If you are here reading this is because at some point you felt like me - maybe you still feel. Don’t worry, you are not alone. The pressure to go back to normal (whatever normal means) is huge after you have a child. And if it wasn’t enough to have to deal with crying and demanding babies, hormones that change every single week make us feel like we don’t belong in our lives any more than a complete stranger would and despite the constant tiredness, we still need to keep up with what society thinks of us. And that is simply not fair.

I am a new mom of a beautiful 10 months old boy - he is now the center of my life. For a brief moment, I was the center of it. Finally, I had enough money to care for myself, go traveling solo, sleep in hostels if I may, just be free. I was working out at least 5 days a week, eating a healthy diet and I felt so great, my self-esteem was to the roof! And then I decided that it would be a great time to have a kid. It was like putting a huge pause to anything that I wanted to do for myself. My career is on hold, my body is not the same and my confidence was crushed. Not to tell I had my baby during this crazy pandemic and I can’t even have enough human, adult connections.

I don’t want to sound like everything is terrible, sure the great things that come with motherhood outweigh the bad ones (I mean, most of the time I am happy about it). Samuel is a smart, loving little boy. He is my partner for everything these days, and I enjoy every single walk around the neighborhood with him. But anyone who just had a child knows that it can be super isolating to be a mom, and it is nuts that we have to learn everything as it happens - try not to freak out :)

So, on top of all of that, there is another pressure. The pressure to go back to what we looked like before getting pregnant. From the day we enter puberty, until the day we die, women are asked to match some sort of stereotype - and I talked about it in my recent post about the anti-diet movement. For dieting-culture does not forgive. No one really wants to know that your body just went through the most incredible change a body could go. It changed from inside and out. But you are asked to be back in shape six weeks after giving birth. It takes 9 months for your body to grow a baby and change while doing it, but we are expected to be back in shape in only 6 weeks. This is not only unreasonable, but it is absolutely cruel.

Here is what was expected of me after 6 weeks:

• Be on top of my new role as a mother

• Know my baby

• Not to be hormonal anymore

• Be active - go back to the gym, walk, workout, etc

• Be loving to my husband - get back to sex, your pelvic floor is as good as new!

• All baby-weight should be gone by now

How I actually felt:

• I still don’t know whatta f*** I am doing or how to raise a child

• Why is my baby crying this time? Yes, once you think you figured out why, the baby changed and now he cries about something completely different.

• My hormones are still trying to go back to pre-pregnancy levels, which means they still impact how I feel about myself and the world. I am still moody.

• I love to workout, but it is hard to be back when there is someone craving your attention 24/7. Also, everything still kinda hurts so I am still taking it easy. On a good week, I can commit to 1 or 2 days at the gym.

• And forget about sex. We haven’t had much since the baby. I lack desire and courage. That is because I feel constantly tired, my libido is low and it hurt when we tried.

• The baby weight is gone by now, so is any weight I had. I can’t keep weight on me and any curves I had before pregnancy - including muscle mass - is pretty much gone. I am almost to the bones.

I want you to know that I am not writing this to complain about my life, and make you feel pity of me. No, quite the opposite. I want you to know that what is expected from us right after birth is not realistic or fair, but you have accomplished a lot. So did I!

Getting back to pre-pregnancy anything should not be a goal at all. We are never going to achieve that, simply because there is no going back to the way we were before having a child, simply because we now have a child, and this fact can’t be changed, doesn’t matter the roads your life takes. Once a mom, always a mom. So instead of thinking about how we can go back to what it was, we should stop listening to the demands of society, and ask ourselves, how can we move from here and find happiness with who we are now.

And for me what works the best is acceptance. Acceptance that I am not who I was up to a year ago, that I am not as carefree as before my baby was born, that I am not as physically active, that my career is paused, and everything moves at a slower pace. But it moves.

The beautiful thing about changes is that we can make the best of them. Yes, I am not ‘crossfitting’ every day, but I workout at home whenever I can and my baby makes me go out for long walks every morning. So I might think I am not active, but I am, only that in a different way. My career in tech is paused, but I had never been so confident about my path towards nutrition, and I love that having my child gave me a new perspective on how to shape my practice. My body is still sore in some parts I did not even know existed, and that is also a great thing to help me know and respect my body.

Regarding how my body looks, this is a hard everyday battle, but whenever I don’t recognize myself in the mirror, I remind myself that this body is so strong, I carried me and supported me for over 30 years, and last year it tore itself apart, to bring my son to life. My body is beautiful and it is a reflection of all the battles we went through together and I am proud of it. It will never be back to the way it was before, but I feel like it will come from this even stronger, and yours will too, just give it time to heal.

During the postpartum phase, our goals should be to maintain health, not to meet beauty standards. Workout for your mind and body health and eat healthfully to nourish yourself and your baby. If you need help going through it let’s connect and I will love to hear your story.