F*ck You, Heidi Klum

As if it is not enough: diapers, baby brain, midnight feedings, sore breasts, bizarre...other things, laundry, LIFE... but added to the whole pastpartum game we have to now have assholes like Heidi Klum who do Victoria's Secret fashion shows 4 weeks postpartum. It's like there's a sort of race going on, and the onus is on you to be back in shape before you leave the hospital. And frankly, I'm pretty pissed off about it.

Yes, you could say 'well, that's just you doing that to yourself - no one is saying you have to do that' and while I am certainly not one to be a slave to media ideas about how I should look and be as a woman, but really, these images and ideas are so pervasive, it's hard to ignore them. My child is 5 weeks old and I cannot tell you how many times already I have berated myself (perhaps with an older, less evolved part of my brain?) for not looking better.

The other day as I exited the studio after an audition (yes, I was back to work before Zola was 2 weeks old - that's a whole other post...) I heard a loud catcall 'eeeyow!' and I swung my head to look, accustomed (in a former life) to that noise being pretty regularly directed at me. I spun around and saw that the young man in the black Mercedes was actually catcalling the slim, hip little wisp of a girl who was entering the studio and I felt strangely crestfallen. I mean, I laughed, I made a joke - it was funny, but then I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in a shop window across the street and it was a crushing thing. And it's one thing if you have the baby with you, carting her around in her seat or in the sling at least you are a walking advertisement that you have recently given birth. But here I was, babyless for one small hour and no one could see me as anything but a chubby lady well past her twenties. And it sucked.

I have a 5-week old baby. 35 days. That's 840 hours. And somehow between recovering from her birth, taking care of my 3-year old, keeping my house together and being a working actress, I'm supposed to be camera-ready. Seriously. I mean, they called me to do an audition on Monday last and I could only think "I can't be on camera yet!". And that's not to mention trying to comprehend child-care for the two kids, a milk supply for this tiny vulnerable being...and spending quality time with them. And nowhere in all of this is there any mention of, or time for -- ME. Just plain me. Me as a woman, as a wife, as a creative being, as an artist, an entrepreneur. How can I process going to the gym when I am still up 3 or 5 or 7 times a night and can't even manage to vacuum my bedroom?

Look, I don't know what kind of mother Heidi Klum is. I can't help but wonder who the hell is watching and loving and caring for her 4 children (one newborn!) while she is getting into good enough shape to do such a show. Alternatively, there is the notion that she simply cheated and that is almost as infuriating as the first notion. We could all walk the catwalk if we had it all nipped and tucked while being delivered from our conveniently scheduled c-section.

But I digress.

At the end of the day I hold this tiny, gorgeous little person and I smell her delicate new baby smell. She rests her small head on my shoulder and breathes little sighs into my neck. I feel her warmth and the round little swell of her impossibly tiny bum and I try to keep focused on what is important. Already she has grown so much in these 840 hours. Her teensy ears, still so pliable that they are often folded forward when I sweep her up from nursing in my arms; already they have grown at least a centimetre, a heart-breaking little centimetre. The fragile, scrawny newness of her, her skin pink and tender has already begun to give way to a paler, heartier girl. Her little fingers are straighter, plumper, her cheeks have begun to fill out and I gasp when I see her feet finally touching the bottom of the sleeper in which she (and Nahanni) swam so short a time ago. I remember when Nahanni grew out of that sleeper, it broke my heart and I know this time I will actually weep. Every little milestone I lament 'Oh, that's my last___________!'. I try to focus on that, on the fact that all of this is the last time in the world I will experience it -- and more than svelte thighs or taut abs, this is the stuff of life. Today I held my daughter tight, I cradled her in my arms and slept while a blue sky breeze wafted through the window beside us. I know soon she will be too big to nap in my arms.

So I skipped pilates. Sue me.

I know eventually I will swim my way to a surface that allows me to claw my way back to some semblance of myself. I will once again do yoga and pilates and even lift weights. Hell, I may even do cardio. I will one day work on set again, albeit as the mom and not the ingenue.

But I will never again, as long as I am blessed to live, have a lovely, sweet, vanilla-breathed 840 hour old baby.

So f*ck you, Heidi Klum. My abs can wait.