What to Expect When You Weren't Expecting Your Postpartum Body

Or: Maybe this is just middle age.

Guess which one is me.

Expect that after the first weeks or months postpartum— whenever you stop feeling like a literal zombie— you will look in the mirror and not recognized the person you see. Expect to finally care enough to do something about it.

Expect that, while breast feeding and running after the baby may help some new moms lose that pregnancy weight, it may do nothing for you. Expect that you can both feel down in the dumps about your body, and thankful for the child[ren] it grew.

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Expect to hold up the jeans you wore a year ago and laugh because there is no way you used to fit in those!

Expect to start shopping at Old Navy. Because even though you’re anti- fast fashion, there will be a period of time where you really aren’t sure what size you are, or if this really is your new body, and hey, they actually have some pretty cute stuff.

Expect to look at recent photos of yourself and wonder, is that really me? Expect to look at old photos of yourself and wonder how you didn’t recognize your beauty.

Expect to feel ashamed that you feel ashamed about how you look because of The Body Positivity Movement. Expect to also feel grateful your daughter is growing up during The Body Positivity Movement.

Expect your joints to ache, your skin to flake, your hair to fall out in clumps, your weight (for some of us, not going to name names, 50 pounds more than your pre-pregnancy body) to stay the same, no matter what you do.

Expect to wake up at 3am with your heart racing because you drank two glasses of wine at dinner. Expect to wake up sweating. Expect to wonder if this is perimenopause even though your periods are regular. Expect to wonder how you went from worrying about an unplanned pregnancy, to stressing about your fertility, to thinking about menopause in the span of, I dunno, six seconds?

Expect to try a Whole30. Expect your joints to feel a little better, actually! Expect everything else to feel the same.

Expect to feel inadequate. Expect to wonder if you’re a good mother, if you made the right choice to bring another human being into this messed up world. Expect to be so tired that you can barely see straight, but still laying awake at night because you can’t stop thinking about all the terrible things that could happen to your baby.

Expect to start an antidepressant.

Expect to continue exercising regularly— walking, weightlifting, biking, yoga. Expect to feel better mentally, but for little to change physically.

Expect to Google your symptoms and learn the issue may be hormonal.

Expect to ask your OB (the woman you trusted to cut open your abdomen, reorganize your guts, slice through your uterine wall and remove a human being), Do you test hormones? to look at you with utter disdain and scoff, We don’t do that here, as though you asked for a happy ending after your annual pap.

Expect her to not elaborate. Expect to be too ashamed to ask why. Expect to cry on the drive home.

Expect to bring up the same issue with your GP. Expect them to ask, have you tried Weight Watchers?

Expect to meet with an endocrinologist because you think you have a thyroid problem. Expect a blood draw before that appointment. Expect that male doctor to barely make eye contact with you as he goes over your results. Expect him to say, I see women like you all the time— perfectly healthy, all numbers within the norm. You’re just overweight. Have you tried exercise? Have you tried Weight Watchers?

Expect to cry on the drive home.

Expect to spend thousands of dollars and hours of your time meeting with acupuncturists, herbalists, naturopaths, integrative medicine doctors. Expect these people to listen. Expect them to make you feel seen. Expect them to make big promises.

Expect Chinese herbs to make you sick. Expect the acupuncture to make you feel so relaxed, and maybe one time help with your plantar fasciitis, but not really tackle to things you’re trying to address. Expect to poke your own finger at home, drip blood onto a piece of cardboard with little circles on it, and then send that card in a biohazard bag to a lab in Rhode Island.

Expect none of this to be covered by insurance.

Expect to be diagnosed with chronic Lyme, Hashimoto’s, mold exposure, leaky gut syndrome… but only by people who can cure you with expensive herbs and supplements they sell.

Expect to tell your nurse practitioner at the “western clinic” that you’ve seen a “Lyme-Literate Doctor.” Expect that nurse to give you a sympathetic but condescending look.

Also, expect the Lyme-literate doctor to not be a doctor at all. Expect them to be a former nurse who took some classes, somewhere. Expect them to tell you, when you say you’ve had two C-sections, it’s a shame you didn’t set your children up for optimal health long term, but I can help you with that. Buy these herbs I sell.

Expect to never, ever talk to that person again.

Expect a fight to erupt in the comments because you mentioned “chronic Lyme disease” and said something disparaging about a Lyme-literate “doctor”. Expect to still not know what you believe about chronic Lyme disease.

Expect to try Botox because maybe it will make you feel like you have control over something. Expect to tap dance around mentioning it to your dermatologist. Expect that once you muster up the courage to say, I’m kinda sorta thinking about I dunno maybe like some Botox or something? Is that weird? Will I look weird?, they will tell you that they’ve been doing Botox for years (everyone in the office does!). Do we look weird?

Expect to notice everyone who works there looks great. Expect to love Botox.

Expect to continue to wonder if it’s perimenopause and if you should buy [insert every middle-aged female celebrity’s name here]’s new line of gummies that address menopause. Expect to learn from Dr. (< the real kind of doctor) Jen Gunther that none of these pills are regulated, may make you less healthy, and for sure will make you negative dollars richer.

Expect to wish that, while you appreciate Dr. Gunther’s information, she sometimes makes you feel bad for all the things the most vulnerable version of you tried when you just wanted to feel better. Expect to feel sympathetic to women buying the gummies, getting questionable hormone replacement therapy pellets, and not believing evidence-based medicine because we’ve all been told:

We don’t do that here.
The test results say you’re fine.
Just go to Weight Watchers.

Expect to wonder if there’s any way a person who went to actual medical school will ever take you seriously. Expect to wonder if the non-traditional routes are just cash grabs (even though you think many believe in their methods). Expect to spend a lot of time reading Emily Oster’s books, articles, listening to her on podcasts and social media, and wishing you’d just taken her advice from the beginning because you’d probably have enough money to fund a luxurious trip to the Italian Riviera.

Expect to meet with a rheumatologist (a REAL one who studied at the Mayo Clinic) to spend an hour talking to you. Expect them to ask you all sort of questions (finally!) you’ve never been asked before. Is your body tender here? [Pokes arm just outside elbow crook] How about here? [That spot on your neck that always hurts] Do you have bladder issues? [Does the Pope pee in the woods?]. Expect to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Expect that the treatment is all the things you’re already doing.

Expect to meet weekly with a therapist to talk about this, as well as all your [many] other issues. Expect to try EMDR, a kind of trauma therapy that seems to have nothing to do with how you feel about your body, but expect it to help anyway.

Expect to question if the antidepressant you started (and, by the way, NEEDED) in the anxiety-filled months after your first baby was born is possibly responsible for some of your ailments. Expect to wonder if, even though you know being in a smaller body can’t actually make you happy, feeling like you have a modicum of control over it might, in fact, make you less depressed.

Expect, after talking to your husband, a few close friends, your therapist and psychiatrist, that you’ll try tapering off your antidepressant. Expect that this will take many weeks. Expect that it will be uncomfortable, but doable. Expect that 18 months later, your body is about the same size, but you feel… pretty good actually!

Expect, nearly six years after your last pregnancy, to give up trying to change the way your body looks. Expect to stop fighting so hard, and expect it to feel freeing. Expect to learn so many other women experience the exact same things: feeling unseen, unheard, sad, and frustrated. Expect that, while you wish things were better, knowing you’re not in this alone helps.

Expect to buy the expensive jeans in your size.

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