We are always taught to take care of our bodies, love them, embrace them, because they are the only ones we have, right? I mean my body grew a freaking baby. That’s incredible and that’s what I tell myself everyday while navigating my new body….my post baby body. I use the word “navigating” because that’s what it feels like to me, learning my new body. Learning how to love and embrace it again but I’ll tell you what, this shit is HARD. I can’t speak for all you moms, everyone’s bodies are different, so I am only speaking on my postpartum body struggle and I hope you can relate to this in some way and start loving your postpartum body.
Do you ever feel like your head isn’t attached to your body? Like you’re looking in a mirror and obviously it’s you, you see it’s you, but it’s not YOU at the same time? That is the best way I can describe this, does that make sense? For me, I was a fit queen. I was so used to seeing one body type that I could never imagine my body looking like anything else…let me explain. I was in the gym everyday, on top of teaching my cycle classes and on top of all my nutrition. So yeah I had the abs, I had the muscles, I was THAT girl. I was so proud of that body. I worked HARD for that body. Then I found out I was pregnant, we will go into that story another time but I didn’t look any different at first. Months went on as they do and my boobs blew up first, then the little belly came, my hips went out, but you know what is weird, I wasn’t mad or struggling with the pregnancy body because it’s inevitable. Like my mind knew, “hey there is literally nothing you can do about this so it’s fine.” Like duh, your body changes to grow this baby, fine. I also was still fitting in all of my clothes so nothing really was changing for me. Then the time came, I gave birth naturally (not by choice) and I’ll go back to what I said before: OUR BODIES ARE INCREDIBLE! Anyway…I remember when I went to the bathroom for the first time after baby. I looked in the mirror at my stomach and I was like “uh hello…she isn’t in there anymore why do you still look like that?” It’s like my head immediately went back to my pre-pregnancy body. It wasn’t registering what my next chapter was going to be because I just closed the pregnancy one. The next few weeks were rough, on top of becoming a new mom I was struggling mentally with my body and when I say struggling I mean tears almost everyday. It started to effect my sex life. I did not even want my boyfriend to touch me or even LOOK at me because in my head, if I didn’t think my body was beautiful, why would he? (we will revisit this topic)
Eventually it got easier, day by day. My daughter was born in the winter so we weren’t leaving the house much, so sweats everyday was the outfit of choice. I didn’t even look at my clothes at first. Then I did because I was feeling good at that moment and I thought it would be a good idea to try on my size 2 jeans from when I was 125 pounds. Why not? TERRIBLE IDEA, if you are thinking about doing that just don’t, you heard it from me…save yourself that heart break please, because when I tell you, and I am not exaggerating…I went into a full blown Britney Spears breakdown. I pulled all my clothes out of the drawers, threw them all over my freshly clean room, ripped my closet apart. I sat there on these piles and piles of clothes and cried because I knew my body was different. After I cleaned up, got rid of the clothes I knew didn’t fit me anymore, I went to the mall. I grabbed a couple different sized jeans and when I tell you I was in and out of that dressing room 7 times because I had to slowly keep climbing up that size chart…it killed me. Again it’s like my head was not registering what was happening. I remember texting Nikki so upset I felt almost helpless. Like why won’t you fit, she’s 4 months old now, like isn’t that enough time? Size 6 was the winner and I’ve never been anything more than a 4 so it hit me pretty hard. But what was I going to do?
Let’s fast forward 6 months now. I’ve accepted my jean’s size because I’ve learned it is not the end of the world anymore. I slowly am coming around to the idea that I look a lot better with some meat on me. My body is different. It is never going to be the same body, but I can embrace it and make it an even better body. I created LIFE. I mean I must give myself a break. I look at Olivia everyday and I remember I.DID.THAT.
I won’t lie, I still struggle every now and then, but I am finally accepting and loving my new body. But Guys I did a thing….me who was struggling so badly with my body stepped out of my comfort zone and I did a BOUDOIR PHOTOSHOOT! Like I was practically naked (and naked but no spicy pics for you guys lol) in front of a camera body exposed, little belly pouch hanging out, thighs jiggling and all. After I saw the pictures I cried because I looked sexy, I looked pretty, I felt so much emotion looking at these pictures that I forgot how badly I was putting down my new body. Like why did I do that? LIKE LOOK AT YOU! It made me think how I spent the last 6 months hating myself and my body not thinking I wasn’t good enough, pretty enough, I didn’t love myself enough. Imagine if we all took the time early on in postpartum to embrace who we are and what we did. How many of us could really get ahead of our postpartum anxiety and depression. I am not saying the boudoir photoshoot cured my postpartum struggle, but damn, it for sure made something click in this hard head of mine. SO, moms, what do we do….we rebuild. We learn to take care, love, and embrace our new bodies. You grew a freaking baby, that’s incredible.
I hope you all start loving your postpartum body!
Always, Alyssa
ForTheMoms 