Continuing our series 'Reflections' to share the thoughts, experiences, and the inner workings of women before us, amongst us and ahead of us.
In today's insightful conversation, we'll join Brooke Hogan and Hannah McKimm, the founders of Our Pilates and both recent mothers. Their postpartum journeys are unique and distinct from my own, and I was initially taken back by the stark contrast.
It sparked questions within me, prompting me to reflect on why my own experience felt so challenging. As I delved deeper into their narratives, I realised that their approach to postpartum was fundamentally different, centered on acceptance and surrender – themes that I only fully embraced years into my own motherhood.
Brooke and Hannah are both very passionate about sharing that the early days of postpartum can be positive - I'm very inspired by Brooke and Hannah's experience. I hope you can be too. Let's dive in.
1. The Journey of Self
Let’s dive right in, in your own words, what has your journey been to date? If you were to pick the top 3 moments along the way that defined or redirected you to where you are now, what would they be?
Brooke:
My journey has been a wild, fun and rewarding ride. I would say that little me would be very surprised with the paths we have gone down. I love that I am constantly evolving, growing and learning every day.
Moment One:
Participating in Australia's Next Top Model when I was 21, this defined my modelling career and propelled me into everything I am doing today.
Moment Two:
Making the difficult decision to close one business to focus all of my time on my other business, Our Pilates.
Moment 3:
Becoming a mum to my beautiful little boy Billy. Each of these moments has changed the course of my life in the best way possible.
2. The Mother
Hannah is a year into Motherhood and Brooke has 4 month old Billy, what did you expect motherhood to be like before you had children? What surprised you?
Brooke: I expected it to be hard, scary and exhausting, but I also knew I would love this little human more than anything in the world. I think people do instill a bit of fear into new mums by focusing on the negatives, lack of sleep etc.
I felt really positive throughout my pregnancy and going into birth. Myles and I tried really hard for a baby with 2 rounds of IVF. I feel this has helped me feel happy, grateful and appreciative for all the experiences, good and bad.
Image courtesy of Instagram @brookehogan
In addition, having people around me that I can bounce things off, being able to rely on Myles to help with cooking, cleaning and also taking care of me as well as being flexible postpartum have been huge factors in the way I have felt in this fourth trimester.
" I have been going with the flow by not putting pressure on myself to try and stick to any specific routines and realising that everything I am going through is normal."
Brooke
One thing that I feel that helps my days feel positive and calm is making sure i’m paying attention to his cues. By being aware of his needs, I have found it pretty easy to go with HIS flow.
"In my experience going with his flow is is easier than trying to create a flow for him."
Brooke
In my experience, I haven’t really felt many negatives. Of course, there are hard days, and difficult situations but the amount of love and joy Billy has brought to my life is unexplainable. I don’t miss my ‘old’ life in the slightest, and I feel like I am doing something that I was born to do.
I'm reminding myself that these are all just moments that will pass and to not wish them away even if they’re hard. I’m not worried or scared about creating bad habits, I’m just focusing on giving him the love and energy that he wants from me.
Hannah - I have been surprised by how much I enjoy being a mother. I knew I would love my baby, but I didn’t really expect to love being a mother so much. I expected life to become a bit stressful and chaotic and I thought I’d be bored at home. But it’s actually been nothing like that, I really love my role as Harper’s mum, it’s a lot more fun than I expected it to be. And it doesn’t really get boring because the role is constantly changing and evolving.
Being a mother has taught me to let go of the small things and to be ok with slowing down. It took me a while to get to this, I found the lack of control over my time really difficult at the start but my best days are the ones where I follow her lead and try not to have unrealistic expectations.
3. The Postpartum
What has been both of your postpartum experiences been so far? Have they been different to what you thought?
Brooke's postpartum:
Postpartum life with Billy and Myles has been magical. I’ve been on maternity leave, and it’s been the most amazing experience being 100% completely devoted to Billy. I will always look back on this time not working and feel so grateful for all the time we spent together. Big shout out to Han for her support, for holding the fort and allowing me to completely switch off.
For me there have been a few challenges postpartum. My recovery has been very intense. It’s not that I expected recovery to be a breeze, but I didn’t realise that even 2 months postpartum, I’d still be feeling sore and not 100% myself and needing to hold my pelvic floor anytime I need to sneeze 😅.
Breastfeeding is one of the hardest things I've ever done and I feel that each day brings a new challenge.
The final challenge is dealing with some postnatal anxiety around Billy’s health. I’ve not experienced anxiety in the past so managing this is very new to me and something that I am working on each day.
Hannah's postpartum:
The early days really took me by surprise. I had a great pregnancy and an uncomplicated birth, so I didn’t expect that it would still take me such a long time to recover from giving birth. We were also renovating and moving house for the first 2 months of Harper’s life so this definitely added to the stress. Harper was quite unsettled for the first 4 months and she had reflux so we didn’t really feel comfortable leaving her with anyone unless we really had to. At the time I didn’t recognise that it was hard, but I think I only really started to properly enjoy the experience after the 4-5 month mark. The best advice has been for me that everything is temporary, because when you’re going through a tough patch it feels like it’s going to be forever.
I personally found my friends to be such a supportive resource, this made a huge difference for me when I was unsure about anything.
I'm not great at asking for help, so I spent the first couple of months trying to do it on my own, but after this point I started to feel really comfortable asking for help and realising that people genuinely offer because they want to.
