The Birth Story

Two more days to week 39. I was tired of being in labor for the past three weeks. My nose bleeds were getting worse, and my baby’s head was far from getting engaged. It was time for a pelvic analysis and I finally had mine done signaling for an emergency C section the following day. I couldn’t help feeling unhappy and tense. All through my pregnancy, I prepared myself for getting ripped open, but I sensed acute discomfort and stress while I was scrubbed in the pre-op room. I lay there, with my little girl within, oblique with her head ramming into the right side of the pelvis and the contractions were throwing me into ripples of pain. After my spinal came through, I couldn’t help shivering, itching all over. I tried to divert my mind to what felt like vague manipulation that was happening at the site of delivery. Minutes later, I heard a distinct cry, that of freshly popped human-sounding a lot like those from the movies. My doctor shouted back over the rumbling machines, “ Mabrouq Elma, it’s a girl !! “

The OT nurse brought her to me hanging upside down and crying her lungs out. Good Lord, I alone heard and saw my firstborn, I alone felt her first on my skin from the inside to now on the outside and this little squirrel of a baby (yes that’s her feeding face till date) looked at me from the corner of her eye and squeaked. I was lost for words and all I could manage through my tears was “Hi Emira, welcome… “

The Agony

I cannot think of anyone who said the days after delivery were pure joy. As much as I felt happy in the recovery room following the surgery, I was shivering and scratching all the rashes on my skin. I wanted to sleep but the shivering kept me from it and I couldn’t do without getting drugged again for the severe allergy and breathlessness I developed from the spinal anesthesia. Seven hours later post-midnight, after being transferred to the room and everyone departed ( yes no bystanders were allowed at night ) I lay down thinking of Emira in the nursery and slept off. The following morning, the drugs had worn off and I initiated breastfeeding for the first time. Why so late? Why not the golden hour? You will know in a while.

The hospital had its own protocol with newborns. All the babies were looked after in the nursery. You can either walk up there and breastfeed else request the baby to be brought to the room when they were hungry. Furthermore, if there are too many visitors in the room or corridor, they refrain from bringing the baby when it is hungry and pop in a bottle of formula milk. This certainly did not go down well with me, but in all honesty, we were helpless and it seemed sensible to stay quiet and get done with the short stay than argue and create disaccord. The gas pockets began to form and trips to the loo felt like forever and it was blood with pain galore in a way I possibly cannot put down in words. Meanwhile, I nursed her often, made it a point to walk up to the nursery during visiting hours and kept crying all through hoping this will all pass.

Postpartum depression

Postpartum depression is always out there to get you as such is the play of hormones inside you and how you and your support work together in not falling into it is vital. There were plenty of triggers, the first one being when Emira was a day old and began to cry all of a sudden. No mother comes with a manual and being the not-into-babies person I was once upon a time, I turned red, flustered and nervous when my mother pointed out how little I was pampering her and trying to connect with her. This carried on to becoming an annoying thought in the head that multiplied into other negative thoughts as the days went by. I began to feel I was unworthy, not Mom-like enough, and that my daughter doesn’t love me back. Emira’s disturbing spells of crying made it worse for me to fight the beast in my head and I began to feel claustrophobic with the new routine. I don’t have a clear memory of how this resolved but venting out with my husband and a close friend helped me feel better. I started to care less of what anyone thought of me in this new role and above all related to the fact that newborns communicate by just one emotion and that is to cry no matter what!

Breastfeeding versus Formula

Without a doubt, breastfeeding wins over any other form to feed a baby. Having known that Emira may have possibly downed a few bottles in the hospital, I was upset and stayed determined to breastfeed her during my stay and after we returned home. What I wasn’t ready for was that my milk did not provide her the satiety she wanted. She kept feeding often without a pattern. Sometimes every ten minutes, sometimes every half an hour and each feed lasted for an hour. This clearly meant that I wasn’t sleeping at all and began to experience acute exhaustion and fainted often despite eating well. When the mother is unconscious and the baby is hungry you cannot possibly expect breastfeeding to happen and we had to reintroduce formula for a couple of days till I caught up and regained energy. Emira never took formula well, her colic pain got worse, she kept throwing it up and I felt urged myself to wean her off those bottles right away. So my point is, don’t incriminate formula or the ones who use it. It can sometimes be your rescue whether you like it or not.

