Healing

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I have experience two traumatic birthing experiences. I believe the vaginismus was induced by these and physical vaginal pains I've experienced. It begain after giving birth to my second child. The first time my husband and I attempted to make love after his birth, I was able to tolerate penetration, but not egress. I waited another week and tried again, but the pain hadn't changed. In addition, even 10 weeks after giving birth, due to the stitching and scar tissue, I had difficulty sitting in certain postions and performing certain actions. I believe a combination of all of these things are the cause of my vaginismus. At 10 weeks post partum, I contacted my midwife for insight. She suggested seeing an OBGYN. I was hesitant. Due to the experiences I've had in the past with my first and only OBGYN, I had developed a distrust in OBGYNs. After attempting sex one more time and experiencing even worse pain, I knew I had to make the call... to a new OBGYN. She used a Q-tip to swab for other potential causes of my pain. STD, Yeast, etc... I trembled with fear when she did this. "It's just a Q-tip. Does it really hurt or are you just scared?" she asked. I didn't know how to answer her. I was more petrified of the pain than anything, but it didn't hurt nearly as bad as I had anticipated. After finding nothing from the swab, she referred me to a Pelvic Floor Physical Therapist. I was nervous and embarrassed to meet her, but my mom rode with me and waited in the waiting room with me for support. We did an initial evaluation which mainly compromised a visual examination and ratings of pain at points of touch. After the second appointment with her I felt much much safer and comfortable with her. After a lot of stretching of the scar tissue, we slowly began penetration stretches. After 3 months I was able to tolerate penetration of my husband's ____. It was still painful, but tolerable. This gave me enough hope to continue my in-home treatment/stretching plan. After 3 more months, I had no more pain. Yay!!! Currently I am seeing the therapist because I now have the opposite issue. I went from clenching shut/too tight to being far too relaxed and loose.

To put it in an analogy, I describe it as being on the left side of a hill (painful, too tight) My therpist pushed me to the top of the hill (perfect, painless, normal) Once I got to the top, I fell to the bottom of the right side of the hill (too loose).

I'm very VERY thankful for my pelvic floor physical therapist, my midwife, and to be on the RIGHT side of the hill rather than the left.