Mothers! Assemble: On Body Image Postpartum
A collective essay featuring diverse stories from women across Substack who have shared their own experiences on body image postpartum.
Mothers! Assemble.
We’re talking about body image postpartum.
When I first put out the call for body image in pregnancy, I was feeling very unsettled about my postpartum body. I originally wrote The Adventures of the Postpartum Mommy Monster and Her Wavering Body Image with a rawness that felt extra sensitive to the touch. I didn’t know my own shape anymore. I didn’t recognize myself. I didn’t know how I was supposed to make sense of what I was feeling in my own skin seven months after having a baby.
When I wrote I Want to Be Hot and Rich, I meant it literally. But I was feeling more tongue-in-cheek about my body image then. It hadn’t sunk in quite yet that I was no longer the person I was before, both physically and mentally. I was still too preoccupied at that time with weaning down my milk supply, surviving my daughter’s four-month-sleep-regression, and managing my postpartum anxiety. I didn’t have time to really care about noticing the scars on my stomach or the soft doughy squish of my new thighs until I settled into a semi-routine and the mirror started slandering my reflection.
It’s not the size of my body that has been so disorienting (though gaining 75 pounds in nine months was jarring for my joints), but it’s more about how it feels on my bones. How it moves. How it reflects multiple versions of who I am and who I once was simultaneously. The truest metaphor I can think of is that I am Professor Quirrell with Voldemort on the back of my head.
My daughter is almost one now. I’ve been getting to know the new version of myself for 11 months. I do feel lighter, more at ease. I know there is nothing to “fix.” I still bristle violently against the ever-damaging “bounce back” brigade. I find it especially poor timing that our collective culture is bringing back “skinny” as an aesthetic.
But our bodies aren’t “aesthetics” and I will not center my own body image on an intangible nobody in particular — at least, I will try my best to not let insecurity seep in to violate the newfound confidence I’ve steadily built since giving birth.
The stories shared for this iteration of Mothers! Assemble made me cry more than any of the previous collections. There’s nothing more beautiful than women grappling openly with their fears then taking their power back through words. Some are celebrating their bodies, confident. Some are still learning them, uncomfortable but curious. But all are being honest about their highs and their lows so that we all feel a little less alone in it all.
That’s the whole point of all this writing stuff after all, isn’t it?
Contributors: Lacey T., Kyrstin, Ray Katharine Cohen, Ashton, LB, Kristen Crocker, and Juliana S.
All contributors’ stories are included as submitted to preserve each original voice. If any contributor requests an edit or redaction, please feel free to send me a message.
On Finding Grace and Slowly Coming Back to Ourselves
Kyrstin, 32 — Half Wild, Fully Real on Substack
My body image postpartum? At first, surprisingly, it was fine. Good, even. Proud. I had just carried and delivered a baby — twice. My body had done incredible things. And I felt that. But about a year after my second, I stopped breastfeeding and suddenly realized I was sixteen pounds over my pre-baby weight. It hit hard. Not all at once, but in the slow, creeping way that body discomfort does — through tighter pants, unflattering photos, and that dull ache of not feeling like myself anymore.
I told myself I should embrace the “new me.” That it was normal. That maybe I just had to adjust. But deep down, I felt like I was pretending. I didn’t feel embodied. I didn’t feel at home. And then I remembered: after my first baby, I did find my way back. Not in a bounce-back, magazine-cover kind of way — but in a slow, intentional, hopeful kind of way. And I thought of the other women I’ve known who’ve done the same. Not because they hated their bodies, but because they wanted to return to them.
So I gave myself permission to try. I learned about macros and calories. I tracked what I ate — not obsessively, but with curiosity. I found workout videos I didn’t hate. I set goals. I kept going, even when part of me assumed it wouldn’t work. And honestly? I didn’t expect much. I figured I’d learn something, maybe feel a little stronger, maybe stop spiraling every time I looked in the mirror. I didn’t think I’d really lose the weight. I didn’t think I’d actually feel good again. But nearly six months later, I’m down over fifteen pounds. And more than that — I feel strong. Confident. Like my body belongs to me again.