Rest, Recovery and Family commitments

“Take plenty of rest” one of the most overrated comments I received from everyone. Truth be told, those who say it give you the least amount of rest and that is precisely how it played out during my recovery. Postpartum rest is inclusive of physical and mental rest. The less you receive it, the more it will affect your breast milk, baby’s weight gain, and your recovery to the extent that you will see a poor response when you begin exercising. I was expected to attend a wedding in the immediate family and it couldn’t happen without Christening Emira prior to the functions. Most of the arrangements for her function, the travel, and so many miscellaneous chores were on me. I wanted to put the phone down and sleep but it kept me up. I ran with a newborn baby during my barely enough transit in Dubai to catch a flight. I was lost for words when I had to make a conversation because I went on to becoming heavily sleep-deprived. My body couldn’t handle it. Emira’s feeds were cut down due to so much traveling, my spells of exhaustion and blackouts returned and the brunt of all this resulted in having my first period postpartum at two months right after the Lokia( postpartum vaginal bleeding ) ceased. If you are a sexually active mother you would know how tiring breastfeeding whilst periods can be. The milk thinned out to a lot of foremilk which made my baby even more cranky and hungry through the nights following each event. One too many women in the family drove me into normalizing this and thereafter, I was pretending to be alright amidst the exhaustion, pain, and hustle. So much for saying yes to family commitments and traditions, when I could have been excused from it all.

The Ureteroscopy- yet another unfortunate event

The first period came like a raging storm and I went for an ultrasound scan to make sure I was alright when we noticed a large kidney stone that we were asked to look into at a later date. We came back to Saudi Arabia and upon consultation with a specialist decided to have it removed via Ureteroscopy- a procedure done under General Anesthesia. Knowing that I will need to rest following the procedure, we hired help who without a thought backed out on the eve of the procedure leaving us all alone to cope up with the recovery. I went on a spree that night- cooked for the week ahead, pumped milk and did whatever I could to ease my routine. The procedure did not detect any stone but a patch of calcified tissue in the kidney, which may have happened in the past due to trauma. This was considered normal. However, what was not normal and unfair was what followed. I was throwing up from anesthesia side effects, I was shrieking in pain while I passed urine, I couldn’t move much because of a stent in my ureter. The ordeal continued for the next two weeks. I was alone with Emira all day, crawling like a beggar to move to her for diaper changes and feeds and my screams on the pot accompanied her wailing. It was dark and horrifying and it did not stop. Post stent removal, I had my periods, a rather painful one which had me getting checked again to be diagnosed with a hospital-acquired Pneumonia infection in the urinary bladder. Once again, I was admitted for a week to be on emergency IV antibiotics as this was a dangerous thing to carry around. More hurdles awaited me with deep veins, fourteen cannula insertions and soaring ENT infection which Emira contracted from me through my milk. If you look it from one perspective, I underwent all of this for nothing and if you look at it through it another, I feel it was God’s way of making you appreciate the little acts we do daily in our life such as the act of going to urinate pain-free or being able to breathe good air.

While I thought the immediate days of postpartum are dark, these were darker and lonelier. I feared if I as a person would shut down completely, but truth be told, this is was all for the best. The best challenge I never imagined I would do and that was raising my daughter with little assistance all along and continued to do it even better till the end of this year.

I was discharged on Maundy Thursday. I was crushed in spirit during the past eight weeks and with the Lord’s resurrection around the corner I had every reason to feel inspired, renewed and take over my life, Emira’s life, our life as a family. All the way until month six my journey was grueling and I did not want to be left behind feeling defeated and hopeless. “God helps those who help themselves” And he was beginning to show me the light at the end of this nasty tunnel.

The Father

It is an Indian thing, to stay back with your folks and raise the baby while the father runs back to another country and resumes work. Some fathers cannot stay back or take the mother and baby with him even if he wanted to due to cost of living, work constraints, etc. Knowing that we could fly back with my husband and that he wanted us more than anything, I chose him over the family. I would urge any mother to do the same. The father deserves to be there for you and the child in ways more than one. He deserves to know what it’s like to assist you while breastfeeding, to bathe the baby, to change diapers in the wee hours of the night, to sing a lullaby to soothe the baby into slumber. I was home alone with my baby at two and half months postpartum and initially I struggled to do so many chores at once. I sought his help when he came home after work with dishwashing, cleaning up and laundry. He dutifully did it and supported me until I could gather myself together. He also began to have that newfound respect for my role as a mother and taught me to take pride in every failure I had.

