Let’s Stop Clicking on Stories About Celebrities’ Post-Baby Bodies

Today I "stepped out post-baby," also known in the tabloids as debuting my post-baby body. At least I think today would be considered my official debut—I left the house to work at a café after months of maternity leave.

According to the headlines, celebrity moms debut themselves after childbirth in a variety of ways. Some, like Blake Lively, "display" and/or "flaunt" their post-baby selves by wearing clothing—not even necessarily revealing clothing—to press events. Many "show off" en route to the gym, à la Jessica Biel. Others simply venture out in public with a friend, like Jaime King. ("Less than weeks after giving birth to baby Leo, Jaime King is already making her way out into the world." Less than weeks? And wow, to think, boldly being visible out in public like that.)

Apparently, when you are famous and have just given birth, such normal-seeming activities become "debuts," opportunities for the world to examine how well your looks fared during that whole growing-and-birthing-a-human-being thing.

My baby, Ben, is a little younger than Princess Charlotte, but my post-baby looks don't quite resemble those of Kate Middleton, reigning queen of the post-baby debut. Except in the sense that we both have ears. But since Ben is my third baby, and most of my close friends are now moms, I do consider myself something of an authority on post-baby aesthetics.

Here are some unvarnished highlights of what a post-baby debut may involve, whether or not you get a Duchess Kate–inspired new-mom blowout. Your boobs are riding low and heavy, and yet bras feel excruciating (thus why I'm rocking the built-in-bra cami as though I'm back in middle school). Your cleavage is so deep you recently lost a pacifier in there for half a day. Your ribs have shifted outward in such a way that favorite dresses will never again zip, whether or not you reach your pre-pregnancy weight. Your thick pregnancy hair is falling out in larger clumps with every shower, and your hairline has receded a little on one side. Bald patches have emerged in your brows too.

Foreign freckles and moles have invaded your skin. There's a brown line down the center of your belly that seems it'll never fade, and your former innie of a belly button is looking to be permanently out. Want to talk about stitches and hemorrhoids? OK, let's not.

You wait weeks to finally get a manicure and then feel guilty that even the five-free polish is probably toxic to your infant. Four months after giving birth, you still look five months pregnant in certain outfits. You finally get all prettied up, for someone's wedding, only to leak breast milk all over your dress while dancing, despite having hand-pumped in a bathroom stall for half an hour.

Now imagine experiencing even a handful of these things while telephoto lenses are trained on you and millions of strangers are scanning you for signs of the slightest new flaw. True, most of them mean no harm; they're just looking for signs that you're human too. But the pressure is real. File this under "one time in life when I would not want to be a celebrity." OK, except for the live-in-baby-nurse part.

As for my third post-baby debut, I actually feel a million times better this go-round. Knowing what to expect—and having learned that the essence of motherhood is never really knowing what to expect—has made me more at peace with my changed looks. I've gotten back in a bikini twice before, and I know I'll do it again. My hair will get its act together. I will someday get a pedicure. For now I'd rather focus on playing with Ben, who will be walking before I can blink. I know all too well that this fleeting moment we're in together is precious. Maybe that's why, when I glimpsed my naked body in the mirror the other day, I was flooded with a foreign feeling: a wave of actual love and gratitude. I saw not a collection of new flaws but a source of life and profound miracles. Yes, those are the hormones talking, but they're the happy hormones, so I'ma let them finish.

During my first two pregnancies, I wasn't so zen. I tried hard to be all earth-mama about childbirth and celebrate my body's accomplishment instead of obsessing over the sudden appearance of cellulite on my upper arms. But the truth was that I couldn't wait to look and feel like my old self, and I put tons of pressure on myself to get there fast. I know some new moms glimpse themselves in the mirror and feel dismay and even disgust. I know because I've been there. I also know that many of us feel dismay and disgust when we glimpse yet another one of those ubiquitous tabloid stories that analyzes the way a new mom looks. They contribute to the cultural pressure to be not just a good mom but a hot mom and to "bounce back," stat.

It's hard not to click on these stories, even though we realize we shouldn't encourage paparazzi to stalk new moms, who are already vulnerable, riding a roller coaster of stress and hormones. (Yes, professional actors sign up for a certain amount of media attention, but motherhood—especially new motherhood—should be sacred, no matter how high-profile you are.) We click even though we realize we should not compare ourselves with people who have full-time nannies and on-call glam squads. We click even though we realize that every woman's build and metabolism and biology is unique; most of us didn't have Jessica Alba's post-baby abs before we had kids. We click even though we know we'll glimpse comments that make us lose faith in humanity ("Looks like her boobies have deflated!").

Here's what I propose: Let's stop clicking. Just decide here and now that we're not doing it anymore. It's one little but big way we can make our world a kinder place for new moms, and women in general. When you see any headline with any variation on "post-baby body" in it, just don't click. As someone who has been employed as an online writer for a long time now, I promise you that editors will notice that we're all not clicking and that those stories will dwindle and eventually disappear. Wouldn't that be lovely?

I leave you with one honest image of what it looks like to be post-baby. It was taken the day I got home from the hospital, two days after my son arrived.

The shot isn't Instagram-worthy—snapped by my dad while I walked my dog in a puffy and makeup-free state—but it's a moment that is real and unposed, and one that I'm happy to say I find beautiful.

This story was original published on September 3, 2015.