I’m in the best shape of my life, and that isn’t just about weight. It’s about ownership. Pride. Feeling like I showed up for myself in a season where I could’ve easily disappeared. I still have soft spots. I still carry proof of two pregnancies. But this body? It’s mine. And I’m proud of what we’ve done together.
On Learning the Postpartum Body and Grappling with New Reflections
Ray Katharine Cohen, 36 — This Is Human on Substack
What strikes me most about my postpartum body is how often I am surprised by it. By the actual reality of it. Like the other morning, I had just pulled on a pair of black workout pants, hand-me-downs from my mother, and as I turned to hit ‘play’ on a youtube dance cardio video I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Or more accurately, I caught sight of my stomach. And I had to do a double-take, because I could have sworn I was looking at my mom.
There, under the stretchy black fabric, was that unmistakable shape. I could pick it out of a line of bellies any day. I want to say it looks a bit like a hamburger? I don’t know what I’m talking about. And I don’t know when it was copy-pasted from my mother’s body onto mine. Because that’s the weirdest part about this postpartum body. It doesn’t match the body that’s in my mind’s eye.
Like last week, my mother-in-law was visiting and caught a video of my daughters and I dancing with our neighbor. The video is adorable, we are all holding hands and dancing in a circle, then the girls pull themselves into the middle of the circle and bump bellies. So my neighbor and I pull ourselves into the circle and bump bellies. We all laugh and repeat the belly bumping and laugh some more. But the video starts out with a view of my ass. I’m wearing the same black pants given to me by my mom and by the time the adorable belly bumping happens I am already lost in thought. “Is that really my ass?” “That cannot possibly be my ass.” In my mind’s eye, my bum is perky, tight, and round. Not a flat, droopy triangle. But it probably hasn’t looked as I remember it for at least five years.
What I am taking from this, as I write it, is that I don’t look at my postpartum body enough. And that makes sense in a way, as showers are stolen in spare moments and my husband and I no longer have middle of the day, sun pouring through the open windows love-making dates. But it is also indicative of something deeper, of an overall shoving aside of Self in favor of Mom. And that bothers me. I don’t hate my postpartum body but I clearly don’t love it either. Not in any active, respectable sense of the word love. Or maybe it’s not so deep, maybe the lesson here is I should stop wearing those pants.
Ashton, 29 — In My Postpartum Era on Substack
If you were to ask me what body type I was, I would say mom-shaped. My once semi-toned midsection is now soft and squishy. I recently learned what a “mom butt” is (spoiler alert: I have one). I’m still recovering from an unplanned c-section and have a scar that gives me flashbacks to one of the scariest, but also best days of my life.
When I think about my pre-baby body, I have no desire to meet her again. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. That body was fueled by a rollercoaster of diets with one particular goal in mind: being less. It was pushed to the limit with exercises that only resulted in stress and sore muscles. It was constantly criticized in the mirror for being too wide, too short, and just not right. Most importantly, it had not been used to house and feed the two joys of my life yet.
Luckily, it seems like bounce-back culture is becoming a thing of the past. However, the pressure is always still there to compare and pick apart flaws. On the flip side, there’s also a hole easy to fall into of pounding one (five) too many lactation cookies while breastfeeding and surviving solely on caffeine because we are too caught up in motherhood to think of ourselves.
My body will never look or feel like how it did before kids, and that’s something that I am thankful for, but also mourning. At three months postpartum with my second, my body is still transitioning into its post-baby form. Before kids, I obsessed over having a slim, sculpted silhouette that would look great in a bikini or sundress.
Now, my desires have shifted, and I yearn for endurance and a body built to play with and chase my toddler around the park for hours. I might not completely recognize my mom-shaped postpartum body when I look in the mirror, but I want to nurture and love her because she gave me the greatest gift — becoming a mother to my two babies.