Considering his 12 to 14 hour shifts and working on the only holiday he has, we barely saw much of him this year and everything that he did daily in those couple of hours while at home was huge for us. We also did not forget the romance and love we shared before Emira and that would not have been rekindled if it weren’t for this decision that most parents shy away from in this digital age which is filled with distractions. To sum it up, “If you are responsible for the baby-making then be responsible for the baby-rearing”

No Nanny, No Cook

I truly understand the need to have support in some form or the other if your birth and recovery faced serious complications. Most working mothers who have to step out cannot do without a cook, a nanny, cleaning service, someone from the family or even all of the above. There is nothing wrong with that and I would truly love that kind of help myself. My work for The Oven Affairs is always done from home and considering how immense the efforts are to keep it running and how little I make from it, I could not afford to hire help. Nor could not my husband be bothered to pitch in for such a big expense. We were unfortunate that way and decided to take up this challenging balancing act with minimal assistance, the least being a cleaning service twice a week.

The Pros of this decision were manifold. We stopped obsessing over unfinished household chores. I became very proactive to do my best with cooking for the family throughout the week. I began to make time to read books on parenting, nutrition and even pursue my hobby of Food styling and Photography. My priorities moved from trivial matters of gossip, overthinking to focussing on making time to put myself before everything else. This wasn’t easy and did not happen overnight. It takes weeks or months of conditioning our mind to make it flexible to do what we ought to do.

So if you don’t have anything particular to do and still want to hire help to look after your baby while you slump on the couch and mindlessly scroll that screen calling it me-time, please think twice! All of that is only going to rebound with non-communicable diseases manifested from the long periods of inactivity you indulge in.

Use of Phone & Social Media

That phone. That grid on Instagram. Those brands and labels. Those photographs. Ouch! I cannot rant enough about the obsession over these when it comes to Motherhood. I too have been there but got out of it soon as reality struck me that these don’t matter when life happens to you in terrible, tragic ways. Be wary of Instagram mothers who make-believe that motherhood is all about fancy baby accessories, high street fashion labels and thank you notes to cute expensive gifts. While a few basic items in your baby registry ought to be bought from reputed brands for sustainability, do not expect the same when gifts come your way from people of different strata or working class. Now that you are a mother, please be nothing but Real!

Get off the phone as much as you can. There is a lot of science behind the wise grandmothers and their advice to put it away. The more you strain your eyes looking at it, the tougher it is for you to sleep and this will take a toll on your breast milk and recovery. If possible avoid using the phone while you breastfeed. The baby really doesn’t need those rays. I get asked why I don’t take a lot of photos and videos and send them to friends and family. I do, but only when my baby does something new, funny or has a hit a milestone that makes great memories. Why take an infinite amount of meaningless motions and send it to all the chat windows followed by mixed feedbacks and replies that will upset your mind or waste your time? I know very few who aren't on Social media. So, when I shoot a video or photo of my baby, I just post it on the story tab and forget about it. Evil eye? Bad Omen? I don’t care. That’s me!

Milestones and Weight gain

What a wonderful moment each time they hit a milestone. I remember being on my toes to see her roll over, crawl and also gain some healthy weight. With all the downs we faced in the initial months, Emira gained weight very slowly and her milestones were quite erratic to surface. At one point I lost hope with her making progress because she was growing at snail pace despite making everything perfect for her.

What changed my mind was a simple thought, “ Even the laziest person on this planet would have got up and walked as a baby at some point in his/her life. My girl is healthy, active, eats and poops well and that in itself is fine by me. It should only be a matter of time when she will walk on her impulse.” That kind of realistic affirmation erased the need to worry over her weight and milestones. Mind you, there are many parents out there who have birthed babies who are special in a different way. They remain heartbroken because there does not exist such a thing as a milestone in their growth. So where dear mother are you going with this weight gain and milestone jazz unless you have enrolled for a competition? (Yes, sarcasm intended)

From Breast milk to Solids

You can be the most perfect nursing mother but the real test is in how you drift into solids which govern the ground rules of eating good, nutritious food fuss-free for the rest of their life. Just because I have done fairly well in this phase, I still do not consider it safe to say that I have won. There will come a time when my child will get exposed to the world and she will probably come back wanting what she saw different and enticing, yet unaware of why there is nothing more to that than looks, colors and fancy misleading labels like “guilt-free, low-fat, low-carb” and the works.

