An open letter to New Dads...

Congratulations Dad!!

How do you feel? Overwhelmed? Scared? Totally and completely in love with the tiny being you helped create in your arms? Life is truly an amazing and wonderful thing. No doubt you and your love are exhausted (her especially) after working together to bring this little one earth side. There are so many blogs, and journal writings about the beginning of parenthood. About its hard times, and about the precious moments that will bring you to your knees. This letter is to you...the father.

I want to ask that you hold this moment tenderly in your heart, and take in what I am going to say. Your wife, girlfriend, love, is about to go through one of the hardest realizations of her life. The realization that her body will never again be the same. Think about this for a moment. Maybe she was thin her entire life, and her belly remained small. Maybe she has always been on the larger side. Some women do indeed look very much the same that they did before giving birth, short months after they gave birth, but I am going to be very honest when I say that those women are very rare and genuinely lucky and blessed with good genes.

Most of today's society puts an insane amount of pressure on moms to "snap back" to their original form after giving birth. "Loose the baby weight fast!" or "Wear this waist trainer after giving birth to get your waist line back!" are commonly heard by post partum moms. The truth is giving birth, though natural, is something the body needs TIME to recover from, and by recover I don't mean loose weight. I mean time to stop bleeding...time to rest...time to allow her muscles to heal and begin the long stages of shrinking from being so stretched...time to allow stitches (either from a c-section or an episiotomy) to heal. Time to embrace motherhood and the responsibility of keeping a baby alive.

I have had 3 children. I am currently 4 months post partum and I will tell you that I do loose the weight that I gained during pregnancy very quickly...but the one thing that has never returned to pre-birth is my stomach. My skin will forever be stretched. It will forever be scared. It will forever be loose and tucked under the buttons of my mom jeans. I beg of you new dads... look at your darlings in this new light, see her stretched skin, her scars as a reminder of the agony she went through to bring you that little one in your arms. When you lay together again to make love and she tries to hide her changed body, reassure her how her body is now sexier to you because she is a WOMAN, and no longer a girl in your eyes. A giver of life. These are the words my husband spoke to me, and continues to speak to me as I grieved the loss of my pre-child body.

The most incredible thing you can do for your recovering wife, is hold no expectations. If she desires to go to the gym..let her. If she is happy with her body, and lets her child's feet walk on her squishy tummy, embrace the tenderness of that moment. If she cries because she cannot fit into her old jeans, hold her, and tell her how amazing she will look in new jeans, and that her curves from children stir your soul.

These images are the reality... Don't let today's media take away the precious changes your darling's body will go through after birth. Don't let this reality be one that is tainted in "weightloss tricks" and "snap back" schemes. Embrace her body's changes..help her to embrace them, no matter how big or small the change. She will need you in these times of weakness. She will need to feel beautiful, sexy, and desired. Show her she is all of these things please. You are her rock. You are her support even after the pushing and contractions have stopped. She still needs you. Thank you dads.. Thank you for your kind and open hearts. For your acceptance of us as we are in motherhood, and for your help in battling what media tells us we should look like. There is no "Should." there is only the reality.


Sincerely,
Corinne Oestreich

Mother of Hunter: 4
Emma: 2
Surrogate Mother to: Alaya 4 months