Marit about nasty comments after childbirth: ‘You have stayed a bit firm’
Photography: Laurens Eggen
Marit Haegens-Brugman (33) is married to Dylan and mother of Nami (3 months).
It was a week after I gave birth. I proudly went out for a walk with my husband and daughter for the first time. I was happy, after shedding a lot of maternity tears earlier that day. The sun was shining, the pram was still spotless. The maternity nurse took a picture of our family. Yes, this is what they meant by that pink cloud. I didn’t even feel insecure about my postpartum body for a while. Until an acquaintance came to greet us on the street. Proud as a peacock we showed our daughter. He asked me: how is your recovery going? I said, “Very good, actually!” To which he replied: ‘You can’t see it.’
This is not a joke from a failed comedy, this actually happened. Just like the moment that a week later I ran into someone I knew in the supermarket who congratulated me on my daughter and immediately added: ‘You’ve been a bit firm about it.’
Bye, pink cloud feeling
There went that pink cloud feeling. I thundered hard from it. Tears welled up in my eyes and I felt a lump in my throat. And because I felt pretty good about myself both times, it hit me all the harder. It triggered my eating disorder. That little old voice showed up and said, See? YOU have a distorted body image. You thought you looked good, but others disagree.
“The comment triggered my eating disorder”
My husband was so angry about it. He would have preferred to stick a maternity bandage on their mouths to cover their mouths. A compliment from my husband could not repair the damage. I
I have to say: it kept me busy for a while in the weeks that followed. The hormonal changes didn’t help. Fortunately, I have already recovered from my eating disorder and I don’t easily fall back into old patterns.
Performance
But please dear people: can we stop making comments about the appearance of the maternity woman? Hello, we just brought a child into the world. There is no make-up artist next to our maternity bed. And if we managed to put on sweatpants and a T-shirt in the first week, that’s a big achievement. It is that there is not yet an Olympic medal to be earned, but it is not very far from it.
