I Had a Baby at 6 Months. This Is How I Learned to Forgive My Body.

The evaluation ended with my trainer asking me questions about my life and my current routines. I found myself pouring my damn heart out. The truth is I had been desperate to talk about it with someone for a while; she’d just forced me to finally take a step back and look at myself (and supplied a willing ear).

That incredibly patient and committed trainer, Ariel Comeau, has since told me that she thinks “women who have experienced challenging pregnancies often have more understanding that [recovery] will take time because they were forced to realize that they could not be in control of all that happened to their bodies.” I have certainly found this to be true, though I’ll also admit that our first training sessions were infuriating. A simple plank was exhausting, and I struggled with basic balance moves that I could have breezed through two years ago. That said, the constant measurements and goal setting associated with the Tier X program actually provided a nice counterbalance to all the evaluating I’d gone through in the hospital (and throughout my pregnancy, frankly): These tests were, truly, about me. (It’s worth mentioning that not all the goals were physical—trying to cut down my screen time at night and get better sleep were important areas of focus.)

Comeau told me to use my sessions “as an opportunity to get to know [your body] better.” Even more important: to “learn the difference between pain and discomfort.”

In coaxing my body back into movement, I was gently leading my mind toward acknowledging the things my body had experienced and the new body that had come out on the other side. So planks were harder because I’d had abdominal surgery, but I could measure my progress. My muscle mass had diminished over the past year, yes, but I could watch myself get stronger. The simple act of getting changed in a locker room with other women was a sacrament. There were all these other women’s bodies, and there was mine. My postbaby body.

I’ve kept up with my training (note: The first six sessions were generously comped by Equinox, but I’ve paid to keep it going), and I’ve started talking about my experiences more openly—with both friends and on the podcast that I cohost for Glamour, “Work Wives.” (If you’re interested in knowing more about my experience having a baby at 28 weeks, you can listen to the “Motherhood by Fire” episode below or wherever you get your podcasts.)

As Dr. Birndorf said, it would be silly to think that coming back to myself was as simple as “going to the gym.” “We’re all struggling to be integrated selves, I think that’s the goal of life,” she tells me. “And when you have an experience like what you’re describing, it makes it that much harder.”

But I will say that the journey toward “reintegrating” myself started by looking at my own body squarely and attempting not to layer judgment. I would never have guessed in a million years that the gym would be a good place to do that, but for me, it was. I’m slowly learning that this body is mine; it belongs to me. Its scars are my scars, and its experiences are also mine. It’s not perfect, but it is enough.