Postpartum has humbled me.
I’m 15kg heavier than I have ever been and am in the messy process of accepting my current body. Not because I expect to stay like this, but because I know not accepting it will only create resistance. And as the mystics say: what you resist, persists.
I can also see how it is part of my journey to greater wisdom and a fuller understanding of what it means to be a woman. I often feel like my life path has led me to experience a bit of everything so I can understand it more deeply instead of just being an observer, so I guess this is the next experience on my soul’s list.
On my best days, I like to think of this time as my “fat and happy” era.
I embrace my fat.
I joke about it.
I appreciate my soft belly and my thick thighs.
I actually like my reflection in the mirror.
In the bath, my daughter and I take turns of tapping my tummy and making it wobble. It makes her giggle, which makes my heart smile.
In all honesty, I feel so proud of my womb, belly and body for creating such a wonderful little human!!!
But when my husband takes a video of me with our daughter and I watch it back, I feel momentarily shocked. I don’t recognise myself. It’s jarring to my ego because it doesn’t accurately reflect the woman I feel inside. And I realise this is probably how a lot of women feel about their bodies…
The Fertility Years Are A Trip
I honestly feel that the fertility years - trying to conceive, (miscarriages and recovery for those like me, which affects around 25% of women), being pregnant, early postpartum and into late postpartum - can be some of the most challenging years of a women’s life, both physically and mentally.
I have just one child right now, but the journey to have her took over 3 years.
Long story short, I had a misscarriage, followed by a womb infection, followed by another miscarriage which led to further tests and investigations.
We eventually discovered that the womb infection I suffered had led to extensive scarring on my uterus - over 50% - which is why the second pregnancy didn’t take.
So I had to have surgery to remove the scar tissue and confront the odds that I may not ever be able to conceive naturally. That was a kick in the guts. But thankfully I had a great surgeon and we were able to, in the end.
Still, those 3 years of ups and downs - pregnant and wanting, but then not pregnant and pregnant again, and then not - left me stranded in limbo.
We launched our book in 2021 but I didn’t feel like I could do the international book tour I was offered to go on, because I thought I would be having a baby. I also had an opportunity to record another album but again, I didn’t feel I could commit to it given our goals of starting a family.
Ultimately there was so much I felt I had to hold myself back from in order to see this through. On top of that, I was on a strict regime of detoxing and supplements to prepare my body for conception again. And my hormones were all over the place!!! I felt seriously out of control sometimes.
To top it all off, I was the first to get pregnant and the last to actually have a baby within my immediate friendship group.
The miscarriages changed my body nonetheless, and strangers would sometimes awkwardly mistake me for pregnant. (I secretly fantasised that next time I’d bluntly say “no I’m just fat” and walk off, but in reality, I just took it in my stride.)
This is the invisible journey so many women are quietly enduring.
Suffering in silence.
Humbly yearning, as they continue to drift through their own personal odyssey with no guarantee of a happy ending.
Needless to say, it’s been a ride. A lot of inner alchemy took place along the way, and I am grateful for that. I do believe I am a better mother for it. I only wish I started younger because pregnancy can be so hard on the body. I’m 11 months postpartum and still finding my way back.
And I will go again, for sure. Which only makes the journey back to reclaiming my body feel that little bit more daunting. Like I’ll get back in shape… but then we’ve got to do this all again!? Fuck.
Facing My Own Double Standards
Recently, I took my daughter to a Baby Sensory class and looked around at real women who were postpartum like me.
Most of them are probably a similar size to me now. Most of them were probably a smaller size before having their first baby. And most of them have probably struggled with similar feelings and thoughts to me.
I looked at one woman near me and she so looked beautiful, like a goddess of fertility. Soft, strong and curvy like a mother should be. I don’t know if she sees herself that way but I hope she does.
Somehow there is a part of me that finds it acceptable for others to be bigger and can celebrate their beauty and yet still I struggle to accept it for myself.
Years of programming telling me thin is best.
Years of my mother complaining about her own body and pointing out her flaws.
Years of me, body checking and monitoring my own weight.
Years of coaxing myself back from the edge of ED and body image issues, slowly rehabilitating myself to have a natural relationship with food and to truly find peace in this body.
And then postpartum challenges me again.
I’m doing my best to hold space for the discomfort. To accept my body as it is without spinning out into stories of fear that I’ll be undesirable to my partner or no longer taken seriously by the public. Or that this is how I’ll stay.
The emphasis visual social media platforms put on looking good to hold attention also feels so dominant, which is why I find Substack so relieving. Finally a platform that rewards a nuanced perspective and people being raw and human without having to perform to be heard.
The truth is, when I look in the mirror I actually feel pretty accepting of my body. It’s different, but it’s also softer, stronger and 1000 times wiser. I am in awe of this body and have such a deep respect for my belly and womb which created such a precious child.
My maiden body is gone and I would happily trade it again for a child as wonderful as my daughter. But that doesn’t mean I don’t grieve it. And grieve who I was before motherhood.
It’s complex, because in many ways I like who I am now more than ever. Matressence has stretched me and sharpened me and grown me and I am amazed by who I have become. It’s a positive thing overall.
But in a world that glorifies maiden youth and beauty it’s taking me time to find my place in the outer world again.
Like I said, it’s when I see a photo or video of me that I feel particularly confronted. Suddenly I’m not in my magnificent body anymore, I’m observing it from the outside and imagining the cruelest judgements. My inherent fat phobia is in full swing. Funny how I can look at another woman and genuinely celebrate her curves but when I look at my own the cruelest voices come out!
It’s true, I hold myself to such a high standard and through the motherhood & postpartum journey it’s become clear just how high those standards are.
I’m sick and tired of bodychecking myself - a habit that has become a little more prominent in my postpartum as I try to make sense of how I’ve physically changed. Why the clothes I love no longer flatter me. And how to feel good in this new size.
I’m getting better at resisting the temptation because I know it’s more important how I feel than how I look, but there’s a part of me that has been trained to imagine how I’m seen in other people’s eyes, for better or for worse.
I don’t want to pass that on to my daughter though. Like it was passed down to me. I know the judgmental voices in my head are not really my own, but inherited imaginings.
I’m struck by the images of the renaissance women who have soft, curvy tummies and strong thighs much like I do now. Back then, these bodies were seen as beautiful, so why not now?
I may be the heaviest I’ve ever been but I’m also in such a glorious phase of my life. I call it my “fat and happy era” because despite the narratives in my head calling me fat, I’m also happier than ever, lapping up the sweetness of this phase of life: coming home to presence, playing with my daughter, lazing in the sun, walking through the forest, writing my heart out and pursuing my passions both professionally and just for fun.
That’s the paradox of my experience right now. And as the uncomfortable thoughts about my weight arise, I’m also learning just how irrelevant those judgements are.
Because I am still over here enjoying my life to the fullest, even though I’m bigger than I used to be!
And so I’m choosing to see it as a course in healing this old programming. These uncomfortable thoughts are coming up so I can finally make peace with them and realise their irrelevance. Because to me, ageing gracefully means accepting it all whilst also reckoning with the messy middle.
With love,Jiveny