To the endless questions, I have been asked and also asked myself about feeding Emira, to which some answers I have found along the way.

If you have the luxury of staying at home to breastfeed or pump into bottles before stepping out for work then let that be your first choice ALWAYS
Eat your meal/ snack before you breastfeed or pump so you have a better supply of milk. The baby will feel fuller and you won't feel ravenous after the session or go hunting for sweets and junk in your cabinets.
We, Indians belong to a rich culinary heritage boasting of nutrient powerhouses in the traditional preparations for breastfeeding mothers. Embrace it!
Start with the right medium for solids. Take an active interest in what is the practice in your region and do whatever it takes to source those food groups. In our country, Ragi (finger millet) porridge is the first weaning food and it is rightly sitting at the top of the hierarchy for its nutrient profile. It is the cereals in their most real form that make it worthwhile, not the fruit purees or the packet foods. When it comes to fruits, the ground rule is boil and mash but NEVER PUREE. All the goodness of a fruit dies in the heat and oxidization of the blender so just don’t!
If there is anything that is going to come in the way of your baby’s feeding habits it is Distractions- Phone, television, loud music, chatty conversations, etc. I shot videos during the first two times Emira took her solids from my husband and me and whenever she behaved funny over an occasional ice-cream which were purely for keepsake memories. After that came the relatives, anxious to watch her eating while on video chats. This, without doubt, was a breach in my book and I did not encourage it. Above all, I put the phone away whenever I ate or fed my baby. I observed the cross-legged position on the floor while eating which is the most scientifically proven way to aid digestion as you eat. My baby watched me all along. She got accustomed to being seated on a baby chair for disciplined eating followed by the cross-legged position on the floor these days for her mid meals and I was shaken by how such simple methods worked wonders for her eating habits. There are mood swings, displeasure and the works she displays on certain days and I have worked my way around it patiently.
There is no greatness in starving or sacrificing your meals because you have to feed the baby. If you are feeding yourself on time, you are maximizing your chances of staying healthy and available for your bub. Remember, “Your baby is watching you, all the time”.
When you begin solids, your child does not have to eat the world from Day one. It takes about 1-3 weeks for a baby's taste buds to adapt a new solid food and maybe longer to develop a liking to it. This is why my Pediatrician and I are on the same page about not going overboard with variety in solids as it often leads to confusion in taste buds and they end up eating nothing.
It is normal for an ill baby to have a poor appetite and act fussy or refuse solids until the illness wears off.
Start giving a few sips of boiled water from the sixth month and track the intake. Gradually build up the intake and you will see the difference it makes in their appetite and energy. Water intake has a lot to do with healthy baby weight gain and keeping illness at bay.
DO NOT FORCE FEED your baby. If they don't like it, they are likely to throw up. Let them be, they will let you know when they are ready. STOP COMPARING your baby's feeding habits or patterns to another's. We all have a different genetic makeup and so will our babies.
Attempt as much as you can to keep your feeding session gadget and packet food free. I seldom carry my phone or an emergency pack of pureed baby food with me when I need to give her solids. In this digital age, I am afraid if it will last forever, BUT, I am determined to try my best.
Hunt down a good pediatrician, one who hails from your roots and has years of experience, one who directs you to choose homemade meals from your region over formula boosted meals and cereal boxes.
Cooking is basic for men and women alike, almost like second nature. What you cook doesn’t have to be elaborate, attractive or extravagant. Cook what you have been eating as a child, what your mother and grandmother nourished and raved about, carry it forward for your baby to keep up the genetic makeup and you have done a task worthwhile. If you have never cooked in your life or don’t fancy cooking, then NOW is the time to turn over a new leaf, else be ready for a fussy, tantrum-throwing, hungry-all-the-time child in the near future.
No baby learns to eat well overnight. You have to meticulously read about nutrition, plan and prepare their food accordingly and be consistent at your attempts to feed them.

