My Body the Home

An open invitation to rebel with me against the "bounce back" brigade.

I have never felt more at home in my body than I have felt during pregnancy. The new shapes it makes, the new spaces it occupies, the way it relaxes in soft movements and commands rest whenever it wants (and I am forced to obey).

I have often felt too small, like I am not taking up enough space or like I don’t look old enough to be taken seriously. My weight is heavier than it ever has been and it is still making me feel lighter than I have ever felt before. I feel very powerful. I feel very womanly. I feel very me.

My body is a home for my daughter. It is an English cottage just a short walk from the sea with a lush backyard garden. It is warm and inviting inside. It is colorful and imaginative. It is new but designed with character. It smells like sea salt and lavender. It is protection and shelter enclosed by four walls and a sloping roof and a velvet bassinet that rocks her from side-to-side as I walk Earth-side waiting for her arrival.

The pregnancy body discomfort I have experienced to date, almost 24 weeks in, has been related to my physical symptoms. Outstretching my leggings that feel like they are suffocating my womb and feeling uncertain about what size to buy next if I know I will continue to grow into 40 weeks. Throwing away new bras every month as my chest continues to expand and closes in on my tired lungs. Modifying movement to protect myself from injury and overexertion. Managing my shifting ligaments and my popping tailbone. Sleeping on my side. Rolling about. Feeling it all.

I may be mourning my former self, as an essence, but I am not mourning the body I am growing out of. Because I don’t care what I look like, as long as my daughter has a safe and loving home. A home that is me. How dare I ever think to insult her construction. So I wonder, as I scroll through social media, why the internet has aggressively bashed me over the head with an onslaught of automated content I never asked for from “fitness influencers” giving me false “encouragement” to “bounce back?” Bounce back to WHERE? WHO is doing this bouncing? WHAT is doing this bouncing? I hate this phrase.

I am not bouncing to or from or back to anything. Ever. I am not a rubber band. I am not a ball. I do not bounce. I do not snap. I am a body. I am tired of our culture trying to kill women’s collective body image, forcing us to look at “pre-pregnancy and postpartum before and after bodies” to “find that inspiration to get your old body back.” Framing these postpartum transformations as aesthetic victories, as if our pregnant and postpartum bodies are stealing something from us and are unworthy of admiration, makes me furious.

I don’t want my old body back. It is not the same body. I want my health. I want my baby. And I want every woman experiencing matrescence to understand that how you look is entirely irrelevant to your ability to mother your child. You are a home to celebrate and shelter, and you are not in need of fixing.

22 weeks building my little English cottage

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Movement for Life, Not Image

The “bounce back” call is unproductive because it disproportionately focuses on body aesthetics. It’s about reclaiming a former vision of youth before motherhood. It makes women feel uncomfortable with their changing bodies during matrescence by forcing them to feel like matrescence is something to recover from rather than adapt to. It makes women feel there is a one-shape-fits-all-approach to existing. I am not down with this.

Managing pregnancy with movement for me has been about my own health. To ensure my heart with a congenital defect can pump the right amount of blood as my quantity expands by 50%. To ensure my pelvic floor is strong enough to hold my womb. To prepare my glutes and my hamstrings for mobility and strength to carry the extra weight I am not used to. To stretch, walk, and slowly make my way through time as my baby continues to grow. This is movement for life, not image, and everyone’s looks different. If I see one more “You can do this, Mama!” Instagram Reel bombard my eyes with a gym montage focused on achieving a “pre-baby shape” I’m going to explode. And nobody wants to feel that wrath! So, I wrote a poem last weekend instead about my frustration on these “bounce back” comments (some of which I have already received directly to my face):

“Bounce Back Body” by Violet Carol

They point at my skin

Run screaming for cover

But this shape is my favorite

This shape of a mother

My bare face is discolored and dry

My scars make art on my back

There’s something for that!

There’s SOMETHING FOR THAT!