Although both Matt and Myles work very hard, when they are around they're really around and that makes it feel like a team effort.
"Whenever I'd have my moments, particularly through the nights, I'd just take a breath and remind myself that tomorrow is a new day and this phase doesn't go on forever."Hannah
Your other baby: OUR PILATES
You are the Founders of Our Pilates, and many say it’s the best Pilates platform out there! Our Pilates difference to other Pilates-workouts is Hannah's expertise from being a physio, you really feel in safe hands and Our Pilates just burns different. A good burn! What led you to creating Our Pilates?
Hannah:
First of all, thank you for the very kind words. Our Pilates began when I was seeing Brooke for a running injury (as her physio) and because of lockdowns, I ended up sending her videos of Pilates classes for her to do at home. They were filmed in my living room and the production was awful, but her followers started to do my classes too and then the idea of creating our own platform appeared.
Our goal when creating Our Pilates was to offer really good quality classes that are thought out, purposeful and enjoyable. I had noticed through my work that a lot of my clients felt that Pilates wasn’t for them because it can appear a little elitist sometimes. So we wanted to create an approachable and relatable community to make everyone feel that they could sign up and do our classes.
Hannah: Just before we launched Our Pilates I fell pregnant and so naturally we created a library of prenatal and postnatal classes. Now with Brooke having Billy as well, it’s become a really exciting space to work in as we both have first hand experience in exercising during and after pregnancy.
Our members and community are so important to us and we are just working on making Our Pilates the best possible platform we can. It really makes us so happy to keep thinking of ways to add value and create ways for our members to look forward to moving their bodies.
4. The Feel Good Components
Being a mother and a founder, as well as so many other things, can be challenging to dedicate the time to do things for our own wellbeing. Reflecting on the things that makes You Feel Good, what would the recipe look for you, by doing:
a) Tiny things frequently (20 sec or so) multiple times a day:
Make Harper smile. I really try to close my laptop when she’s awake and be present with her rather than giving her half of my attention. We’re both a lot happier when I do this.
b) Small things daily:
I take Harper for a walk every afternoon. It breaks up the long stretch before dinner and we both love getting outside. I’m lucky to live out of Melbourne so we get straight out into nature and it’s really refreshing.
c) Big things once in a week:
Matt and I love our local wine bar and we go there most weeks for a wine and a good chat. I also like to try and schedule a run outside if I can, I can’t believe how free I feel when I get to run outside, instead of rushing onto the treadmill and hoping that Harper doesn’t wake up. Seeing family is really important to both Matt and I, we aim to see both of our parents each week for a coffee or an early dinner.
d) Bigger things once in a while:
Catching up with my girlfriends for a proper meal where we don’t have the kids and we get to talk about things other than our children. This really recharges me and is so much fun. We have a girls weekend coming up where we are spending two whole nights away and are making this an annual event.
6. The Inspiration
Describe your favourite moment of the day?
Hannah - at the moment my favourite moment of every day is taking Harper out for her brekky. I have a coffee and we sit together and it’s so enjoyable.
I’ve always been too impatient to enjoy doing things like this, so I’m loving my change of pace and perspective and I really look forward to this moment every day.
What are some of the tools and/or resources that you find support in?
My girlfriends. My friends had children before me and we have a group chat that is my bible. Everyone is so supportive and have experienced it all before so there is nothing we can’t ask each other. Although becoming a mother can isolate you in some ways, it also can bring you together and I feel that we are all a lot closer now and really value each other in a different way.
We love a quote/words of wisdom. Do you have a quote or sentence you found helpful in your journey?
It’s a little cliche but I just love the quote:
‘You are exactly where you are supposed to be’.
That has helped me a lot at times when I have felt like I’m behind or taking too long to achieve things. Although it has taken me a little longer than some to get to where I am, I do believe that everyone needs to follow their own path.
What class is your favourite Our Pilates class?
Oooh this is a tough one! It changes all the time because I’m always creating new classes. Right now, I think the Fun Flow Pilates would have to be my favourite but I also love our Traditional Pilates Flow. I know Brooke loved the Peach Perfector class from our prenatal catalogue and Pregnancy Flow is one of my favourite prenatal classes.
What is the one thing you want our readers to take away from our chat today?
I think it’s so important to remember that motherhood is exactly what our bodies are designed to do. During my pregnancy I felt like I was bombarded with negative information about childbirth and motherhood, but both of our experiences have been so positive, it would be great to see more of the positive stories out there.
Every mother is different and there is no recipe, even though sometimes we wish there was!
Making time for yourself is so important and returning to exercise will happen when you feel ready.
It may help to reframe ‘exercise’ as ‘movement’ so that you acklowledge a short walk, or 10 minutes of stretching as exercise.
Build back up gradually, be ok with this process taking time and try not to compare yourself to anyone else.
I hope you enjoy reading this post, and that it inspires you to embrace your own postpartum journey, whatever it may look like.
With love,
Frida
---------------------------------------------------------
Experience the Benefits of Our Pilates - Shop Now and Unlock a Free Month!
You'll get your free month of Our Pilates when you buy one or more Flow State, information on how to claim your free month will come in your confirmation email.
You can follow Our Pilates, Brooke and Hannah at @ourpilates @brookehogan @han.mckimm
