'This Is Hard'! Jeannie Mai Is 'Constantly Criticizing' Herself as New Mom
Reality check. Jeannie Mai candidly detailed the lows of motherhood one month after giving birth to daughter Monaco.
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“I’ve been so low on energy and creativity since being indoors all day,” the Real cohost, 43, captioned a Monday, February 28, Instagram video of herself going on a walk for her “first exercise since postpartum.”
The California native went on to write that she felt “more introverted and cautious of the outside” since her baby girl’s January arrival, writing, “It’s so weird. … I don’t feel like talking, trusting anyone. I’ve become so overprotective that anything could hurt Monaco or my family. Papa Mai and my brother Dennis came to spend time with me, and there’s nothing like family. Monaco [took her] first walk with Papa Mai, the OG who taught me to love the outdoors.”
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The How Do I Look? alum praised nature for helping her “reset,” adding, “[It] gets me to inhale clarity and exhale stress.”
Mai concluded by asking her fellow moms how they “keep positive” while raising their little ones. “When my thoughts roam, I catch myself constantly criticizing how I’m doing this whole mom thing,” the stylist wrote. “Just sharing this as a reminder to be kind to myself because man … this is hard. My nipples bleed, I’m tired and my memory is GONE.”
The Daytime Emmy winner announced her pregnancy news in September 2021 after previously suffering a miscarriage. “I always said I’d never be a mom,” she told her cohosts on the Fox show. “I was like, ‘I know exactly what I want. I know exactly what kind of woman I want to be.’ … There’s so many reasons now that are coming to fruition as to why I would have said that then, but I do know that you never say never, and that love can really change you and I’m so thankful to be on a show that’s really helped me to grow and to evolve and to see myself differently that I would have ever imagined seeing myself.”
Mai gave birth to her and husband Jeezy’s newborn four months later. “I asked God for a life of love and happiness. He sent me my family,” the new mom told her Instagram followers at the time. “Baby Jenkins is here.”
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The Dancing With the Stars alum has yet to show her and the 44-year-old rapper’s infant’s face, but Mai did give an honest postpartum update last month.
“While being a new mom is the most exhilarating moment I have ever experienced in my life — nothing prepared me for postpartum. NOTHING,” she captioned an Instagram photo in a nursing bra and underwear. “The fourth trimester has been the hardest trimester yet, but I’m a happy, healing mom over here.”
