Post-Baby Body

You know what is totally unrealistic? Women like this:

I was talking with my MIL a few weeks ago about how tired I am of seeing women in the media with their perfect post-baby bodies. It makes us 'normal' mommies feel unattractive when in reality they are the abnormal ones. I don't have a personal chef, personal trainer, a nanny, a housecleaner, or a surgeon to make me look 'perfect' again.

Shopping for jeans after having a baby was pretty depressing for me. For some reason I had all these ideas in my head that I would be back to my pre-baby body by the holidays. Boy, was I wrong! I blame the media for putting those ideas into my head. That the baby weight would "melt away" with breastfeeding. Yeah, right! Not for me. It's a slow, slow decline on the scale. But you know what? I grew a baby inside of me.

Now I am feeding her with my own body. I need to try to remember to love my body for what it is. Sure, I may carry some extra weight, but I love my body for being able to grow a perfect baby and now provide her with enough food to enable her to grow healthy and strong. So if a few extra pounds is the price I pay for my daughter? So be it. She is more than worth it.

An Update With Pictures And Video!

It's harder than I thought to get around to blogging after having Emily. I do have more time now that I'm not feeding every 2 to 3 hours and then pumping for a half hour after that but it seems there is only enough time to get some sleep in and try to keep the house from looking like a tornado hit.

Today we managed to go on our first walk with Emily around the block. It was nice to get out of the house and get some sun and exercise! Right now, all I am supposed to do as far as exercising goes is walk. My belly is almost gone now, which I am excited about but I still have about 20 lbs to lose to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I've lost 20 lbs already in two weeks so I can't complain too much. I just can't wait to not feel like a pile of mush anymore! I still don't fit into most of my clothes yet either so most days I live in pj's.

Anyways, we are doing well! I gave up on following Dr.'s orders about not giving her any pacifier or bottle for the first 3 weeks. We haven't given her a bottle since breastfeeding is working just fine, but she had been using ME as a pacifier and I would stick her on all the time just to calm her down. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore during the middle of a long night up so I gave in and gave her a pacifier. So far I am not regretting it one bit. I'm not tethered down all the time to her and she is just as happy with it as she is with me.

I've been feeding her about every two hours during the day but at night I only feed her when she starts to wake up. It's hard to get her back to sleep most of the time but we are still getting more sleep than we were.

All in all, we love being parents! It's hard, but sooo worth it!