'This Is What 24 Hours Postpartum Looks Like': Mom's Honest Selfie Goes Viral

Mom’s honest postpartum selfie is making the rounds on Facebook

It’s funny that there is so much talk about “post-baby bodies,” because anyone who’s given birth knows that the state of your body is the last thing you’re thinking about during that postpartum time. One mom took to Facebook to show what a body really looks like after labor — and her message is refreshing.

“This is what 24 hours postpartum looks like. Baby in sling. Skin to skin. Adult diapers. And a rosy glow,” Erika Andrews, a mom of four from Zanesville, Ohio writes. “My body feels like it ran a marathon and my heart is wide open from yesterday’s travels.” She posted the photo to the linen company Sakura Bloom’s Facebook page just 24 hours after giving birth.

Mesh hospital panties? Check. Belly still looking like there’s a baby inside? Check. Infant by your side like an extra appendage? Check. This photo is so real it’s awesome. All first-time moms-to-be should take a good look.

Not only is her appearance refreshing, she manages to put the rollercoaster of emotions you feel after birth into words: really poetic ones. Not sure what Andrew’s occupation is, but if it’s not songwriting she really missed her calling. “Birth opens us like an earthquake opens the earth and I am still in the intimate, fragile throes of that opening,” she writes. “I feel raw. Emotional. Different. I feel like I’m on the undulating surface of the rippling ocean being tossed back and forth between happiness, gratitude, melancholy, and grief.”

Yes. That’s a feeling many of us can relate to: happiness the baby has arrived mixed with the sadness that sometimes comes when you are no longer pregnant. There’s a closeness mom’s and babies have that’s hard to put into words: for a brief moment that being is all yours: “23 hours ago I held life within and 24 hours ago I surged and transformed allowing life to flow through me, into my waiting hands. The emptiness in my womb brings a heavy feeling crashing into reality…”

The photo has been shared over 30,000 times and liked over a 120,000 times. It’s a beautiful reminder of how strong women are– and that post-baby bodies are real, gorgeous, and have nothing to do with how closely they resemble the body before it’s housed a child.

“I am still processing the beautiful transition my whole family has traveled through and I am in complete awe of our strength as humans, women, and mothers. This time is simply unlike any other.”