Jess Bovey lives in Wellington with her partner, cat Tinker and her 10-month-old son Baxter, and writes the blog New Mum Club. Here, she reflects on all of the ways her body has changed after becoming a mum, and in particular, on 'earning her stripes...'
I heard a quote the other day...
'For every woman who hates her stretch marks there is a woman wishing she had them'.
It really got me thinking. Thinking about this new body I have. While I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight, my body is most certainly not the same but I am slowly learning to be OK with that.
Am I really? Yes and no.
As you can see, my body has changed dramatically over the past 18 months. Whilst I am pretty much back to my pre-pregnancy weight (a couple of kg's off), my body is certainly not back to the way it was. I had really bad stretch marks, although they thankfully took out a lot of ink on a really sh*tty hip tattoo I had with them.
If I'm honest, I do wish I didn't have my stretch marks, but they tell a story and I now have a beautiful boy to show for it. It's funny because I weigh the same but my body shape and size is completely different now, my boobs went from a C to a DD and I'm not even breastfeeding anymore.
I don't fit any of my old clothes and I can't stand anything tight fitting, although I never did, to be honest. I am happiest and most comfortable in my track pants and a baggy tee.
10 months on and I don't think I can say I 'love' my body - I never did to be honest, I've always been super self-conscious and this has probably made it dramatically worse. But time will heal and fade my stripes. I am coming to terms with the fact that this is my body now. Not everybody gets stretch marks, yay you. I did, and it's really not the end of the world.
I'm nervous about summer and getting my new mum bod out but I've been working on my mindset and I'm gonna rock that sh*t. It's my body, there is f*ck all I can do to change it so I just have to deal with it and learn to accept it.
