I gained 35lbs and finally “bounced back”
After my first pregnancy, I was back in my pre-pregnancy, size 4 jeans, within two weeks of my daughter’s birth. Yeah, I was “that mom” posting herself wearing her high-waisted jeans in a “First Thanksgiving!” post on my personal Instagram account while still bleeding. Part of me was so proud of myself. I was 24 years old and was always athletic, working hard before and during my pregnancy to eat healthy and stay active.
Thanksgiving 2018 — Three weeks after the birth of my daughter.
And while at the moment, just a few weeks after my eldest’s birth, I had believed I had “bounced back” so quickly because of my young age and commitment to a healthy pregnancy — things quickly turned for the worst. Shortly after that sweet thanksgiving, my daughter started crying… and crying… and crying. Colic and stomach problems, likely caused by my massive breastmilk oversupply.
While my body continued to inexplicably produce enough milk for an army of babies, I paced around the house with a chunky baby strapped to me any moment I wasn’t nursing or sleeping. My weight just kept dropping. Soon I was buying size 0 jeans.
I felt sickly. Like my body was decaying from the inside out. I rarely had time to make myself a sandwich,let alone eat it. I was in college full time, and my baby didn’t take a bottle, so I never left the house to study alone or take a break. While my husband was amazing and tried everything he could, I knew how stressful her screaming sessions were and knew the only thing to get her to stop was the boob, so I’d make myself available to her needs every moment I wasn’t at in-person class.
And as the weight continued to fall off, and I felt more and more emaciated, one thing was positively increasing — compliments. People I barely even knew would stop me at church to tell me I looked “amazing” or to say “motherhood looks great on you!” — all because I was thin.
and let me just be clear, I was not glowing… I look back on photos and am as pale as a ghost, just also ridiculously thin.
During my first postpartum, I was thin in the way a cancer patient was thin, — society praised it, and no one checked up on how I was really doing.
But friends, acquaintances, and even strangers continued to tell me how luckily I was to have “bounced back”. I even got stopped in the grocery store multiple times with people asking me if I was my baby’s mom or if I was breastfeeding her (how invasive!) because she was “so cute and chunky” and there was no way someone so tiny could do that!
Seven months postpartum with my first baby.
Well, she was cute and chunky, and she did eventually grow out of her colic and my supply did one day slow down… and I gained some weight back and the compliments stopped, but I physically felt amazing!
Enter my second pregnancy. This pregnancy took a much bigger toll on me then my first. A multi-faceted disaster of depletion from my rough postpartum with my daughter, the fact that I continued to nurse her through my first trimester, and major health anxiety brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic… and I was left with the perfect recipe for prenatal depression. I had never experienced depression and it was the oddest and craziest sensation. I knew I should be happy; I knew I was doing things that should cause me joy, but instead everything felt like I was just going through the motions. I felt listless and like a fabrication of myself. And in all honesty, one of the things I have a hardest time with is that I don’t remember much of my pregnancy with my son… and those last few months of just my daughter and me are mostly blank in my head.
During that pregnancy, I had a very hard time eating, which is a major symptom of depression. I was nauseous most of the pregnancy despite medication for the anxiety and for the nausea, and most food sounded horrible. I often joke that I felt like Bella Swan during Twilight when she was pregnant with the vampire baby, because my arms and legs just kept shrinking in size, losing fat and muscle, while my belly kept growing bigger and bigger.
How I looked vs. How I felt
I have learned through all of this that my body tends to nourish my baby’s body over my own. It chose to create a huge oversupply of milk while I was exhausted and malnourished during my first postpartum; and it chose to grow a giant baby (9lbs 14oz!) during my difficult pregnancy. But luckily, after my son was born, I felt amazing! His birth was my dream birth and the empowerment I felt from it seemed to bring me back to life. Just two hours after his birth, when they brought me the breakfast menu to eat, I was shocked at just how amazing every single type of food sounded to me. I was so grateful for that immediate reprieve and overall had a decent postpartum experience with him.
He was a normal baby… not a great sleeper and had a gassy tummy… but I felt way more balanced after working with a lactation consultant to make sure I didn’t have as much of an oversupply this time; and prioritized bottles early to be able to work in short breaks for myself with my partner. Again, I lost weight quickly postpartum with him, but it never reached a sickly territory.
Once he finally started sleeping through the night at two-years-old, I went back to the gym regularly and started weight-lifting. Between him not nursing as often, finally getting consistent sleep, having time to cook, and gaining back lots of the muscle I lost during my child-bearing years; I found myself thirty-five pounds more at thirty-years-old, than the weight I was before I got pregnant with my first child at twenty-four-years-old.
… and I feel better than ever!
I feel strong.
I have energy.
I feel confident.
I feel capable.
and I feel nourished.
At thirty-two-years-old, officially four years postpartum from my last baby… I feel like I have finally “bounced back” from my pregnancy and postpartum journeys.
Bouncing back is not returning to a certain weight, it’s not fitting into a pair of jeans, it’s not returning to the life you had before your baby was born.
Bouncing back is…
Finding a new balance that includes your new responbilities and yourself.
Finding new hobbies now that you aren’t in the 24/7 baby phase anymore (mine are thrifting, roller-skating, and sewing!)
Reconnecting with your partner.
Finding confidence in your body (even if it’s different!)
… and learning about the NEW you and showing up for that person with the same gusto you show up for others.
While I’m 35 pounds heavier than I was before I had kids, I am in a 32yo body, not a 24yo body. I enjoy a fair amount of chocolate and pizza nights; I enjoy drinks out with friends and long walks with my parents. I have balance. I have happiness. And that’s my bounce back.
Only you can define what bouncing back looks like to you after your matrescence, and spoiler alert — it will probably take much more time and work then can be completed in the first year or two after your baby is born.
MY bounce back!
