This Breastfeeding Mom Took a Selfie in Adult Diapers 24 Hours After Giving Birth

Updated on Jan 21, 2016 at 1:21 PM

Any mom who recalls the disposable underpants they had to wear after giving birth will certainly relate to a selfie snapped by Erica Andrews, who took a selfie in "adult diapers" just 24 hours after giving birth to her fifth child.

The Ohio-based midwife shared the photo — which also shows her breastfeeding her newborn son Silas in a sling — with the Facebook page of baby sling company Sakura Bloom on Tuesday, and it's garnered more than 127,000 "likes" and 33,000 shares.

Why? Because she honestly and eloquently says what we've all thought that first day after welcoming a new baby into the world: "my body feels like it ran a marathon."

Her encouraging words didn't end there. Here's her entire post:

This is what 24 hours postpartum looks like. Baby in sling. Skin to skin. Adult diapers. And a rosy glow. My body feels like it ran a marathon and my heart is wide open from yesterday's travels. Birth opens us like an earthquake opens the earth and I am still in the intimate, fragile throes of that opening. I feel raw. Emotional. Different. I feel like I'm on the undulating surface of the rippling ocean being tossed back and forth between happiness, gratitude, melancholy, and grief. 23 hours ago I held life within and 24 hours ago I surged and transformed allowing life to flow through me, into my waiting hands. The emptiness in my womb brings a heavy feeling crashing into reality but then this new little life whimpers, searching for the breast with soft rooting, and I feel whole again. I am still processing the beautiful transition my whole family has traveled through and I am in complete awe of our strength as humans, women, and mothers. This time is simply unlike any other.