A SIZE 8... BUT I’VE LOST MY PERKY BUM!
Music manager claire Reilly, 34, lives in East Preston, West sussex, with her partner Ashley, 35, a printer. They are parents to son Rupert. she says: I had the sort of bump that was so out in front you couldn’t tell from behind if I was carrying a baby. I didn’t put on a lot of extra weight, just Rupert and the placenta.
during birth, it’s amazing how your dignity goes out the window and several people see you naked. But it’s natural, no one’s judging, they’ve seen it all before. I lost all my inhibitions completely.
In the week after Rupert was born, I was amazed by how quickly my bump went down. But my tummy is now sort of soft and flabby and I can wobble it, because the skin’s been so stretched.
I’ve always fluctuated between 8 and 8½st. I’m back at that weight as I have a fast metabolism, but this time my body is different. I can still fit into my old size 8 clothes but not as comfortably.
My jeans used to slide
on, but now the button will just about do up, and after an hour I’m keen to get them off. Another thing that has changed is my bum. A few months after the birth, my mum said: ‘Where’s your perky bottom gone? My boyfriend agreed it’s not as peachy as it once was.
For most of Rupert’s life, we’ve been in lockdown not seeing anyone, so I didn’t really care how I looked, but now he has turned nine months, it feels like a turning point. He’s less dependent on me and I am thinking about my body as separate from my child’s again. But I am full of respect for my body and what it’s been through. I had a miscarriage at 12 weeks shortly before we conceived Rupert.
It was painful and difficult, because I was alone when it happened, but the way my body took over the process, both then and during the birth, made me connect to it more and the power it had to create life.
I also know from friends how hard it can be to get pregnant or keep a baby, so I am not going to moan about my body — I see it as something capable of performing a miracle.