Your body: After Baby

"Pretty soon after you give birth (assuming you do not have a c-section), they will make you pee. Yes, in front of them. Although, at that point you don't even care. They have already seen it all! Plus it will be necessary for the nurses to help you into the bathroom because it is pretty hard just to sit up and get out of bed on your own, much less be able to walk yourself the three steps to the bathroom. And unless you want your husband to "help" you, just let the nurses in there! The one thing I was not prepared for, however, is the "inability" to control your bladder. Not that I peed in my pants or anything, but for those first couple weeks once you get to the bathroom and sit down, the pee just starts coming out...there was no "okay I'm going to start peeing now, okay now I'm going to stop," it just starts - and there was no ability to "stop" once it started! I guess when they tell you to do those kegel exercises, they aren't lying. Ha Ha! Totally not prepared for that though! Don't worry - you're not going to pee your pants or anything (atleast I didn't - I'm sure many ladies have though!) but this is one of those things that would have been nice to know beforehand!” - Mama P

“Make peace with the fact that you may not lose all the weight right away. I think I had this expectation that the birth itself would rid me of about half the weight pretty much right away (it didn't) - I still looked 9 months pregnant the day I left the hospital. Granted, I knew that you would still look "pregnant" but I thought I would look more like 5 or 6 months pregnant, not exactly the same as I looked when I came in there! It took about 4-5 days before I lost the majority of the "belly" but even then, I still had a lot of weight to lose. Just remember that it took 9 months to gain it all, so don't be surprised if it takes 9 months to lose it. Several of my friends who are all size 2 and looked adorable lost all of their "baby weight" like 4 days after going home and were back in their pre-pregnancy clothes like 2 weeks later. This is not normal.” - Mama P

“I will admit, I didn't get back to working out when I could have (6-8 weeks postpartum). I just wasn't feeling it. After a few months, I started again, but you are so tired all the time that is the last thing you want to do! I will say though, for the next baby, I will probably force myself to start working out earlier, just because it has been a lot harder to lose the baby weight than I thought. (not that I thought it would be easy, but it just hasn't come off the way I thought it would).” - Mama P