My New (Old) Body
Question: When does the permission for commenting on a pregnant person’s body expire?
Answer: it never should have started in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good pregnant belly, and the beauty it seems to bring to the whole world. When I was very pregnant, it seemed every person I passed looked at me with hope and empathy, as if I was carrying the future and somehow they were grateful.
But being postpartum is a VERY different story. Beyond all the emphasis on getting a body “back” (I’m sorry, where did it go? because I believe I am still in it, and by the way, it birthed a human - you’re welcome!) There is a sort of permission we allow in our culture to not only admire a swollen belly, but also to admire its absence in the short (or even not so short) aftermath of the baby’s exit from said body.
Being back at work in person has had its challenges, but one I didn’t expect was that people would be commenting on my body.
A colleague, whom I’m sure meant well, saw me outside of a Zoom box for the first time in 18 months and exclaimed, “Oh my gosh! You did NOT just have a baby!” It took me a minute to realize what she was talking about until I noticed her staring at my stomach. Apparently, she was impressed by the size of it.
Keep in mind, I had a baby 18 months ago. My son was born at the very beginning of the pandemic. So the term “just“ is a bit off. In her mind, I was frozen in my nine-months pregnant state about to take maternity leave.
In fact, my last day of work before everything shut down, my colleagues threw me a lovely baby shower on a Friday. I went into pre-labor on Monday and never returned. Until now.
Here’s my confession…
I am guilty of this too. Before I got pregnant, I was all about the baby bumps! I swooned over a growing belly in the check-out line and commented on the beautiful mother-to-be’s glow, despite the fact that they were perfect strangers.
But the first time a stranger touched my pregnant belly without asking, and might I add, without warning! You better believe I was singing a different tune.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate the ritual of women attempting to support and encourage one another in their postpardum state. And, certainly, I will take a “look you great!” over the alternative. But I never realized how sensitive I was about my postpartum body until it occurred to me that people at work could suddenly see it.
Maybe it would have been better received if I was, in fact, a mere 12 weeks out and had just returned from maternity leave (still leaking) and was missing my baby desperately. Maybe this comment would have sounded reassuring and kind.
For those of us with pandemic babies who were lucky enough to work from home the past year and a half, we missed this step of motherhood.
The paced return to work after baby, the pumping in the car or bathroom, the fighting traffic to make it to pick-up on time, the endless versions of clothes and bras with their intricate clips and cuts and the promise of maximizing boob access and pumping convenience - even while looking professional.
Instead, we simply learned how to strategically place our cameras such that our breastfeeding appendages didn’t show up on screen while simultaneously avoiding “costume malfunctions”. We wore yoga pants and sports bras with moderately professional nursing tops, and kept our babies home from daycare much longer than was realistically feasible while working a full-time job - but we did it anyway, because we could.
So, in many ways, I feel endlessly lucky.
But also, here is what I know…
There are many things about modern motherhood that I regret not having because my child decided to make his entrance into the world in March of 2020, but the uninvited tracking of my post-baby body by work acquaintances is not one of them. Like a lot of things that are changing in the workplace culture post-pandemic, it is time to let this one go.
