This New Mom Is Saying Goodbye to Her Pre-Baby Bod and Embracing Her New One
Jess Zaino is a lifestyle blogger, producer/host, wife, and mom of one adorable 7-month-old. She’ll be helping TLCme cover all things mom-related (and more!) in 2016.
A few years ago, while having dinner with friends who are parents to two children under the age of 5, I was again talking crap about my body, and said father-friend interrupted me to say, “you sound like someone who doesn’t have a baby”. At the time, I did not. I didn’t even understand what he meant. But 7 months in as a mother to a baby boy, I have a new body and life I’m learning to live with and love, and I now understand what he meant completely.
BB (before baby) I was career driven, knee-high boots deep in Friday night margaritas and napping my way through Saturday. PB (post baby), I’m lucky if I can pull the boots over my bloated calves and am up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning to watch the sunrise while my son laughs or cries his way into another day.
Even as I write this, I am struck by how I enjoy the latter over my once cherished, wild all-nighters. There is substance to my current state of exhaustion and purpose to my self-acceptance. Where once, I would literally hate my stomach in a body-conscious dress, I now semi-celebrate my stretch marks (on my tummy, thighs AND hips, mind you), and believe I am a superhero. And not because I can balance baby/work/home/hubby/life like Wonder Woman (I cannot, for the record), but because my strong and abled body carried me through nine months of growing and delivering a human. Swoosh! Pow! Blam!
On the other side of birth, I am learning to love my body and understand and form this new “me”. So many glossy magazines brag that this one or that one “got their pre-baby body back”, but that’s not what we should celebrate or applaud. It’s that we, a planet of beautiful, powerful human producers, work toward building a new “me” or “you” or us — not try to find that past version. Our new post-baby selves will be filled with many awesome layers and nuances of past, present and future and truly love and appreciate how our body and soul supported the miracle of creating (or caring for) a child. Who is your new you?
Originally published at www.tlc.com on January 6, 2016.
