Postpartum Recovery: Because “Bouncing Back” Is for Rubber Balls and Boomerangs

Let’s be honest—pregnancy is basically a full-time job where your body is the office, your hormones are upper management, and no one’s allowed to take a lunch break.

By the end, you were probably waking up every 45 minutes to pee, roll over, or wonder if your ribs could actually crack from baby kicks. Then came labor—which, whether it lasted four hours or four days, was basically the final boss level of the whole experience. And it wasn’t just physical. Oh no. Giving birth is an emotional rollercoaster with surprise twists like “unexpected decisions” and “wait, no one told me that could happen.”

From contractions to care plans to trying not to punch someone who said “you’re almost there!”—you did it. You made it through. You brought a human into the world. That’s major.

So now what? A nap, right?
Not quite.

Because somehow, somehow, society expects you to “bounce back.”

Excuse us—you are not a rubber ball. You are not a boomerang. You are a human being who just performed a physical and emotional miracle.

There is no bouncing. There is sitting.
There is waddling.
There is wondering why your uterus feels like it joined a kickboxing class.
There is figuring out how to feed a baby while also Googling “is it normal to cry every time I look at a burp cloth?”

This is postpartum, and it’s a lot.

You might be sore, swollen, leaky, sweaty, weepy, and not entirely sure what day it is. (Spoiler: it doesn’t matter. Time is fake in newborn land.)

Your hormones are throwing a rave, your body’s healing from something huge, and your emotions may or may not be held together with a granola bar and a 12-minute nap. This isn’t the time to worry about jeans or green smoothies or your inbox. This is the time to focus on you—recovering, resting, and figuring things out one bleary-eyed day at a time.

You’re not bouncing back—you’re rebuilding.
You’re learning.
You’re healing.
You’re doing something amazing, even if your shirt has spit-up on it and your coffee’s been reheated three times.

So go easy on yourself.
Say yes to help.
Say no to anything that sounds like “should.”
And remember: just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.

You’re doing great.
You’re enough—even if the only thing you accomplished today was feeding a baby and finding a semi-clean pair of sweatpants.