"You are absolutely glowing pregnant". "You know if you breastfeed that weight will literally fall off". "There will be plenty of time once the baby's here to 'bounce back'". -Literally everyone on planet Earth But, then you come home from the hospital. Engorged breasts. Sore everything. Eyes perpetually red rimmed. Head pounding from the sobbing and the sudden start of the fall of pregnancy hormones. Your gait is slow. Your body is tired. You eventually take that first shower at home and you can't even enjoy the warm water on your skin cause you feel empty. Your ears feel strained from the absence of the sound of crying. You stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom and gaze at the body you feel so betrayed by. The body that harbored life. That grew and stretched with the promise of a new beginning. Instead, it gave you the beginning and ending all in a single day. Your skin in angry with marks that showed where kicks used to be. Your stomach is jiggly. Yes, jiggly like jello- and so sore. Your face is fuller, your arms are, too. Don't even look at your back end cause Lord knows those mesh panties aren't camouflaging anything. This whole time you were not bothered by this transformation as you reassured yourself it would all be worth it. Yet, here you are. Naked. A physical, emotional, and mental version of someone you don't even recognize. No baby in the other room, waiting on you. No baby to snuggle and smell. You have nothing. But, boobs that throb and a body that isn't your own. This is what it feels like. It's such a small glimpse into what it feels like to have that postpartum body with no baby. To sport that "mom-bod" when strangers don't know you're a mom. The depression makes you want to sleep. To escape. If you were like me and had no "sunshine" children (children born before loss) then you could sleep all day, with no interruptions except to wake and realize that - no, it wasn't all just a dream and that you are laying in soaked sheets full of breast-milk. If you were like so many other loss mothers that went home to their "sunshine" children you were back to the grind, except now you're trying to bandage the broken hearts of siblings and trying not to break down every 5 seconds. You're dealing with the tantrums cause the siblings don't know how else to express themselves. Which is worse? Neither. There is no competition in the loss world. It all.... sucks (yes, that's the most eloquent word in the English language that best describes it all). Days would roll together. I would wake to eat something - fast and easy. Sometimes, overeating- other times starving myself. But, I never did any of this on purpose. The cycle continued. Some weight was lost, not all of it, 9lbs remained. But, I didn't care enough to come out of my fog to change anything. I had no desire or energy to put to task any plan. My second pregnancy meant bed-rest for 92 days. Hospital bed-rest for 57 of those days. Strict bed-rest where I only got up to pee and wore compression boots on my feet. I atrophied any muscles I did have. My muscles shriveled and left me weak. And even after all my hopes and effort and months spent in trendelburg just staring at the ceiling...my time honored tradition of returning home without a baby continued. It played out similar to the first time. I sought a way to help make sense of it all. I never truly found the secret healer but this time I decided to pump and donate. For 3 months I pumped milk from my postpartum body in an attempt to help others. I pumped the equivalent of my boy's weight in grams in ounces of milk. It helped heal my heart, some. Yet, the weight remained. 9 more lb stayed on my once svelte frame. 18lbs total. I didn't want to leave the house cause I didn't feel like myself. Here I was with a postpartum body but no baby to show for my efforts. A body torn apart by the majesty of pregnancy and left shattered and lumpy and heavy. Having a postpartum body with no baby is indescribable. It's all the words; yet, none of them truly depict the truth. Having a postpartum body with a baby is hard, too. I am learning this with my rainbow. Time is mysteriously missing from my day. I'd rather giggle and coo with my 4month old then attend a class at the gym. Breastfeeding has me craving ALLLL the sweets. But, now I have purpose. I have a little girl that is only getting more active. I want to lead by example. I want to exude confidence and happiness in myself so that I can share all the good things with her. Come along with me as I write about my postpartum journey, after my rainbow. I will be writing about it and sharing everything. I want to be a better version of myself, and I hope it will inspire you to join .... P.S. I have a pretty awesome coach, so stick around. #operationmmombod |
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