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July 13, 2020

25 Comments

When I was pregnant, I had someone comment on a blog post I wrote saying I should remove all the mirrors in my house because I would hate my body so much in the first 6 weeks after giving birth I wouldn’t want to look at myself.

I’m heartbroken that anyone would feel this way about their splendid body after it did something so amazing.

I’ll be honest, I was quite terrified about what childbirth would do to my body. I have what I like to call a Dead Wombat metabolism. I burn food at the rate of a decaying marsupial which means I spend a lot of time (most of my time) trying not to eat more food than I need. I like food, and I’ve been non-blessed with a genetic mutation where I struggle to stop eating when I’m full. So with that fun combination, it’s a daily struggle to keep my weight at a healthy level. I’ve got some sound systems in place, but it’s an ongoing process. I can’t ever fully relax; otherwise, my weight creeps up like a bear hibernating for winter. My life isn’t awful – I still have the odd treat, and I drink wine every now and then, but I haven’t eaten bread since Pammy Anderson and Tommy Lee got divorced (1995 for those playing at home). It is what it is.

I imagined after having a child, I’d be obsessed with my body ‘bouncing back’ and wearing my ‘pre-baby’ jeans again ASAP. And you know what? I couldn’t give a crap. Here’s why.

1. My body did a really (really) cool thing.

I wasn’t overly sentimental about being pregnant or giving birth (I’m not overly sentimental about anything really). Still, on a scientific level, I thought the whole process was so freaking cool. All the usual stuff like how my baby girl bobbed around my chest shortly after she was born and found my nipple for her first feed. How my body just grew her with very little input from me. Also the non-normal stuff like how I’m very tasty to mosquitos under normal circumstances but when I was pregnant they didn’t touch me. I also loved my weird pregnancy symptoms. I mercifully didn’t get morning sickness, rashes or acne but I burped constantly. CONSTANTLY. It was disgusting. There was a month we dubbed Burpageddon because I just had a steady stream of air escaping my mouth at all times. I find it kind of mean to berate my body after it went through so much. It really is a miraculous beast. Also, my daughter loves my body. Every inch of it. It cooked her good, it kept her fed, and it’s her safe place where she comes for cuddles and snuggles. I don’t know how many one-year-olds you’ve met, but they’re pretty decisive when it comes to things they like/don’t like, and my body is a hard 10/10 for her so it can’t be that bad. The kid hates pancakes. Her standards are sky-high.

2. I’m too busy to care.

For real, I have this miraculous little one-year-old bopping around being adorable/hilarious/really freaking annoying all day. I don’t want to miss a second of it. She fills me with so much delight and fascination, I just don’t have room to lament my spare tire as vigorously I used to. Which is great. She’s far more important than a pre-pregnancy dress I can’t zip up. My favourite part of the day is after her bath when I get her in a fresh nappie (Little One’s of course – she’s been in them since birth and slept through the night at 4 months. I’m not messing with that program), clean pyjamas and her snuggly sleep bag. We sit on my bed and read books and cuddle. She lifts up my top (because she is obsessed with everyone’s tummies ATM) and pats and squishes my belly and giggles. It’s marvelous. I don’t want to teach her to hate my belly.

3. I don’t want my daughter to be as relentlessly obsessed with her weight like I have been my whole life.

I’ve been ‘watching my weight’ since I was ten years old, possibly earlier and it’s really dull. I want to teach my girl to climb trees. To run because it feels good. To eat nourishing vegetables and foods that fuel her body, to eat gelato in Italy, to enjoy pizza. To wear clothes, she can hike in and not worry about whether they’re flattering. I want her to lead a healthy, fabulous, pleasure and joy-filled life in whatever form her beautiful body takes.

And the best way to do that is to lead by example. That means taking care of myself, not hiding my body from her, being present in family photos and not fetishising other people’s (seemingly more perfect) bodies. It means not obsessing about what my body used to look like, what it currently looks like and what it will look like in the future. It means concentrating on having a strong, functional body that I can use to walk beside my daughter and catch her when she falls. I’m not going to let cellulite or a couple of extra pregnancy kilos stop me from doing that.

How did you feel about your body after giving birth? We’d love you to share any thoughts or advice for other new mums in the comments below!

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  • No matter how many amazing things people can come up with I will still hate the way my stomach sags. its not pretty and I hate it

    Reply

  • I agree it’s hard to love your body all the time especially when you’re surrounded by images of perfect bodies on social media and the like.
    These days people are trying to get bigger women to model clothes but I always think if their bodies aren’t like that naturally and they eat a bad diet then the wrong kind of message is being displayed also?!

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  • My little one is obsessed with people’s bellies at the moment too.

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  • These are valid reasons to not hate on yourself, I think them too but I am doubtful I will ever be completely happy is this much bigger, squishier, uncomfortable body. I miss the old me a hell of a lot. I’m trying to make better choices with diet and exercise but it all seems to just have latched on with no intention of going away.

    Reply

  • I do agree that kids can pick up on these things. You’ve got to be careful when dieting etc with kids in the house, you don’t want them to get concerned about their own weight.

    Reply

  • Lucky you. Ive hated my body since I can remember. Ive hated being tall, when my boobs started to appear, my periods. I hated it when it was a firm toned size 10 and still hate it at a flabby size 16. Im just never happy

    Reply

  • Number 4: I’m too darn tired to give a heck

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  • I never seemed to have time to worry about it. It is what it is – it worked well for me in finally having 4 babies after 2 miscarriages and so long as I am healthy and all my family is healthy, I just don’t worry about it.

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  • What a silly thing for someone to say. I loved my body both before and after giving birth. I was called a beached whale because I was huge but I loved my body I also went up 2 dress sizes but didn’t care as the result was due to the most beautiful little girl I gave birth to. I think we all know our bodies will never be the same as before, age also changes the body.

    Reply

  • So sad to hear about this traumatic event. I feel for all of them and what each individual was feeling and I definitely won’t say anything else as of course I haven’t been through that only they can know how it feels and what reactions they had in that moment.

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  • I love that my body was able to produce and carry 4 beautiful babies but I am over weight and I can’t do the things that I could when I was at a healthier weight and it is extremely challenging and upsetting

    Reply

  • I’ve always hated my body and having kids hasn’t changed that either. I think I’ll always have a love/hate relation with my body.

    Reply

  • I had a traumatic pregnancy, birth, and post-birth so I just had to get my body well so I could look after my baby. I then suffered PND and couldn’t breastfeed, so wasn’t really thanking my body too much. I then went to Weight Watchers and lost 12 kilos, so clearly not loving my body.

    Reply

  • I am too busy running around after my kids to worry about what my body looks like. They are the best reason for it to have changed. I do walk everyday but we do it as a family.

    Reply

  • Most of the time i did lot of work to get my body back after every birth. But i found it was quite stressful.

    Reply

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