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If there is only one piece of advice that you take to heart from my blog, let this be the one.  The longest period of time in your childbearing “year” is the postpartum period.  The childbearing year is about the fact that it takes 9 months in the womb and 3 months out of the womb for your child.  Somewhere along the way we have decided that the mother is also done at the end of the fourth trimester and that just simply is not possible.  Here is a secret, even the one year anniversary of surviving parenthood is not the end of our postpartum period.

What I am going to ask you to do might be the hardest part of becoming a mother.  Stop thinking that you are supposed to be back to normal at 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks postpartum.  Our bodies literally can not do it.  You can rock out that body in a bikini whenever you want, and I want you too, but having an American idealized bikini body is just not in your cards for a long time.  Sure, you can lose the weight, and your menstrual cycle may come back.  Your baby could even start sleeping through the night before you have left your postpartum period.  So how long is it going to take to get your body back to pre-pregnancy health?

6 months until – It takes 6 months or until you stop nursing for the relaxin hormone to leave your body.  That means that the tendons and ligaments are still loose.  Maybe not as loose as pregnancy and birth but they are not stable yet and that is going to affect your ability to stabilize your joints and muscles attachments.  So what does that mean?  You can crunch away at your core but the tendon that attaches those abs to the bones, you guessed it, they are still reaping the relaxin benefits.

12 months plus – It is recommended that you take your prenatal vitamins for a whole year after you give birth or stop nursing.  When you take the prenatal while nursing, it helps to make sure that the breastmilk is full of nutrients but if your diet is lacking baby gets what baby needs first and you are the one that gets deprived.  Taking prenatals for a year without growing or feeding your child from your body allows your body to catch up on any and everything it gave up to become a mother.

18 months plus – It takes 18 -24 months for the tendons and ligaments that were stretched during pregnancy and birth to retract to their original length and regain their original strength and integrity.  This means that even if you don’t nurse or you stop nursing at 3 months, 6 months or a year, although the relaxin hormone has stopped flowing your actual tendons and ligaments have not restored to their proper balance and strength.

So what does this mean for you?  It means that it is going to take 18-24 months to really start to feel like yourself again and guess what?  Usually around 18 months your child starts looking super cute and you start thinking you may want to get pregnant again.  Some families decide that getting pregnant at 12 months-ish is best for their family and that is exactly what they should do.  When deciding to get pregnant before you have completed your postpartum period, you may need extra support the second time around.  This is often when you hear women talking about how pregnancy is so much harder on their body the second time around.  On top of the muscle memory of being pregnant again, the tendons and ligaments are not where they were the first time.  When the tendons and ligaments are not back to their original length and strength it is going to play a bigger toll on your body the next time around and you may notice more pain and discomfort in your body.

So how are we going to turn the fourth trimester from blah to fantastic?  We are going to be grateful for how awe-maze-ing our bodies are.  We are going to allow ourselves grace as we balance home, work, and keeping a human being alive, while recovering from pregnancy and birth.  We are going to stop thinking that a woman’s body is supposed to fit into girl’s clothing.  But most importantly, we are not going to try and rush through the process, because coming out of our postpartum period also means we have a toddler now and we don’t really want to wish away our experience with our babies.  Look forward to things to come, but don’t say you can’t wait.  Soak up every amazing, crazy, moment.  These are the memories that will last a lifetime.