No More Preg­nant Belly! Five days after giv­ing birth, Ottawa, Octo­ber 2012

The 38 weeks of preg­nancy took me on a roller­coaster of mixed feel­ings and emo­tions, and I must admit I was look­ing for­ward to not being preg­nant any­more. On the prac­ti­cal side, even though my preg­nant belly was small by most standards—it didn’t pop out much—I still car­ried a 6.1 lbs. and 45-centimeter tall baby, and I was pretty uncom­fort­able dur­ing the last few weeks.

I kept on going to yoga until I was 37 weeks preg­nant and I took long walks but I was get­ting more and more sore and tired towards the end. I know I’m lucky I was able to stay active through­out my preg­nancy and that I didn’t expe­ri­ence any issue, but boy… no longer being preg­nant feels great.

I had heard hor­ror sto­ries about what to expect in the post­par­tum (i.e. after birth) stage but again, I guess I was lucky, it was (and is) a good expe­ri­ence, albeit a strange and sud­den one.

One minute your belly is huge and hard (and I mean hard as a rock with the con­trac­tions!) and the next one, it’s empty—“jelly belly” the nurse called it. The first day after giv­ing birth, I still had a bit of a preg­nant belly but it quickly disappeared—much faster than it came con­sid­er­ing it took me nine months to grow it! I didn’t have any stretch marks and I didn’t expe­ri­ence lin­ger­ing con­trac­tions or pain in gen­eral despite hav­ing a second-degree tear—again, I’m count­ing my blessings.

On a lighter note, I (re)discovered 10 things that feel great when you are no longer pregnant!

1. You can drink as much as you want and don’t have to pee con­stantly since there is no longer a mini-baby jump­ing on your bladder.
2. Wax­ing your bikini line becomes much eas­ier again. Bonus: you can also bend to wax your legs and cut your toenails!
3. You feel lighter when walk­ing, and don’t have to puff like a polar bear when climb­ing the stairs.
4. You can get out of the bed (or sofa, or what­ever place where you passed out) eas­ily. You can also turn over in bed in one smooth motion.
5. Your stom­ach is flat (or flat­ter) and you have big boobs. As opposed to hav­ing a huge belly that makes you look flat-chested, regard­less of the actual size of your breasts.
6. You can lay on your stom­ach and stretch your spine. Boy, it feels wonderful!
7. Peo­ple no longer attempt to rub your belly (or if they do, you are hang­ing out in the wrong place).
8. Doc­tors and health­care providers in gen­eral lose inter­est in you; only the baby mat­ters. Fine by me: I was get­ting tired of hand­ing out urine sam­ples like Hal­loween candies.
9. No more Diego Maradona-like kicks under the ribs or in the blad­der. Yay!
10. After wear­ing either mater­nity clothes or the same few items that fit­ted your preg­nant belly best, you get a kick of redis­cov­er­ing your old clothes. Walk­ing into your own closet feels like walk­ing into a store—“hey, I didn’t remem­ber I had this pair of jeans!”

Did you feel the same after you had your baby?

Related arti­cles:

1. Being Preg­nant: What Does It Feel Like?
2. 20 Rea­sons Why I’m Look­ing For­ward to The “Grand Finale”
3. The World: Meet Mark, Born 12÷10÷12!
4. Of Los­ing Con­trol (And Chang­ing That Pyjama)
5. 10 Perks of Being Pregnant
6. Preg­nancy and Travel—Yes You Can!