Did you immediately feel ‘lighter’ after giving birth?

[Bubblewrap22]

Nearly 40 weeks and I am so done with being pregnant. It goes without saying I can’t wait to meet our little (or big!) son but I’m also looking forward to being able to walk again without wadding. I feel like I’ve been waddling since 28 weeks. I’m so so large. I didn’t realise at the time but I was actually ‘ skinny’ before being pregnant and now I can’t even feel my collarbone.

Did the ‘emptying’ of your baby immediately after birth give you a feeling of being lighter? And the loss of placenta? I know swelling and general weight can take much longer but I’ll be happy if I can just actually walk and exercise again without feeling like a sumo wrestler.

Anyway - nearly at the finish line and so excited. They say walking encourages labour but I can barely walk to my kitchen without feeling like I need to sit down

Well I blacked out the first time I stood up but I instantly lost 2 stone in giving birth. Big baby.

as someone else said. It’s the last thing you will care about !!!

I can’t say that I felt any different. I had expected to feel more my normal self again, but I still looked and felt like a beached whale. It took me several months before I felt that I looked myself again.

Yes! I got my lungs back again.
Baby, placenta and fluid weigh quite a bit really.

I felt really great - much, much lighter. I do remember though lying down and seeing my belly and thinking, "Oh that's nice and flat again" but then standing up and realising it really wasn't!

I’ve lost weight in all my pregnancies so felt tiny and so much lighter after each one.
Particularly after my first, I think because I was so young my stomach went to virtually pre baby straight away, I just had a tiny extra roll. Everything I’d read said to keep the maternity clothes for afterward but I had to send DH out for pyjamas and jeans as my maternity stuff just fell down!
With DC3 I was polyhydramneous and huge my water broke ten hours before I had any contractions. My bump went from 56cm to 37cm in that time, I could finally breathe. It was amazing.

Same… 3 weeks to go for me. I can’t wait to be able to take deep breath 😮‍💨🥲 so done…

I did a bit but when my milk came in my boobs were HUGE and heavy and a bit sore all the time... I was able to exercise pretty normally by three weeks pp (hugely lucky with my birth) but I needed two sports bras and still couldn't really run with those boobs (I cycled instead).

Not lighter immediately.
i felt better than I had in ages straight away. No headaches, no nausea, and just generally well. I had been pretty sick in the run up and spent the last two weeks of pg in hospital.
I remember about two weeks later, going for a walk with the pram and realizing how much easier it was without the big belly.

I did! It took me four months to lose the baby weight, but I immediately felt more comfortable - as a pp said, being able to lie on your back etc feels amazing!

Sort of, the indigestion disappeared and I could get up out of low chair without having to roll onto the floor and push myself up from my hands and knees! I didn't really gain any pregnancy weight but I remember definitely feeling bloated with water (which was delightfully sweated out overnight for a few days!) and just very blugh for a week or so afterwards. But I was thrilled to be able to do things like tie up my own shoe laces.

i was heavier leaving the hospital than I was going in to give birth. Some kind of swelling.

So no, I felt awful and my stomach was like an under filled beanbag.

It was nice not having a foot sticking into my rip cage though.

Sorry OP but no. My swollen ankles got worse and I can recall them raising the bed for my legs in the maternity ward. I was still in maternity clothes for at least a couple of weeks afterwards. I can recall going on holiday when DS was 6 weeks and getting myself a few cheap clothes in my new larger size. Took me around 6 months to get back to a size similar to pre-pregnancy. Shame I didn’t have the discipline to stay at that size!

Yes! With my DS2 I remember in the hospital after I'd had him saying to DH how relieved I felt not to be pregnant any more, it literally felt like a weight off my being!! Breathing comfortably and moving a bit more freely was amazing. Tbh I didn't feel quite the same with DS1, think I was in shock at the reality of having pushed a human out my body and all that it brings. But after DS2, hell yes 😅

Yes, immediate relief from anxiety and heartburn, swelling went down within 2 days. I was sore everywhere but I was so much smaller and lighter!

Yes! And let me tell you that rolling onto your stomach afterwards is the best feeling in the world.

I felt half the size after my waters were broken. The relief was incredible

I did with my vaginal births. I felt really thin and light (I didn't look it though) and I enjoyed being able to put socks on without it feeling like I was doing martial arts. After my c-sections I was in agony and still weighed the same as I did when I went into hospital.

10000% both times. The lower pelvic pain when walking was gone immediately too.

I don’t think ever felt ‘lighter’. I felt heavy and full of milk and sleeplessness for weeks after, BUT, I remember the first time being able to lie on my front and flip around side to side with ease at bed time again, a glorious relief!

Yes! I had GD and I lost a lot of weight during the pregnancy from following the diet and regular walks. I knew my face looked different and my arms and legs, but after I gave birth I realised just how much I had lost. I continued to lose weight in the first couple of months of breastfeeding.
I remember having to ask my mother to go out and buy me some clothes because everything was swimming on me.
It had been my dream for years to lose weight like that. I should’ve been delighted. I really didn’t care very much. All I kept thinking was I don’t like my face like this. I had very bad PND though.

I didn’t go full term so never felt heavily pregnant. But I was 20 lb lighter and back to pre-pregnancy weight (5 lb baby) and the heartburn was instantly gone. For a few weeks you feel a little different every day as things move back. It’s possibly the equivalent of having a bug when the d&v finally stop. You don’t feel normal by any means but there’s a very definite improvement.

The waddle, the pelvic girdle pain and the feeling of something pushing up against your chest goes almost immediately.

The sudden panic of not feeling baby movements anymore doesn't fade as quickly IME, I remember in the first week feeling a jolt of panic that I hadn't felt movements for a while before realising that's because the baby is now in my arms!!

I couldn’t believe that the niggling hip pain disappeared the second I gave birth, I was still heavier but I felt like I got my body back in terms of movement and discomfort

I lost 15 kilos in the week following the birth of my second baby, and he was only 3kg of that! 🤣

I've never felt so skinny and empty but the mirror was humbling.

Oh my gosh yes!!! I felt a million times lighter and just felt so much more like me, I could walk properly again, bend down easily etc. I just felt like I had a bit of a flabby belly but noticed a massive difference straightaway, and that was both times