LB, 33
I have struggled to have a healthy relationship with my body/weight since hitting puberty, regardless of how healthy or active I actually was. In my pregnancy, I suffered from gestational diabetes and was constantly feeling under the microscope about what I ate and how much I weighed which exacerbated some body image issues I thought I had overcome during previous bouts of therapy. I received constant comments from strangers and family alike that I “didn’t look pregnant at all” or that I was “getting so huge!” It was so disorienting, and at a time where I just really wanted to be focused on this amazing thing that my body was able to do.
I am very thankful to have given birth to a perfectly healthy baby with no meaningful complications during labor or recovery, but I still feel the weight of scrutiny about how my body looks. I hate the feeling that everyone is looking at me and appraising me based on something that I’m already so sensitive about. I have had many well-intentioned comments from older women in my family about how quickly I’ve “recovered” from childbirth, but comments like that just make me further focused on how I look to other people.
I want to be okay with the fact that my body looks like I had a baby. I want to be able to celebrate this body that grew and nurtures my daughter and carries me through the world rather than hate it and punish it for not being small enough. I am currently working with a therapist who specializes in postpartum concerns because I truly do not want to be spending this much of my mental energy thinking about my body. I do not want my daughter to learn these thought patterns from me, and I’ve never had those cruel and negative thoughts about other women. I wish I could understand why my brain can’t seem to overcome this.
On Wearing C-section Scars Like Invaluable Mementos
Kristen Crocker, 36 — Recoverettes on Substack
When my daughter was born this past March, the surgeon mentioned she followed the crooked line to re-open my uterus from my previous c-sections. Are you wanting more children, she asked me tentatively. This was my fourth baby, my third c-section, but the only baby my second husband and I share. No, we said. We just wanted the one together. Good, good, the surgeon said. There were a lot of adhesions. It wouldn’t be impossible for you to have more children, she went on. But the uterus has a lot of scar tissue. Three births.
The first: my twins, but both ways: the sweetest moment of my life when I reached down to touch my Baby A’s head while he crowned between my legs. And then Baby B, arriving 25 minutes later, cut out of me after he suffered a prolapsed cord. They were 8 weeks early, and spent 40 days in the NICU. Later, when the OB who performed the surgery examined the scar, she remarked, “Not my best work.” The scar is crude, jagged. My uterus having been slashed open in minutes. A thing that saved my son, that furious scalpel moving across my uterus.
My twins are now 7, my youngest son 6, and they are fond of the heroic story I tell of their birth: “And then, she sliced mommy open, and she pulled you out!” I slice across their lower abdomens with my finger, and they giggle. I pretend to pull out a baby and Lion King hold up the stuffed animal. My boys think this is hilarious. “That’s where they saved your life,” I say to my son.
The skin where my uterus is will never be flat again, and that is alright. I don’t know that it ever was. And there are tiger strips on my stomach, when I wear a bikini and the light catches it just right. And also, my breasts have sustained four babies, so they aren’t what they once were, either. I remember being twelve, thirteen years old. I’m so fat, I would say, looking in the mirror, turning this way and that. I would suck in my stomach. I hate my body, I would say. I would grapple with food and exercise and just wanting my body to look like a different body.
Today when I look in the mirror, at this postpartum body, I see a body of strength. A body that has seen some shit. A body that knew, all on its own, how to grow my babies. This is the site of one of the greatest trauma of my life (the birth of my twins), this c-section scar, my uterus. But we have recovered. I have gratitude for every part of my skin today. When I hear women complain about their c-section scars, and I say: You mean the mark of my body that saved my sons’ life? Yeah, I think I like it alright.
