Kelly showed up to her Postpartum Project session having already been for a run. At 3:30 in the morning.
This tells you basically everything you need to know about her.
She’s a former competitive swimmer and cross-country runner. A lifelong endurance athlete.
She came to motherhood thinking that this foundation would carry her through.
And it did, but only part of the way.
What she didn’t realize until she was in it is that athletic endurance and parenting endurance are two entirely different things.
“Childbirth is like doing an endurance thing. I was an endurance swimmer. Well, you always have the option to stop in sports. And so this I wasn’t prepared for, not having the option to stop. You could run away and not take care of your kids, but I don’t consider that an option. So I’m like, you can’t take a break. You can’t stop. You can’t. And this isn’t something you can practice for.”
Kelly’s first child arrived when she was 29, in the middle of business school, managing job applications, and preparing for a move to a city she and her husband hadn’t finalized yet.
She knew she was committing to 18-plus years of momming. She just didn’t fully understand what living inside that commitment would actually feel like.
What she lost wasn’t what she expected to lose.
Before her first baby, she was someone who got things done. On time, on top of it, always executing. She trusted her own competence completely.
And then she had a baby, and that just stopped working reliably. The fog, the exhaustion, the bloodshot eyes, the sense that she couldn’t find herself in any of it.
For someone whose whole identity was built around that capability, the disruption went deep.
“I like to get shit done. I’m good at it. And so it was an immediate disruption to my ability to predict how long it was to take to do things… I would try to leave the house, and I couldn’t find my purse because my daughter had stolen it and taken everything out of it.”
Childbirth is like doing an endurance thing. I was an endurance swimmer. Well, you always have the option to stop in sports. And so this I wasn’t prepared for, not having the option to stop. You could run away and not take care of your kids, but I don’t consider that an option. So I’m like, you can’t take a break. You can’t stop. You can’t. And this isn’t something you can practice for.
She’d also had some body image struggles before having kids, and expected the physical changes of pregnancy and postpartum to make those worse. They didn’t.
Instead, the question shifted entirely.
“I was surprised because I feel like I’d had some body image issues before I had kids. I thought that weight gain or body changes would be really negatively impactful to me. But that hasn’t been the case. It has been more about what can I not do? So that’s actually helpful because it makes me care more about what I want to be physically able to do.”
So at 35, she walked into a gym and told the very buff fitness assessor her goal. He was clearly expecting something else. Her answer: she just didn’t want to get osteoporosis and fall down and die at 70. He asked her how old she thought she was. She told him you have to start now.
She started weightlifting. She found yoga. She eventually left a corporate marketing job because she couldn’t find time inside it to take care of herself.
The body focus that started as prevention became the thing that helped her rebuild her sense of herself entirely.
“Now I try to prioritize it. But I was thinking about it, and yes, I went out for a run this morning, but it’s only been in the last couple of years that I could have done that in the morning before school because the kids needed my help.”
You can get torn down, and you can rebuild in a different way. And I think that’s what happens, and it’s uncomfortable. You don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s okay.
She also made a decision early on, informed by years of teaching elementary school, that she was not going to do things for her kids that her kids could do themselves.
She knew what five-year-olds were capable of. She’d had 24 of them in a room at a time.
“And I had to stop John all the time because it is really a lot easier to do things for them in the very short term. So I’m satisfied with my decision to make them be independent, even though it did take more effort because now I can have a life.”
Pushing through those years paid off. Her teenagers do their own laundry. She hasn’t touched her son’s in years and she is not remotely sorry about it.
Her kids are 15 and 11 now. Funny, perceptive, independent.
“I’ve told people that if you don’t think poop is funny, you should not have children. And we were so proud when David first started understanding sarcasm. I remember we were in the Field Museum in Chicago, in the gift shop, and he was maybe six. He picked up this book, a sketchbook or journal or something, and it had a picture of a dinosaur on it. And it said, ‘All my friends are dead.’ And we were like, oh, he’s going to be okay. Our work here is done.”
These days? She can also see the end of the active caregiving chapter in a way she couldn’t from the starting line. When you can see where the marathon is heading, the hard miles feel different.
After the session, she said it was more fun than she anticipated – and she hadn’t really thought about how fun it might be. Her experience wasn’t recent, and she said it was cool to rewind and reflect, to have the space to process what her journey actually was.
“You can get torn down and you can rebuild in a different way. And I think that’s what happens and it’s uncomfortable. You don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s okay.”
The Postpartum Project is a documentary portrait series capturing the real stories of motherhood, like the ones that don’t fit on a birth plan.
If your story is ready to be told, I’d love to be the one to document it.
Learn more or book your curiosity call below.