I mentioned this here in about two sentences back in January and then let it go. I'm 10 weeks pp now and it's had time to marinate, so I'm writing the whole thing down properly. Second baby, vaginal birth, second degree tear.
The appointment was four minutes. I timed it, because I'd gotten a newborn into a car seat and driven 40 minutes for it. She looked at the tear, said it healed nicely, asked what I was doing for birth control, asked if I was feeling sad, and cleared me for everything. Exercise, sex, all of it. Nobody put a hand on my abdomen. Nobody asked about leaking. Nobody looked at my pelvic floor at all. I'd assumed that was the entire point of the visit.
So I said it out loud, in the room. I have a gap above my belly button I can fit two fingers into, and I leak if I sneeze hard. And she said that's very normal after two babies, and that it usually resolves on its own, and did I have any other questions.
Very normal. That's the whole answer. Same sentence for both things.
What's actually bothering me, and I've been chewing on it for two months: "cleared" doesn't mean what I thought it meant. I thought it meant somebody checked and I'm fine. It means the incision is closed and she's not liable if I go run a 5K. Those are completely different sentences and only one of them got said out loud.
And it was the LAST appointment. There is no next one. Whatever shows up at four months, at eight months, when I try to run again, there's no visit for it. The system had one scheduled touchpoint with my body after it did the single hardest thing it will ever do, and it spent four minutes on it and closed the file.
My LO gets seen at 2 weeks, 2 months, 4 months, 6 months. Somebody weighs her and plots her on a chart and asks how she's doing. I get four minutes and a pamphlet about IUDs.
I'm not even asking for advice really. I want to know if this was everyone's experience or if I got a bad one. Because if it's everyone's, then it's not a bad doctor, it's just how this works. Which... is worse, I think? I don't know. Anyway.
Adding a practical thing, since you drove 40 minutes and took a half day for four minutes and I'd hate for the PT visit to cost you the same way.
Before you book, call your insurance and ask if they have an in-network pelvic floor PT and make them name one. If they can't (and a lot of plans really cannot) ask specifically about a gap exception or network exception. If there's nobody in network who does the thing you need, they can be required to cover an out-of-network provider at in-network cost. It's not a favor and it's not obscure....
I did not know gap exception was a phrase that existed. Writing it down. Thank you.
Mine was five minutes and my doctor did the thing where she was already standing up with her hand on the door while asking if I had questions. Which is a very effective way of not being asked questions!
This was my first, two and a half years ago. I'm 32 weeks with my second right now and that's exactly why I'm typing this at midnight instead of sleeping lol. I mentioned I felt a heaviness, like something was sitting low, worse by the end of the day, and she said that's very normal. Same sentence you got! It's incredible how...
PFPT here. I can't tell you whether that gap is a problem from a description, and anyone who does that is guessing at you. So I won't.
But you've already worked out the thing most people take a year to get to. "Cleared" is a medical and liability threshold. It means nothing has gone wrong. It was never a functional assessment and it was never designed to be one. Patients hear it as "you should feel normal now," and then when they don't, they assume the failure is theirs. It isn't. Nobody tested the thing that's bothering you.
The two things you...
Common and normal get used interchangeably and they are not the same word. I'm going to be thinking about that all night.
Nobody has looked. That's it exactly. I keep trying to explain to my husband why I'm upset and I kept saying "she said it's fine" and he'd say well then it's fine. And I couldn't articulate that she didn't check that it's fine, she just said it.
Does the doming thing need to be someone specific or can any PT do it?
Someone specific, and it's worth being picky. You want a pelvic floor PT. A regular orthopedic PT usually hasn't done the internal training and the assessment you need is internal. If you call and the front desk can't tell you whether they do internal exams, that's your answer.
Ask directly: do you do an internal pelvic floor assessment on a first visit, and how long is that visit. Anything under 45 minutes for a first appointment is a red flag.