One of my biggest curiosities I had while being pregnant was how giving birth vaginally was going to affect my primary vaginismus. I narrowed it down to three outcomes: vaginismus improves, vaginismus stays the same, or vaginismus gets worse. It has been over eleven months since I have given birth vaginally with vaginismus and the results for my body have been that my primary vaginismus has stayed the same with a very slight improvement in the penetration department. During my pregnancy I did not use my dilators at all. I had every intention of starting back up with vaginal stretching, but the reality of pregnancy symptoms (morning sickness, constantly sore back, baby bump in the front, leg cramps, etc) kept me from even looking at my dilators. I went into the hospital ready to give birth vaginally without having over 10 months of vaginal stretching. ’ll admit I felt unprepared in the vaginal stretching department. It is suggested for all pregnant woman to practice vaginal stretching (without dilators, just fingers massaging in circular motions in various layers of the vagina) to prepare the body for a smoother vaginal birth. Vaginal stretching can help with tearing. I’m very grateful that I only had a second-degree tear when my baby came out. There are 4 types of tears that could happen, a fourth-degree tear being the worse and a first-degree tear being the least invasive. Since I had vaginal tearing, I had stitches in my vagina. If you’ve read my previous posts you will know that I had an epidural. With the epidural I did not feel the tearing or the stitches at all. After the epidural wore off, my vaginal area was obviously extremely tender, and it took a long time to heal. But once the stitches dissolved (about a month) I was able to investigate the state of my vaginismus. There were three outcomes that I thought of that could happen once I tried penetration with my own finger:
I think it is a bit nerve racking for any woman, with vaginismus or not, to explore her “new” vagina for the first time after giving birth. Upon inserting my finger into the first layer of my vagina, I knew right away that my vaginismus ultimately stayed the same. I was elated that it didn’t get worse! As a new mom, still having primary vaginismus after birth was actually a relief. My body was going through so many changes and constantly looking and feeling like it wasn’t mine (shifting hormones, breasts leaking, baby weight going away, hair shedding, etc). It was nice having something familiar about my body prior to giving birth, even if it was primary vaginismus. During my second month of postpartum I ended up getting a yeast infection and thrush. After going to the doctors, I was prescribed 7-Day Monistat (cream). I would have to insert a “tampon-like” smooth tube without lubrication into my vagina for seven nights. Before giving birth, inserting Monistat would have taken me at least a half hour to relax my muscles to be able to insert it (and it would be painful). Once I gave birth though, my mental state regarding penetration had changed a bit. I just kept thinking, "a baby came out of your vagina. You pushed a small human being out of there. You can insert a small tube. The tube is nowhere near the size of a human baby's head. Not even close. You are your own vaginal superhero. You can do this!" Giving myself a pep talk for all seven nights surprisingly worked! Delivering a baby vaginally puts things into perspective. I was able to insert each tube with cream with very minimal pain for all seven nights. There was a lot of pressure and it still took about 10-20 minutes to insert the tube each night. Being able to use Monistat vaginally felt like a huge success for my vaginismus. I was able to do it without the pain that I would have had prior to giving birth. I realized that my vagina was slightly looser than it was before giving birth. My vaginismus had stayed the same, but my body and my mental state had changed. After a week of using the Monistat my yeast infection was gone. Unfortunately, I ended up developing an abscess on my perineum (the extremely small space between the anus and the vagina). It was extremely painful! It felt exactly like the pain I had once the epidural wore off in the hospital. It was like I gave birth all over again weeks after my body had started to heal. I had to go back to the hospital and was put on two types of antibiotics. The abscess ended up bursting shortly after. With the combinations of antibiotics and my postpartum hormones, I ended up with another yeast infection. I had to do another round of Monistat. Again, it took time, patience, and a pep talk to be able to insert the Monistat for another week. Thankfully, I again had little pain and mostly just pressure. Due to unforeseen issues, I stopped trying to breast feed and pump milk after three months. My period came back rather shortly after I stopped. Right around my period each month for about 7 months after I gave birth I would get yeast infection. I feel like I’ve gotten rather good at inserting Monistat in me this past year. In terms of sexual penetration, I’m now able to have my husband insert half of the head of his penis into me with no pain. He isn’t thrusting and is only just barely in that first layer of my vagina, but it’s a huge accomplishment for my body! Giving birth vaginally did not cure my primary vaginismus. However, my vagina did get slightly looser and my perspective on penetration has improved immensely. Overall, I’m very happy how everything turned out. Now that I know I can do this, baby number two is definitely in my future. -Key
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About Key:Mid-twenties, first time mom, loving wife, vaginismus patient, hamster parent. Archives
February 2018
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