a little more background

There are 3 concerns with the pelvic floor: urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence, and pain.

The closest to fecal incontinence that I've had is that I couldn't control my gas. I have regained some control in this area just in the last week.

When I first got home from the hospital, I couldn't hold my pee at all. I wore thick overnight pads, not for lots of bleeding (that was very light after the 3rd day postpartum), but so that when I would get up to go to the bathroom I wouldn't pee all over my clothes. The nurse told me I'd have problems if I waited too long to go to the bathroom because I'd had the catheter so long, and now I no longer have a nine and a half pound baby laying on my bladder. But that was not my problem. I couldn't "find" my pelvic floor muscles to stop peeing. This gradually got better. After about a month I could start wearing panty liners because I only leaked when sneezing or laughing hard. Then a week or so later, that even got better.

I have pain every day, mostly on the right side of my vaginal muscles, but also in my perineal muscles. I have more pain if I'm on my feet a lot. Usually it starts around dinner time. I was sitting on ice packs during all my waking hours at first. Gradually I used the ice less and less. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was still sitting on an ice pack every evening. Now, I only need to if I've had a particularly active day.

So I appear to be getting better on all sides.