To the New Mom Who’s Uncomfortable with Her Body…

...I see you, I feel you and I hear you. Take it from an "old" mom - in ten years, you won't be thinking about how you should've lost all that weight faster.

Took the weekend to go back to Wisconsin and see my friends and family. I went to Milwaukee Irish Fest to see my old dance school perform and it was like a Glencastle Irish Dancers reunion.

I saw SO MANY WONDERFUL PEOPLE that have been in my life for almost two decades, and one of them just had her first baby in the spring. Ironically, she got married to a radio friend of mine, so it was extra special to meet her little boy.

We took some pics together and this is what she texted me:

This broke my heart to see. She looked absolutely beautiful but I could tell that she was covering up on purpose.

Having a baby COMPLETELY CHANGES your body. Some women are able to go right back to their original size, some aren't. Some women have enough time and energy to work out, and some don't. Even if you DO exercise, there's no guarantee that you'll lose your "mum tum."

Take it from the mom of a 12-year-old who is JUST NOW comfortable with my post-baby body. - don't waste your time and emotions on losing the baby weight. Enjoy this wonderful time with your new baby because it really does go by TOO FAST. I wish I would've soaked up more of that time with my son when he was little, rather than sweating over flattening out my tummy (which was never flat to begin with so I don't know who I was kidding).

You literally grew a human being. That's an enormous task and it can permanently change a woman's body, and that can be a hard pill to swallow. You're tired, overwhelmed and just barely getting by during the day and NOW you feel pressured to lose the baby weight.

I get it. I've been there. But I absolutely promise you that you ARE BEAUTIFUL. When I saw my friend this weekend, there wasn't ONE SECOND that I thought about her post-baby body. As my mom said, "Your face lit up when you saw your dance friends."

We love YOU for YOU and we don't care about your mum tum or the spit-up on your shirt and your baby DEFINITELY doesn't care how you look. Try and remember that when you're worried about looking "fat" in photos.