When women get pregnant, people tend to tell us how beautiful we look and how amazing our big round belly is. Even though most of us feel like complete shit, we get compliments about how we glow and how cute our bump is or just comments about how fascinating it is that we are growing a tiny human.

And then we have the baby and something changes.

Almost right after we eject the baby from our bodies, some of us feel like we are suddenly expected to look like we never even had that baby in the first place. Sure, some of us lucky individuals do look like this right after (not me) and that’s pretty darn amazing when you think about it but the majority of us still look pregnant for a nice chunk of time after leaving the hospital. 

Personally, my post baby body never really bothered me initially. No, I wasn’t one of those people who just bounced back to be even smaller than I was before and a large part of that may have been because of my new found addiction while in the hospital recovering from my C-section…Muffins. Holy crap, I was addicted to all muffins and most baked goods that came my way. Blueberry muffins were my weakness (still are) but I would settle for almost any flavor. I’ve never been picky. 

I can confidently say that my post baby muffin top was actually made of real blueberry muffins with a side of pinot grigio. 

Anyway, it seems to become a thing that after we have a baby, we all need to start working out and dieting right away to get our old bodies back and some of us almost feel pressured to do so. Sure, if you are someone who loves a good work out and was going nuts on a regime beforehand, this may just be a natural feeling as you love working out and wow, that’s amazing. But for the other people out there who felt like they had to start dieting while holding a 4-week-old baby, I feel you. I mean, I didn’t diet (remember the muffins?) but I feel the struggle.

Not sure about you guys but the last thing I wanted to put into my body for the first few months after having babies was a salad… or anything in that same category. “Leafy greens” definitely sounded like a waste of time and were nowhere to be seen in my vocabulary anymore. I was breastfeeding, tired, usually starving and didn’t know what day it was half the time. I wanted all of the carbs with all of the sugar in and around my mouth. 

Sure, I did lose a bunch of weight initially because breastfeeding and duhhh there weren’t babies in my belly anymore and all the fluid was gone and whatever else was living in there for 9 months, but then this super lame wall showed up… and I hit it… hard and at full speed. 

I actually grew to love my new post baby body even though it wasn’t fully back to what it originally was but I also realized that some things would most likely never go back. My hips got a bit bigger, tummy wasn’t as tight (and it wasn’t really that tight to begin with, let’s be honest), I had a new scar with what can only be described as a shelf right above it…if you need a visual, picture a giant marshmallow with a seam stitched into it. I was lucky enough to receive some lovely little stretch marks surrounding said “shelf” and to top it all off, my boobs were just all over the place and there wasn’t enough fabric in all the land to contain those bad boys. 

I feel like I was fully embracing the new “mom bod” but also felt like that wasn’t really even a thing and I still felt like I was expected to get super fit or something. So, I started to ask myself “why aren’t mom-bods considered a cool thing like the dad-bods we all hear about?” 

I decided to look up “Dad-bod” on the old World Wide Web Google site and found the below definition on a highly reputable site called Urban Dictionary! 

“Dad bod” is a male body type that is best described as “softly round.” It’s built upon the theory that once a man has found a mate and fathered a child, he doesn’t need to worry about maintaining a sculpted physique.

If human bodies were cuts of meat, the dad bod would skew more marbled rib eye than filet mignon; or, if human bodies were sea mammals, dad bod would be more like a grazing manatee than a speedy dolphin. The dad bod is more mudslide than mountain, more soft serve than sorbet, more sad trombone than clarinet, more mashed potato than skinny fry. The dad bod is built for comfort.

“BUILT FOR COMFORT”. Not speed, comfort. 

The dad-bod is apparently super cool and a real thing in our world and well, it should be because not everyone should be expected to have 8 packs and as long as those dads with the bods are happy and feel good, that’s all that should really matter.

This is the same way we should all view our new mom-bods. No matter if you are the person who was skinny before the baby and now have looser tummy skin around your 6 pack or if you’re the person who is still carrying around some excess baby weight and never had a 6 pack to begin with, it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that you feel happy and are enjoying your life. 

I like eating foods that aren’t necessarily good for me just like the next person… I actually told my husband the other day that I’ve realized I’m a much better person when I don’t stress about all the foods going into my body and when I don’t cut out my best friend, Mr. Muffin. I also know that I like eating salads and healthier foods as I tend to feel better but again, I do what makes me happy and feels good at the time. I work out a couple times a week and although it isn’t getting me that 6 pack mentioned earlier, it makes me feel good and is something I get to do for “me” …with the twins alongside. Ugh.

Our bodies did some crazy ass things growing these humans. It’s quite insane when you really think about the fact that we grew a person. It still kind of confuses me when I really start to think about it all. Of course, things are going to be different than before and some items may not have been put back in their original spot but again, you grew a human…embrace the new bod!

Afterall, mom jeans made a comeback that some of us didn’t see coming so let’s bring back the mom-bod! 

I decided to take it upon myself and create a new and improved mom-bod description. This is what SHOULD come up when googling “mom-bod” and maybe the Oxford Dictionary will add it one day to go in the same section as “twerk”. 

“Mom-bod” is a female body type that may be softer than it once was due to the growing of human life and ejection of said humans. It’s built with a bellybutton that doesn’t quite look right, a stomach that’s known to include colourful stripes and lady lumps that hang in a new and improved way.

The mom-bod could be described as something along the lines of “astonishing” or “hot as fuck”. The Mom-bod’s larger hips don’t lie and damn, do they make those pants look good. The mom-bod was built for speed in a not-so aerodynamic way…more of a “holy shit, my toddler is fast” kind of way. 

The mom-bod should win awards. 

And damn, we should win awards. We carried around alien babies, couldn’t drink wine or eat certain foods, vomited too many times to count, peed every 10 minutes, couldn’t sleep on our backs, had to drive our drunk husbands around and dripped sweat for 9 whole months before going through any sort of birth process that I won’t get into. 

I hope you are all very happy and content with your new found skin! Get it? (holy mom joke) You look amazing no matter what shape or size you are now and I can assure you that your kids look at you the same way.