I’m Going to be a Tena Lady

I’ve been pretty fortunate when it comes to pre and post-partum disasters: no prolapses or haemorrhoids. My unmentionable varicose veins went away after the baby was delivered. I made it through three pregnancies relatively intact.

Yet today, almost three years after my last pregnancy, I discovered what it was like to have a little leak, shall we say.

You know those ads, where the elegant older woman with silver hair and neat blue suits stand around laughing over some witty comment, and one turns to the screen and whispers, that whenever she laughs or bends over and jumps, she has a little leak, but it’s okay now - because she has Tena Lady.

Yeah, I was that lady today. Except I didn’t actually have a Tena Lady handy, because you know, even Mums sometimes forget to carry around incontinence pads in their oversized handbags on the off chance they will spring a leak.

The Curly Mop and I were on a date night. Once a month, my hubby or I take one of the girls out to spend some quality time. The Mop’s version of quality time apparently, was watching me waist deep in foam, tugging my track pants up, as I struggled to climb my way out of the foam pit at the local trampolining joint (and when I say local, I mean it was a 45 minute drive).

I tried so hard to have fun, but between losing my pants in the pit, being laughed at by four year olds, stared at (not in a good way) by the young bloke in charge of the trampolines and experiencing an ominous trickle every time I jumped, it basically sucked.

The first time it happened I stopped jumping suddenly, afraid of what would happen if I continued. But trampolines don’t tend to let you stop on a dime, they want to keep going, so I ended up falling onto my face (not for the last time), legs flying up behind me, all elegance and grace and wondering who the hell was going to make a million bucks by selling the video on YouTube.

The second time it happened, I squeezed my legs together slightly and looked at the clock. After that, I just accepted my fate, and hoped that this wasn’t going to become a regular thing.

Maybe it’s just me getting older. Maybe it’s because I had three kids and never bothered doing pelvic floor exercises. Maybe I have just been damn lucky up to now.

But I can tell you one thing for sure. You will not find me trampolining with my four year old ever again. Or if you do, I will be cheering from safety of the trickle-free sidelines.