Let me start by saying we all have our body image feels before, during and after pregnancy! This post is to help new and mommy veterans try and love the new skin they are in post baby if they dont already. Let's face it ladies: we are the superior species! We create, we carry and deliver human life! Our body will change, our mindset will change and lets grow with those changes (physically and mentally) whether they are big or small.
My realization of true body change was at 37 weeks pregnant with my first. This was when my first stretch marks hit. I HATED them immediately. I knew I was carrying a life inside me but wasn't prepared for my body to change so permanently. Then delivery came and the fourth trimester body. After I gave birth I expected my body to go right back to what it was. I didn't think "it took 9 months to grow this baby, it could take 9 months to go back". I think social media gave me that false sense of post baby body image. I remember waking up one night to feed Sofia and run to the bathroom after. My shirt was soaking wet from milk leaking, I had that still pregnant looking belly and I had a legit diaper on. I was so sore, I was exhausted, I was a hormonal mess. I broke. It wasn't just little tears coming down as I looked at myself; they were the giant ugly cry sobs that broke free. I never hated myself more. I wish someone had warned me before how you would look and feel during the fourth trimester.
I think around 8 months post partum I started to feel like the old me. That was when we decided we would try for another sooner rather than later. I tried so hard to work out and eat right so going into this pregnancy I would feel better about myself. That pregnancy came and I carried so differently. I felt amazing and I think that was when my mindset started to change. I got stretch marks quicker and I just was like, "ok my body is changing even more, it's stretching again for another human; that is ok"! I was sacrificing my body for another to blossom. After this delivery my body actually did bounce back quicker. Was it because I actually accepted the fourth trimester body and knew what to expect? Or was it because it actually physically went down quicker?
By my last pregnancy....
OH MY GOD I WAS SO BUSY I DIDN'T EVEN CARE. Haha! This is the truth. I had my whole house sick with a nasty stomach bug when my newborn was 10 days old, I was just trying to survive. It was like when I had a second to be to think how my body didn't bounce back, another life event would hit us hard. 2019 was hard for us but a blessing for me to not focus on my body so harshly. What hit me the most in my body image was getting kidney stones in August and becoming so sick and fragile looking that I hated my body for being so little and sickly.
So here I was turning 30 and I had had 3 beautiful babies who were happy and healthy yet I had hated my body so many times for being "fat" and pregnant, for not bouncing back, for having stretch marks all over and now being too thin.
When is enough, enough? When is it ok to be any sort of way and just fully embrace it? My realization only hit at the beginning of the year. I have stretch marks: those are MY TIGER STRIPES that brought me my babies. Those stripes have stories I can tell my kids for years to come. I have love handles: I LOVE FOOD DAMNIT! I have stretched skin that rolls: I HAD 3 SUCCESSFUL PREGNANCIES! I carried so differently for each that of course my skin would stretch. I have no boobs: MY BABIES SUCKED THEM DRY FROM PUMPING AND FEEDING THEM SO THEY COULD THRIVE. These are my truths.
I just had such a realization around January that we all feel this way. We all had our body pre baby and wish we had it back at some point or still do wish it back. We all have new skin we are in and learning to live with. I embraced I won't be a small in clothes anymore. I learned to dress for the new body I have and appreciate it. I have a husband who loves me despite my love handles. He didn't see thin last year, he saw sick and was worried. He doesn't see the stretch marks as anything AT ALL. So if he could love me for how I have changed in the last few years, why couldn't I? Each day I woke up and promised I would work on my mental self because my physical self was just freaking fine!
I challenge you all to do this at home. Pick your weakness and learn to love it. Compliment it. Learn new ways to dress your flaws up or down. Make your weakness your strength. I promise you all, you are beautiful. You grew life. If there is one harsh truth in this, our body will never be the same. We can work on it and still look amazing but forever our body has physically changed. Men cant do it, some women wish they could be in your position. Your body is still your body for the rest of your life. Let's embrace it, lets honour it lets respect it. If you need some last motivation, learn to love and respect it for your babies to see. Male or female we need to have positive body image for those kids to see. When they see positivity they will be positive in their own perfect little bodies that we made.
Thank you all for following along!