Though pregnancy joyously and miraculously culminates in the birth of your child, it also ends in the frustrating reality that you’ll be left with postpartum body. While some are able to shed the weight off seamlessly, others struggle to regain their pre-pregnancy body. There’s truly nothing wrong with a mother putting time aside to regain her former appearance, but does society tend to put too much pressure on new mothers to lose that weight soon after giving birth?
Many would say, yes.
Vonesai Muhaso, a mother of three and writer, believes that the pressure to regain that appearance is rather tangible. In a post on The Huffington Post, Muhaso shared her most post-pregnancy experience. Five weeks after giving birth to her third child, Muhaso looked in the mirror and gazed at her postpartum body.
“The frustration and the seemingly insurmountable task of having to lose 40 pounds stared me straight in the face and left me feeling defeated and deflated,” she wrote in her post.
Is it fair to devalue someone’s appearance, let alone a mother, for not having a body that society sees fit so soon after giving birth to a beautiful baby?
Through her initial feelings of self-doubt and societal pressure, Vonesai wouldn’t let the harsh views and opinions of others manipulate who she was, and what she meant to her family.
“I looked at my daughter lying peacefully behind me and I thought about the message I was sending her,” she wrote. “If I wanted her to have a healthy self-image it had to start with me. If I wanted her to realise and know she is valuable, I had to change my internal conversation. In that moment, I reminded myself of my value and I vowed never to talk negatively about my body again.”
It was in that moment of clarity that Vonesai Muhaso decided she would do herself a favour, and write a heartfelt letter to someone in desperate need of an apology: her postpartum body.
Click next to visit the next page and read Muhaso’s touching and apologetic letter to her postpartum body.
Dear body,
I want to start off by saying I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for the times I’ve spoken ill of you and degraded you. For the names I’ve called you and the bad jokes I’ve made at your expense.
I have said some not-so-nice things about you, and had someone else been speaking like that about me, I’d be broken-hearted.
You help me to experience life. I go places and I do things because of you. I love, I laugh, I fed, I clothe, I run after my children, I go after my purpose and I get to do life because of you.
So today, I looked at you lovingly in the mirror and I said thank you. I hugged on my stretch marks and thanked my body for the evidence that showed I had carried three beautiful miracles.
I thanked my body for being able to heal and give me strength to go about life continually. With this newfound thankfulness, I also vowed to do better by you. To speak better of you and look after you more.
For you see, there can only be one you. So from now on, I will be more intentional as I learn to grow more in love and in tune with this temple that is you.
You are truly one of a kind, beautiful and miraculous, and I want you to know I love you dearly.
Always yours,
Vonesai
Muhaso’s original article on The Huffington Post
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