Chasing a career

If there is anything that upsets me is the downside of my career. While the cakes look “stunning, too beautiful to cut”, know that the work behind the scenes isn’t remotely glamorous, fetching or convenient. Not to forget the many working days it takes to create one great looking cake. If you are a career-oriented mother and your job makes ends meet, then, by all means, go for it. If you are a career-oriented mother and your job is driven by a passion to strive with minimal support in many aspects then my honest advice is to pause and take a while to change your focal point.

While the financially fortunate mothers in my circle had the liberty to step out and chase their passion while the nanny, cook, and family stepped in to fill the blank spaces, I was standing in the kitchen for long hours with my separation anxiety struck baby tugging at my feet at every step. I dearly hoped for my life as an artist to get better. It did but not in good measure. It was slow, painful and my heart sunk every single day. If I had to look at the bright side, I would rephrase my challenge this way, “ Grind now, while they flash and flaunt. Take this challenge for good measure. One in which you can sit down to plan, prepare, rectify, rewire and focus on things that you don’t want to regret about later in life.”

I often hear way too much whining from both career and non-career oriented moms about their stressful routine, how fussy their children are to feed and how tough it is to get them disciplined. Well, to that I have only answer. “Your job, money, passion and fancy me-time can wait for a little while you step down to build the foundation of good nutrition and life for you as well as your baby. That cannot come if you run the postpartum marathon by cutting calories, chasing jobs and all the materialism of this world paving way for stress borne diseases in yourself and the baby !”

Body Image

A changed physique after giving birth is inevitable. For me, the list of inevitable outnumbered the evitable. It is sad how one mother drags down another by asking her to slather oils to prevent stretch marks and cellulite. I was perfectly fine with oodles of stretch marks. They will remain permanent tattoos of motherhood for the win. I still keep up with the oiling, not to prevent the marks but to help with maintaining skin elasticity during the bounce-back process.

The impetus to bounce back in month six had a lot to do with the list of grey areas I had to work with- Diastasis Recti ( abdominal wall separation ) Pendulous Abdomen (poor core to hold a fetus) Congenital asymmetry of my left leg, the pregnancy weight, Emira’s nutrition and above all, my fitness. Like many mothers, I too felt hopeless and looked away from the mirror for days. It was tough accepting the pregnant look and still feeling it when you have already delivered.

The way I see it, true recovery begins when you mentally and physically have made peace with the trauma of birth and have willingly put it behind your back to start a new trip. One that has an itinerary tailored by you for your own good health and happiness.One for which you have planned in advance by reading and chalking out alternatives for the lowest of lows!

I had innumerable lows and made many mistakes to learn from before feeling motivated to pack up and move on. The more I researched, I gained clarity that Weightloss or looking presentable was never my goal. Rather, how to live life in normalcy, by eating well and healing my body from all that it has endured became the goal. Looking great and feeling just as good was a beautiful bonus from the recovery process which is split into two simple indispensable elements of life called Balanced Nutrition and Exercise.

Nutrition & Fitness

Good nutrition and fitness go hand in hand. Always. It took me a lot of time and effort to research about good nutrition based on our ethnicity and how our homemade meals ought to be loyal to our roots. The easiest way to understand fat loss is when you stop counting calories, categorizing food into macros or micros, segregate it into low Carb, high Protein and worst of all, succumbing to crash diets like Keto and the works that deprive you of Carbs. Our body weight begins to waver the most when we have poor knowledge about how essential carbs are. Why bring upon this temporary crisis of carbs and the rebound of double the weight gain along with hormone imbalance? Our stomach needs a refill every two to three hours and to think of all the punishment it faced in the past with crazy starvation and detox, sigh! I feel awful.

Once this concept came clear, I began to combine it with a postpartum friendly workout routine five to six days a week. Why postpartum friendly? How is it different from traditional workouts? After birth, our pelvic floor and core muscles are very weak. I have seen some really good athletes suffer from a sustained abdominal wall separation postpartum. I too suffered from this along with an uncommon condition called Pendulous Abdomen which results from zero core strength making the belly hang forward and downward causing immense pain in the loin. To rectify this I began to train my core through strength and resistance training that combined abdominal breathing techniques that helped me immensely during this phase.

