For 12 years, I was a fit aerialist, teaching 15 classes a week and performing in front of hundreds of people. I could easily climb a 20-foot silk fabric, barely breaking a sweat, wearing sparkly, sequined bras and gold metallic booty shorts, my toned belly proudly exposed to my adoring audience. I was fierce and fearless.
And then I had babies. When I got pregnant—twice, my children born 17.5 months apart—I was determined to maintain my life as a performer. I continued my aerial acrobatics throughout my pregnancies, even when things like urinary incontinence, diastasis recti, and weakened ankles wore me down.
I befriended new mothers who were struggling to find their identity without the structure and normalcy of their previous lives and jobs. Many of them confided that they longed to get back to work, the demands of motherhood way more than expected. Then there were those who dreaded working again, the crazy cycle of pumping and finding a decent daycare making their heads spin. And then there was me, with a failing body, not sure if I had a choice because my body was my work. As new mothers, we all longed to get our postpartum bodies back into shape, and to pursue the interests and passions that once fed our souls. However, the immediate demands of a newborn made any form of self-care seem almost frivolous and indulgent. There was simply no time or energy to do yoga and pilates. And without a strong core, how could I properly teach and perform again?
Like many women, I had developed diastasis recti, a separation in the abdominal wall caused by the muscles stretching and expanding during pregnancy. After my first pregnancy, I was diagnosed with a fairly mild, 1.5-finger separation, which healed after a couple months of dedicated core work. I was soon able to do inversions in the air, my abs springing back to life.
After my second, the center separation wasn’t bad—two fingers wide—but new separations appeared down the sides of my torso. At nine months postpartum, something popped out through the tears under my rib while I was holding a one-minute plank in yoga class. I sat there, breathing through the burning pain, perplexed and worried by this strange bulge. What would be classified as a hernia if it stayed out luckily slipped back into place with some deep breathing and applied pressure. My midwife said she could refer me to a physical therapist at the one-year-postpartum mark. In the meantime, she told me not to hold planks anymore. Like, forever?
I was longing to get back in the air. Defying gravity made me feel alive, pushed me past normalcy, gave me a special superpower. And yet every attempt to invert caused me to pee my pants. Not a lot, but enough of a dribble for me to notice. Enough that I started carrying spare undies in my backpack.
My ankles started giving me trouble after my first pregnancy and worsened after my second, due to the extra weight and weakened ligaments. I had to hold on to the wall when I hobbled down the hallway. I cried in pain after walking for a stretch of time, massaging my ankle with alternating ice and heat packs. I went through expensive high-support sneakers, specialty inserts, physical therapy, and boring exercises at night with stretchy colored bands. Nobody tells you about this before you have kids.
Still, I powered through all that and continued to teach and perform, until the last eight weeks of my second pregnancy when virtually all activity came to an abrupt halt. I had pubic symphysis separation, where the pubic bone comes apart just enough to grind together when you walk, causing unbearable discomfort. I had to wear a belly band and tie a scarf around my hips just to walk around the block. Needless to say, my aerial acrobatics had to finally be put on hold.
Overall, I knew I was lucky—I had two adorable babies. They were healthy. They were fun. They had these stunning red curls and gorgeous blue eyes. And despite my body falling apart, I was okay too. I reminded myself of this every day.
But I’m not going to lie. It was hard losing my strength, my agility, my bladder control, my ease of movement in the air, my ankle mobility. I didn’t like looking at my stretch-marked, jiggly, misshapen belly. Attempting to climb after childbirth was like swimming upstream with lead weights on my ankles. The lack of sleep, the chaos, the nursing-induced hunger, and the temptation of quick, salty carbs, along with enough postpartum lethargy to prevent me from hitting the gym, made it impossible to avoid metamorphosing into a new, heavier body. The curves, the squish, the weak muscles—this was what I had to work with. This is what I get to haul into the air. Soft, stretchy yoga pants became my go-to. Massive nursing bras to support my F-cup breasts, which bounced and jiggled like water balloons when I walked. I grieved the loss of my old self—the sparkle booty shorts getting shoved to the back of the closet. Would I ever fit in that B-cup sequined bra again?
“What’s your profession?” someone asked me recently.
“I’m an aerial dance teacher,” I replied. I left out the performer part since I’d only returned to teaching, terrified to squeeze my postpartum body into any form of sparkly spandex.
They eyed me up and down, taking stock of my soft, curvy, mom-bod. A far stretch from the stereotypical Cirque du Soleil aerialist, all carved muscles and ripped abs.
Now, 14 months after birthing my second child, I’m still nurturing my torn-apart body back into an activity that used to be second nature. Every climb brings me closer to my old self; that fierce someone who felt like she could fly. I do a Kegel whenever I invert, I stop if I feel my core twinging or popping, and I still don’t have enough time to train. But I continue to teach, watching as others discover their inner strength. I balance it all with the mother that I’ve become. I snuggle my babies close, I cherish being in the air, and I’m trying to love this new body.