Doctors recommend that you don't do any vigorous exercise or conditioning training until 6 weeks after giving birth (especially after a c-section). The idea behind this is to give your body a chance to recover after pregnancy and giving birth. However, your body never truly recovers. Pregnancy damages muscles, tendons and tissue, and changes your hormones and body shape. There is nothing we can do about it, other than surgery, to get our pre-pregnancy bodies back. I've heard this complaint from every biological mother I know, and I know a lot.
Let me tell you about my personal experience.
I was skinny before I became pregnant with my twins.
My tummy skin was smooth with no stretch marks. I was happy with how I looked.
Then the doctor said to my husband, "Congratulations, you're a father of twins". I was made to stop dancing as the pregnancy was high risk. At 10 weeks, people who knew me well could tell I was pregnant, and I only grew exponentially from there. I had round ligament pains from early. I could feel all the tendons in my body "relaxing", or rather causing me pain as the bones flopped apart. I saw a stretch mark starting right down low and increased my tissue oils from twice a day to 3 times. I soon became to heavy to turn in my sleep and I couldn't get up off the floor. I couldn't sit up from lying down without help. I worked until 34 weeks and hospitalised for pre-eclampsia from 35 weeks. The stretch marks grew until I had a roadmap all over my tummy. Then I had a c-section. This is major abdominal surgery. They cut through your lower abdominal muscles. It is really painful and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
With the babies out of my tummy, it was all jiggle and no substance. I waited the 6 weeks as advised and then started gently.
Skip to today, 5 years after I gave birth, and I can see how much my body has changed.
My stomach muscles are strong, but there's a split down the centre of my abdominals. This happens to all pregnant tummies to varying degrees. I have a friend who had a 5 centimetre gap in hers after having twins. Mine is probably about 2. I have a lot of loose skin, stretch marks and cellulite, which I didn't have before. My skin is dryer, my face is ageing twice as fast as before, my hips and feet are bigger, and my breasts are nicknamed Flopsy and Mopsy. I'm also overweight and am struggling to get that under control.
How does this affect belly dancing? A lot.
Firstly, you have to work very hard to get your abdominals back in working order, and then even harder to get them back to the level they were at. Some women don't find this as hard as others though. It is supposed to take 2 years or conditioning to finally get movement in your lower abdominals after a c-section, so go easy on yourself if it's taking a long time.
Secondly, getting used to your new body takes time. You don't recognise it at first and slowly have to come to accept it. Some ladies never do. They are constantly trying to get their pre-pregnancy body back and don't realise they have a new body. The execution of moves may look different to how they did before.
Next, your body image takes a good whack and it's hard to get back up. My body image certainly took a beating. Honestly, I'm still bruised from it, but I'm working on it.
Our bodies have created life and changed. Your life changed and so did your body. It doesn't look or respond the same as it used to, but that doesn't mean it's not a good body. It's your new body, it created life and it can create art too.
So let's be kind to post-pregnancy bodies. Let's look upon them as beautiful instead of damaged. Let's bare our stretch marks and jiggliciousness.
Image: that's my belly the night before I had the twins.