How important is exercising? It is as important as taking a shower or brushing your teeth which obviously are non-negotiable aspects in your daily routine. The more you procrastinate this element, the more you pave way for inactivity and hormone imbalance which is quite the trending issue among women in this digital age. How do you know if this is going to work for you? You will see your thyroid function tests come clean, your periods will be pain and cramp-free, you will find a whole new level of energy and enthusiasm to carry out your daily routine.

Busting myths about weight-loss

Your fat gain, to be precise happens the minute you decide to :

Start eating outside your ethnicity often
Count Calories
See food as Macros or Micros
Segregate food into Carbs, Fats, Protein, etc
Deprive yourself of food by skipping meals/ fasting
Chase Fad diets like Keto, Low Carb, and the works.
Depend on entertainment via phone/Tv as you mindlessly eat or cook
Detoxing diets and cleansing waters

None of the above aids Fat loss. Neither do they help you look at food in terms of nutrition? Rather you lose precious muscle mass and retain water. The body goes into crisis and triggers your cortisol. Your hormones go for a toss and you bring upon the dreaded Thyroid imbalance, PCOS, Diabetes, etc

You can be very Fit and still have a flawed medical report which can be attributed to your change of lifestyle, eating habits, succumbing to sugar-free, flour-free, fat-free mashups which aren’t nourishing you. Regardless of whether you are trying to lose weight before or after the baby, bear in mind that as long as you eat well every two hours with meals planned according to your roots, you don't have to sweat over weight loss.

To all those who keep asking me about my fat loss :

I eat up to 7-8 meals daily spaced 2 hours apart. Four main meals and four tiny snacks. I work out 5-6 days a week for 30minutes( Followed by a post-workout meal)
I put the phone away while eating and an hour before bed. Also, I don’t spend more than an hour daily on Social media.
We are all different in body type- Ectomorph / Endomorph/ Mesomorph. So, I stopped chasing the idea of looking like somebody else or making quick progress
You can slather all the expensive creams on your face, but nothing like good food, limited screen time, adequate exercise and quality sleep to make your skin glow.
I erased the concept of being in a Calorie Deficit for good. I was lucky enough to see many mothers cutting Carbs and counting calories to proclaim pre-pregnancy weight but actually get so hungry by night and wolf down an insane amount of desserts and three-course dinners to meet their hunger. What these mothers were doing by night is trying to get back all the precious nutrients they have been running away from, out of fear for eating, but in reality, were messing up their hormone response with ill-timed meals and odd portions. I, by no means, wanted to join that clan and therefore, NEVER counted calories.
I have been careful all along to stick to meals rooting from my ethnicity, be it even an occasional dessert. I do indulge in other cuisines and sweet treats once in a while to get exposed and appreciate global eating
Local ghee over anything Fat-free, Peanuts over peanut butter( applies to all nuts), Jaggery over Dark chocolate, Seasonal fruits over frozen berry smoothies, Homemade Sherbet over bottled juice, Paneer and curd over Frozen yogurt or Burratta, Ladoo and Chikki over Energy bars ….The list is endless - YES, it’s that simple, fearless and I don’t even need to scout for guilt-free when I am treating myself good this way.

Resuming Workouts after a Baby

Though shall and must exercise right from the day you have been given a green signal from your Gynecologist regardless of C section or natural birth.
Resume workout by slow low impact moves, that focus on restrengthening the core and healing the gap between your 6 pack abs.
Crunching reduces the distance between your rib cage and pelvic floor causing the mid-line of your belly to bulge aka Doming or Coning which is detrimental to the organs in that zone( If your trainer is knowledgable about postpartum fitness then he/she will never ask you to crunch) So DONT CRUNCH. Rather, practice Abdominal breathing techniques that engage the core during each move which helps in burning the fat from the belly.
Do not idolize breastfeeding as a means to lose pregnancy weight. Breastfeeding burns just about 500 calories which in no way is going to tone you up or build back the lean muscle you lost during pregnancy and birth. Also, breastfeeding makes your body hold onto fat stores which is nature's way of sustaining breast milk. So don't be disappointed if you never lost weight breastfeeding.
Hitting the pre-pregnancy weight is not everything. The figure on your weighing scale is not an indicator of fitness or health. How do you feel every day in terms of energy and zeal? How great is your Thyroid function? How good is your menstrual health? How little you fall ill? That is what matters
A Gym routine tops everything. You certainly can work out from home if you cannot access the gym due to distance or lack of support to watch your baby. It is imperative that you read credible literature by postnatal fitness trainers before commencing your workouts.
It's never too late to pursue any medium of strength training provided you have a knowledgeable coach, good form and posture through the day and night (yes it matters while you sleep too)

The Postpartum Belly

• It is NORMAL to look pregnant with a postpartum belly for a while after birth. Ideally, it will shrink back to its original size.

