This was such a cathartic, relatable read! I’ve been lucky to have two children in the last five years, but wow, I have really felt the liminal state you describe between bodies and wardrobes and desires. Now that we feel our family is complete, I’m finally (and slowly) starting to rebuild a more settled version of myself and my style. Even at this stage, it’s bittersweet - letting go of the pregnancy / postpartum clothes I’ll no longer need carries both feelings of grief (in saying goodbye to babyhood) and feelings of freedom. I find motherhood is full of these kinds of tensions.
Wow, I really relate to this. I’m a first time mom (to a baby girl also named Frankie!) and only four months postpartum and have stowed all of my maternity clothes in a bin in my closet that I would love to just donate, but I have this thought in the back of my head that I may need them again some day… the thought of going through pregnancy and the postpartum period all over again sounds like a nightmare right now, to be honest. I don’t know if I have it in me. Part of me wants to just get through this and be relieved I don’t have to do it again and my body can be my own again, but another part of me worries that this is selfish, vain and shortsighted and I would come to regret not having a second… I don’t have to make this decision now by any means, but it’s one that I am already agonizing over. And I do think about the clothes that for now, would they still fit after a second pregnancy? Not the end of the world, but I do feel sort of in this weird in between state that I can’t really settle into or fully commit to.
"Mothers asking whether this is the year for the postpartum glow-up or the year to try for another baby." Feel this in my soul! I'm picking the glow up after two babies / breastfeed for 5 years!
This was such a cathartic, relatable read! I’ve been lucky to have two children in the last five years, but wow, I have really felt the liminal state you describe between bodies and wardrobes and desires. Now that we feel our family is complete, I’m finally (and slowly) starting to rebuild a more settled version of myself and my style. Even at this stage, it’s bittersweet - letting go of the pregnancy / postpartum clothes I’ll no longer need carries both feelings of grief (in saying goodbye to babyhood) and feelings of freedom. I find motherhood is full of these kinds of tensions.
Wow, I really relate to this. I’m a first time mom (to a baby girl also named Frankie!) and only four months postpartum and have stowed all of my maternity clothes in a bin in my closet that I would love to just donate, but I have this thought in the back of my head that I may need them again some day… the thought of going through pregnancy and the postpartum period all over again sounds like a nightmare right now, to be honest. I don’t know if I have it in me. Part of me wants to just get through this and be relieved I don’t have to do it again and my body can be my own again, but another part of me worries that this is selfish, vain and shortsighted and I would come to regret not having a second… I don’t have to make this decision now by any means, but it’s one that I am already agonizing over. And I do think about the clothes that for now, would they still fit after a second pregnancy? Not the end of the world, but I do feel sort of in this weird in between state that I can’t really settle into or fully commit to.
"Mothers asking whether this is the year for the postpartum glow-up or the year to try for another baby." Feel this in my soul! I'm picking the glow up after two babies / breastfeed for 5 years!