On Celebrating the Postpartum Body
Lacey T., 35
I’m writing to all of the soon to be moms, terrified about the “after” for their boobs and vagina. I am here to tell you that I LOVED my boobs before pregnancy, and my vagina for that matter too. I was absolutely terrified about how everything would turn out after delivery and nursing... I nursed my baby until 25 months, and as luck would have it - they look nearly the same as they did before. Do they hang a little lower? Yup! Dramatically? Nope. They aren’t however, sucked dry raisins like everyone told me they would be.
After an induction, 30+ hours of labor, an epidural, 30 minutes of pushing, and several tears that were stitched back together both internally and externally - I can say with confidence that my vagina is better than ever. I actually tell all of my friends to use my OB because it’s so nice.
I’m also here to tell you that if you obsessed about your body the way I did before pregnancy... When that sweet bundle of joy is here - it’s literally the last thing on your mind. You’re too busy being a mom to worry about it.
And your partner? They will love you even more. Not in some cheesy “love your flaws” kind of way... but in a “you’re not just my partner anymore, you’re the mother of my child, you’re a heroine, you’re EVERYTHING” kind of way. And if you’re boobs end up looking like sucked dry raisins, and your vagina ends up like a “hot dog down a hallway” (why is this the term everyone used to tell me why I should elect to get a C-section?)... you know who doesn't care? Your baby. THAT’S unconditional love. And YOU built that. Snaps for you sister!
Juliana S., 37 — The Bilingual Mom Life on Substack
At 37, with two beautiful children, my relationship with my postpartum body has transformed profoundly. It’s a journey that has been far from easy....Today, I find myself more accepting of my body than ever before, a feeling I never thought I’d genuinely feel. I thank it, with every fiber of my being, for bringing two incredible lives into this world.
For a long time, my body felt like my enemy. I battled with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), hypothyroidism, and the crushing diagnosis of an incompetent cervix (yes, it's really called that). That last one led to a devastating miscarriage at five months, a loss that plunged me into a deep well of self-hatred. I despised my body for what it couldn’t do, for the pain it caused, for the dreams it shattered. The emotional toll was immense, and the physical struggle felt endless. After countless fertility treatments, a glimmer of hope appeared. I got pregnant again, and my beautiful daughter arrived, healthy and vibrant. It was then that I truly began to apologize to my body, to acknowledge its efforts, and to appreciate its resilience.
It had carried me through the unimaginable, and for that, I was eternally grateful. We wanted another child, and once again, fertility treatments were part of the path. This time pregnancy brought new challenges. I swelled significantly, and something felt undeniably wrong. The diagnosis of preeclampsia was terrifying. I hated the physical discomfort, the constant worry, and the feeling of my body betraying me once more. Yet, through it all, there was an underlying strength. My body, despite the immense stress, pulled through. It fought, it endured, and it delivered my beautiful son.
Surviving preeclampsia, and witnessing my body’s incredible ability to overcome such a severe challenge, shifted my perspective entirely. Now, my respect for my body is different. It’s no longer about chasing an elusive ideal of “skinny.” It’s about being alive, about the profound miracle of carrying and delivering two healthy children against significant odds. It’s about the scars that tell stories of survival and strength, the stretch marks that are maps of love and growth, and the softness that speaks of nourishment and comfort. My postpartum body, at 37, is a testament to resilience, a vessel of miracles, and for that, I am eternally grateful.
To all of the stories about the shared experiences of pregnancy and motherhood, and the human condition, that bring us all together.
💌
Xo,
Violet Carol and the contributing mothers
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This was amazing 🥰 I am so grateful for all those mama's who shared. When you were asking for submissions I felt "eh" and didn't really know what I would share. But after reading through those stories, I am fired up to share my own mom-body story. It's not only postpartum - it's before having a baby, being pregnant, after birth, during breastfeeding, after breastfeeding and after after breastfeeding. Our bodies are amazing. They are the vessel for our spirit and I fully feel the responsibility to be a good steward and tenderly love and care for my body. I don't do it all the time, but I feel the importance to be in right relationship with my body and work hard to honor her.
So grateful that you took the time to compile these stories 💜