• However, if you don't see much of a difference, then it is NOT normal for many reasons. You may be suffering from DR or Diastasis Recti; which means the gap between the 6 pack muscles is retained after the pregnancy. You may be suffering from Pendulous Abdomen because of poor core strength. You may have neither of the above and still have a big belly because of retained fat layers, stretched skin, poor posture and lack of exercise.

• In all the above cases you ought to work on your belly because a retained belly is going to strain your lower back and alter the alignment of your pelvis, wreck your posture which is normalized by naive mothers as common. Sadly it is not the case.

• Walking by no means is an exercise to trim the belly or do any good to you. Rather, training your muscles accompanied by engaging the core is the correct approach.

• Engaging the core is done by a technique called Abdominal breathing aka Transverse Abdominis breathing which trains your deepest ab muscles to come together to heal and restrengthen the core which in the long run flattens the tummy.

•Weight training at a gym is the best way to train ONLY if you have a green signal from your Gynecologist or your physiotherapist has declared that your core is strong enough to handle Intra Abdominal pressure while you lift weights.

• Losing the postpartum belly may take a longer period of time for some of us depending on the state of our core muscles before pregnancy, genetics, loose skin and most importantly Breastfeeding. Yes, breastfeeding can inhibit fat burn and delay the healing of the connective tissue in our abdomen because it triggers the release of a hormone called Relaxin which makes it harder to tone up the belly. I continue to face this till date but I have made peace with the slow progress simply because “Big or small, Progress is Progress”

• Having said all of this, don't compare your progress to that of another mother's. Comparison and Stress will rob you of all your happiness that would rather save for your little baby. Be consistent with your workouts, be compassionate to your self and give yourself time to be where you want to be.

I am still not allowed to weight train with my Non-functional DR. The good news is that it has reduced from the size of a fist to one finger gap which is huge progress for me. And that took a year-long of sweat and determination. There is hope if you want to stay Hopeful.

Generalizing and Normalising

Aches and pains are a part and parcel of motherhood. However, anything chronic beyond tolerance should never be neglected as normal. Your spouse, family, relatives and friends may have no limits to generalizing your struggles and saying that it’s meant to be. I beg you to NOT pay heed and address whatsoever bothers you in its budding stage. Every woman is different. So please don’t blindly believe that your agony is meant to be.

Young mother amnesia is something I struggled with and still am. You might wonder how is it that I have so many details from my postpartum months. Whatever I have penned down was painful affirmed in me subconsciously through the first year. I desperately wanted to pour it out here and in all probability, it might help a reader or two.

An increasing number of mothers are going into inactivity these days by being a slave to the screen. We all need some screen time, but not all the time. One too many mother’s thrive on as well as a shout out slogans on media like “ Do what works for you” “There is no right or wrong way to it” “I don’t let Mom-guilt get to me”.

The need for such slogans is the birth of inactivity and being incapable of moving out of your comfort zone to raise children responsibly. Do whatever it takes to be able parents. Learn to strike a balance between time for yourself, your baby and your spouse. Learn to prioritize your self-care, self-love and daily routine over the rest. Everything else will come along.

A tough learning curve yields time in the form of mini-slots and windows in those 18 hours of wakefulness where you will be surprised you did so much more than you anticipated.

I hope this article was insightful and unapologetically real as you expected it to be. The bits about Nutrition and Postpartum fitness have been inspired by credible literature from the celebrated Nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar and my Post-Natal online therapist Julie Baird.

The lovely photographs of the family shoot in the latter bit of the article were done by Elena Ojakes.

Can we be self-loving girls before women? Real and genuine women before Mothers? Knowledgeable and kind mothers before Grandmothers?

Please ponder over before you bring another Baby to this world.

A Year Post partum - Memoirs of a first hand mother