I guess you could say I have always been pretty proud of myvagina.
My periods came each month like clockwork.
I found it easy to have anorgasmduring sex.
Yuji Kotani / Getty Images
I got pregnant with both my kids on the first try.
So when my vagina started falling out when I was only 28 years old, I was crushed.
Shocked, I yelled for my husband.
Courtesy of Carolyn Sayre
“What is that?”
“Is there another kid in there?”
The next day I had an emergency appointment with my obstetrician.
Carolyn Sayre, pictured with her husband, Bret, and two children, Alyson, 5, and Joshua, 2. Rachel Toporek
Since my disorder was so advanced, my bladder was actually beginning to protrude outside of my body.
I was not alone.
The condition occurs most commonly after childbirth and menopause, as the muscles weaken with age.
For the next two weeks I felt like I was constantly sitting on an egg.
I felt constant tugging in my pelvis and pressure in my rectum.
I went to the bathroom constantly, but my bladder never felt empty.
If I sneezed, laughed or simply moved the wrong way I leaked with urine and sometimes poop too.
“Aunt so-and-so had the same problem, but don’t tell her I told you.”
They could not even bring themselves to say the words.
Finally, I gathered up the courage to see a well-known urogynecologist who specialized in POP.
I felt like a science experiment.
However, he doubted my advanced condition would resolve.
Tentatively, I asked him about sex.
He told me intercourse should not be painful.
After the appointment, I waddled back to my car with the strange diaphragm-like equipment stuck up inside me.
In just a few minutes I had to put on a happy face and pick up my kids.
I don’t want you to be alone."
After more than 10 years together and two children, I thought I had nothing to hide.
A body part I did not even know could break.
The next week I took my vagina to the gym.
My mind raced.What was she going to do?
Did I smell down there?
I should have taken a longer shower.
I should go to the bathroom one more time.
What if the exercises hurt?
What if my bladder just falls out when I am squatting?
Can they put it on ice?
Uh-oh, I definitely need to go to the bathroom one more time…
Finally, the physical therapist came out to get me.
From the moment we started talking in the privacy of her dimly lit office, I felt understood.
She told me about the countless women she had treated who were able to improve their condition.
Immediately, I sighed, my body relaxed, and then, yes, a little pee came out.
And just like that, this woman I had never met before became my va-jay-jay coach.
[For more information, check out this guide onhow to do Kegels.]
My vagina was bone dry and the only thing wet were my breasts that leaked from nursing.
I wanted to reclaim my body and orgasm after months of healing from childbirth.
But for the first time in my life, sex seemed unappealing.
I had failed us both in the one area I had always been so damn good at.
I had developed an infection.
I stuck my fingers inside myself and began violently trying to push the wall of my vagina back up.
I did it over and over again, but it simply fell back down.
I felt out of control.
So I did what anyone does when they lose controlI found a way to get it back.
Even though I had already shed the baby weight, I became unhealthily obsessed with food and exercise.
Before long I went from a size 10 to a size 4.
Everyone told me how great I looked.
“It must be the nursingit is a great diet,” I would respond.
I hid behind lies with my family and sarcasm with my friends.
But what they did not know was that I falling apart inside.
I read countless forums on the Internet about women who became depressed after developing prolapse.
But I did not want to admit I was one of them.
My husband asked me over and over again: “What do you need from me?”
The truth was: I had no clue.
Then one cold winter day I hit rock bottom.
I started crying on the floor naked in front of her.
I can still remember the way the gold ring around her hazel eyes fixated on mine.
“I never saw a grown-up cry before,” she said.
I wanted to call Disney and scream.
But what I really wanted to do was to scream at myself.
I had let my vagina take over my life.
She was simply telling me she understood.
I stopped feeling sorry for myself.
Before long, I was rocking a pretty sweet six-pack.
I stocked up on lubricant and kept at it in the bedroom.
It turns out, this is a known benefit of strengthening your pelvic floor muscles.
Even though my prolapse has improved dramatically over the last two and a half years, I still struggle.
It is still hard for me to dance around the room with my daughter.
It is uncomfortable to lift up my son.
I own stock in pantiliners.
And surgery is probably still in my future someday.
But prolapse no longer controls me.
The experience made me realize we are all out of control in some way.
It is how we handle being out of control that is important.
When I look in the mirror, I no longer see a broken woman.
Oh, and by the way, I’m doing my Kegels right now.