In July I will bear my first daughter

She will bear marks of her own

I hope that the world will be kinder to her

Than the one from which I was grown

I don’t move every day. I make it to the gym only once per week, twice if I’m feeling energized, which is rare these days. I modify each movement, reduce my weights, move to let my bones feel oiled and my muscles feel relaxed. I am the slowest one in my CrossFit class, with the lightest weights, carrying two hearts and two brains and two souls at once. I don’t care about anything except keeping my baby alive.

I try to stretch at night, but I usually end up reading instead. I walk my dog for 20 minutes in the morning. I eat a big breakfast. I laugh. I nap. I sing in the shower. I do what I can. I am not trying to win a gold star. I am just trying to give life to two.

Dressing the Pregnant Body

I threw away a lot of clothes at the end of my first trimester. It was cathartic to purge the pieces I hadn’t worn in years or that felt inappropriate for my new era. The more challenging task at hand? Figuring out what to buy for my new body, knowing it would continue to change every month or so. My belly popped a little earlier than expected for my first pregnancy and it has taken me nearly six months to figure out what works best for me, but I have cracked the code! My secret? No maternity clothes.

Why? I think they’re ugly and overpriced. Sorry! Every piece of “maternity” garb I tried on made me look like a $100 potato sack. Like the fabric wanted me to hide my shape and turn me into a big bag of sushi rice. So I learned how to appropriately size up. Of course, this is entirely personal preference, but if you’re like me and dreading maternity shopping and have no clue when to start, here is what has worked best for me and my changing body to eliminate my physical discomfort and ensure I have options that actually fit me for every phase:

First Trimester, Weeks 1-8: I wore existing leggings and t-shirts, though I lived in oversized pajamas because this was during the throes of nausea and vomiting Hell.

• Bras one size up (bralettes and long-line sports bras only for me; no straps or wires, please).

• Soft jumpsuits, leggings, and t-shirts are the only items I want on my body. Bye bye, jeans!

First Trimester, Weeks 9-14: I bought a a few new pieces so I didn’t feel squished in my existing clothes before my body really started growing outward.

• New leggings/jumpsuits one size up.

• Bras two sizes up.

Second Trimester, Weeks 15-23: This is when my mid-section really started expanding.

• New leggings two sizes up.

• T-shirts one size up.

• Bras four sizes up (LOL).

My favorite brands for up-sizing and soft activewear: Old Navy (for all clothing types at a very reasonable price), Soma (for bras), Athleta (for sports bras), and lululemon outlet (for Align leggings).

I’ll likely need some big bump-friendly leggings for the final month, but Old Navy has everything so you don’t have to break the bank or over-consume for just a few months of clothing.

Don’t feel pressured to buy “maternity clothes” if you’re overwhelmed by finding a quality brand at a decent price! Sizing up with what you already know fits your body best works just fine.

The Scale Means Nothing

At the outset of my pregnancy, I learned that there is no separate “BMI” pregnancy chart. I also learned that some healthcare facilities still measure BMI during pregnancy despite this. This is absolutely confounding to me, and supports my personal and non-researched but anecdotal theory that the parallel “average pregnancy weight gain” factoid of only 15 to 25 pounds is bonkers. Which means you shouldn’t feel intimidated by the scale during pregnancy because there is no such thing as universally “normal” for pregnancy weight.

I am 23 weeks into pregnancy, my baby is only one pound, and I have already gained 32 pounds of blood, bone, fat, amniotic fluid, a placenta, and a fetus. I will probably gain 50 to 60 pounds total by the time this pregnancy is over on my small 5’3 frame. What’s “normal” again?

If you’re feeling nervous about your pregnancy weight, find solace in knowing it’s your body doing what it knows best to grow your baby properly, and that a number on the scale, especially during this era, tells you nothing about your worth.

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I am human, and therefore not immune to insecurity. During this pregnancy, I have experienced my fair share of fears, worries, and anxieties about the changes my body is thrusting upon me as I morph into something new. But as the days pass and I continue to see my baby grow inside of me, my focus poignantly shifts to making my body a home. One that my daughter will always know as the thing that built her. And it would be such a disservice to ever call this home that I have built for her anything less than one that I love unconditionally.

Blow yourself a sassy little kiss in the mirror tonight. Your body is a home for everything it carries.

Xo,

Violet Carol