.
It’s not that I’m not Kim, just my priorities have shifted and I am still navigating what that looks like for me. In all honesty so much of the past few years was really just focused on getting pregnant after miscarriage. Then when I got pregnant it was how can I ensure I don’t miscarry again. Then how do I navigate birth, the newborn trenches. I honestly have not put a lot of thought into what life could or would look like after that.
So at the six month mark I think some of my disorientation is I don’t really know the answer to that. What do I want my days to look like? What is important to me? What type of mother am I and want to be? All of these big questions that I know I don’t need to know the answer to today, I just sort of feel a little nuts for having not really thought about that at all.
I’m not really a fly by the seat of my pants kinda girl. I’m a dream big, pick a goal and do everything to make it a reality kinda girl. I have no idea where this boat or train or rocket ship is heading and I certainly am not the one steering it in any real direction.
I don’t want to trauma dump but the other reason I have been a bit quiet online is that my family has been navigating a few health issues with Chiefy, my stepdad. I share this only because anyone who has walked a path themselves, or alongside a family member or friend, knows the stress that the waiting period can have on your wellbeing. Waiting for answers, waiting for results, waiting for next steps, waiting for tests that are scheduled a month or so out. The not knowing can be so hard.
As someone who has spent years in therapy working on catastrophising thoughts, I, like most people I’m sure, really struggle with patience in these moments. Actually who am I kidding, I don’t think I am a patient person at all. Especially with acting. I want to know immediately if I got the job or not so I can move on if needed. I hate waiting. I have worked on it and try to execute my “everything happens at exactly the right timing” mindset, but also sometimes that’s bullshit haha. I want to know now. And when it comes to someone you love and their health, my patience wears even thinner.
All in all, Chiefy has completed one out of three surgeries and is doing well and recovering at home. Nothing like illness to really pull your life into perspective.
Motherhood has done that for me too.
I guess I always felt slightly immortal and now I see the world in a very borrowed time sort of way. More precious. More fragile. More important. Maybe that’s part of what has contributed to some of this disorientation too. Everything feels different now.
Speaking of waiting for answers, let’s talk about my butt haha.
I wrote this in my diary recently:
Love at an all time high, confidence at an all time low.
What that means to me is that my joy and love are so high, yet my personal confidence has taken a deep dive.
One of the things about my prolapse journey is that it kind of went from something I could laugh about, to getting significantly worse. It has caused some discomfort in my marriage, not because of anything dramatic, but because Tom wants to do things with me without a plan in place, be flexible, be spontaneous, and I feel like I am clinging to control and set plans to navigate my incontinence. It also stopped feeling quite as funny once I realised I was potentially looking at surgery, further testing, or some more significant interventions.
After seeing a couple of specialists my diagnosis is essentially…let’s get more tests.
The complication with my butt is that we don’t know if my incontinence is because of the voluntary muscles in my butt and bladder or the involuntary ones like nerve damage. From my very basic understanding, it is about figuring out whether the issue is with the muscles that engage when you consciously try to hold something in, or the nerves and signals that tell you that you need to pee, poop or hold it all together in the first place.
Further testing will hopefully tell us if it is one or the other, or a combination of both, and then we can make a plan.
That plan could involve more pelvic floor rehabilitation. I have bought a Femfit, which is basically a device you insert and then play games on an app using your pelvic floor muscles. Technology is wild. It could involve surgery. It could involve a pacemaker in my butt. Yep, that’s a thing. It could involve Botox or some other treatment pathway.
I share this not because I want to scare anyone, but because I genuinely didn’t realise how many options existed.
I also know that as menopause looms in all of our futures, pelvic floor elasticity will likely decline further, so getting help, treatment or a plan in place now is probably something worth thinking about sooner rather than later. I have also been prescribed a cream to help with moisture and tissue health, which I believe is often prescribed for menopausal women as well.
The more you know.
I will say that in some ways my confidence is flourishing and that is my motherhood confidence.
I am getting to know Coco so much better. We are doing activities together like swimming and ballet and I am seeing the value in them through her reactions and excitement. There was a time I couldn’t even comprehend how mothers willingly took their babies places that weren’t absolutely necessary. I was overwhelmed by the thought of all the moving parts. The nappy bag. The feeding. The timing. The logistics. Will she shit herself, will I shit myself. Why is there so much traffic at 2pm.
Yet here I am doing exactly that.
It’s funny how we stretch and grow sometimes without even really noticing it.
I often think about mums with more than one baby, or mums who work full time in an office or an in-person job. My friend Albie tells me, “your capacity just grows.”
And I think she’s right.
Motherhood has made me look at women completely differently. I feel almost guilty for not having any true appreciation or understanding of how amazing mums are before becoming one myself. It’s wild. And so freaking inspiring.
One of the most exciting and nerve wracking things over the past few weeks has been the light introduction to solids.
Unlike most babies at six months, Coco doesn’t seem all that interested in food. She watches me eat and seems curious, but when I have offered her things like kumara, broccoli and banana she has been pretty take it or leave it.
The whole starting solids journey is one that seems very specific to first time mums.
Every mum with more than one child seems completely unfazed. They brush past the conversation like it’s no big deal. Meanwhile every first time mum I know is trying to figure out what food, what texture, what order, what allergen and how to do baby led weaning without feeling like we are accidentally going to cause our babies to choke and die.
In all honesty I am trying to find my second mum energy in this process and park my “will my baby choke and die” energy, but it’s proving difficult.
Any first time mum will understand. You’re introducing allergens. You’re deciding between purees and baby led weaning. Someone tells you choking is good because it’s how they learn and you think, excuse me, what a terrifying sentence.
Then you talk to a second time mum and she says something like, “Oh gosh, I think his first food was a chicken nugget.”
And suddenly you’re questioning everything.
I did refer to the Gourmet Baby guide because it felt like one of the more simple approaches for me. At the moment I’m doing a dance of offering things for Coco to touch and explore, using one of those little pacifier things with holes in it, offering iron rich foods and trying not to overthink every single decision.
She did enjoy sucking on a lamb bone, so we’ll call that a win. Tom was very happy and I smiled watching making sure she didn’t show signs of mother inflicted death but played it off super chill. Sometimes I am so bloody greatful im an actor haha.
At the same time I’m trying not to overshadow what should be a fun addition to our day with thoughts like, if I needed to rush her to hospital, how far away am I? Is today convenient to try eggs? What does the rest of the day look like?
It’s exhausting how quickly my brain can turn anything into a risk assessment exercise.
If anyone has recently walked this path and has advice, please reach out. I am endlessly grateful for all of the wisdom shared by parents who have gone before me.
And if you’re making your own baby food or buying baby food, that’s probably the next tab I am about to open in my brain.
All that to say, what I am enjoying most about this stage is still her joy. Gosh she brings me so much joy.
I want to be the best mum possible for her because she deserves it. And I think that’s why I struggle sometimes. I want to bring her as much joy as she brings me. I want to get it right. I want to make the most of every stage.
Essentially I need to chill out a bit.
But if we’re being realistic, that’s probably a diagnosis I have needed my entire life and not much has changed.
As always, thank you to the people who DM me, send messages, share their experiences, offer alternative perspectives or simply let me know when something resonates.
I read it all and I am beyond grateful for the interactions.
Adore you all. We are raising miss Coco together and I will forever be so appreciative of that
🩷 Kim
