A before and after, without the bounce back.
38 weeks in vs. 38 weeks out 💗✨
When my baby was 9 months old I posted this photo to Instagram.
Now as much as I love seeing my sweet babe and how much she's grown, I do have a love-hate relationship with posts like these. I love them because, well, babies 🥰 but they can also be problematic in how the mother or birthing person is picked apart.
A common belief is that the mom or birthing person should be "back to normal" by this time. They should look like how they looked before they got pregnant. Almost as if pregnancy never even happened! 🙄
For some, this time frame may feel generous. For the rest of us... it feels like a blink of an eye. A tired, dreary eyed, never get a second to yourself, blink of an eye. There are new skills to learn, middle of the night googlings to decipher, and a host of new responsibilities that can feel crushing at times.
Add a "bounce back" body to the mix and it's just too much.
So in case you, like me, aren't anywhere near bounced back at 9 months postpartum, take heart.
We may never look like we did before we became a mother or parent. And my everlasting question is, why do we expect to?
Why do we insist that mothers and birthing people should look like they never went through pregnancy, birth and postpartum?
“My body will never go back to what it was; it’s made a person, traveled to another dimension, and given birth to another world.”
Instead, I’d love to see the focus shift to taking care of the mother so that they can feel like themselves, feel supported and feel like they are doing a great job in their new role.
