Freida Pinto is sharing her open and honest thoughts about motherhood.
The “Slumdog Millionaire” actor welcomed her first child, a son named Rumi-Ray, earlier this year. And in a candid conversation with her Instagram followers, Pinto shared what the pregnancy and postpartum experience have been like for her so far.
“The Postpartum journey has been one of the most intense and wild rides I have ever been on,” she said. “It felt like the months being pregnant and even childbirth were little appetizers to this grand main course.”
“Preparation was so key to this life altering phase of mothering and I feel so proud, relieved and blessed to have walked into it with knowledge, research and support,” Pinto said, before listing off circumstances that some parents will face and questioning what it really means to be “postpartum ‘prepared.’”
She also spoke candidly about some of the more intimate parts of being a new mother, saying, “It certainly doesn’t mean ... your vagina and the rest of your lady parts will look and feel exactly the same again,” and that, while breastfeeding is wonderful for some women, others’ “toes will curl every time our little baby birds open up their sweet mouths to latch.”
“The preparedness is more so to know how best to tackle all of this and to not feel abandoned by a health care system that focuses so much on your pregnancy and birth and somehow disappears when you are most vulnerable and in the most challenging phase of your life,” she wrote.
The “Hillbilly Elegy” actor and her husband, Cory Tran, posted the first photos of their newborn son last month, just a few weeks after Pinto shared that she and Tran eloped more a year ago. Pinto used an angel emoji in the photo to cover her newborn’s face.
“I celebrate you my husband, friend and partner in life,” Pinto said in the emotional post. “To see you become not just a Dad but Super-Dad makes me so emotional and fills me with joy. It also gives this sleep deprived Mama a break and you have no idea how much I appreciate that!”
“I am so grateful and in love with how we do life together,” she added, before signing off with: “Love you madly.”