This is me the first time I left the house after having H. He was 1 week old. It was also the first time I’d washed my hair or looked in the mirror. I felt like I was totally bossing it until I got to the corner shop which is literally at the end of our street and had to buy painkillers for the searing pain in my stitches, cue me then shuffling home praying that my insides wouldn’t fall out and feeling like my body would never be the same again.

I was right in lots of ways, my body wasn’t ever the same again but I learned to love and accept the body that gave me my child, I appreciate it for growing and getting him here safely and for nourishing him for the first 9 months of his life.

It wasn’t a smooth or easy journey to acceptance and I had many moments of looking back and comparing myself to the person I used to be and the things I used to be able to do. In fact, it wasn’t until H was 18 months old that I started to feel like my body was finally ready to take on new physical challenges. That might seem like such a long time, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s only a drop in the ocean and never once have I looked back and regretted the healing time I allowed myself. In fact, it's been the opposite, sometimes I wish I’d given myself longer.

Having always been an athlete I really took for granted that my body would be able to “bounce back” - oh how I hate that term, we’re not tennis balls, right? Having been a coach for a long time before I had my son, I took for granted that I knew what to expect. The truth is that even with all the preparation I did, I was still ill-prepared.

I had so many “no one told me” lessons that left me feeling isolated and anxious. Part of the reason I went on to build SLAM, was so that I could provide real, honest, evidence and experience-based guidance to make sure other parents weren’t left feeling that way too.

If you or someone you know is looking for some support and guidance in their postnatal journey then I’d love to show you what SLAM could offer you…