Christina Perri: 'Postpartum Body Without The Baby' Is 'Hardest Part' Of Pregnancy Loss
Christina Perri shares how she healed after her daughter Rosie was “born silent” at 33 weeks
Singer Christina Perri gave birth to her daughter Rosie, who was “born silent” at 33 weeks in November 2020 and now, the singer is releasing an album of lullabies in Rosie’s memory one year later. Now, on November 24, 2021 — the day of the album’s release — the “A Thousand Years” singer revealed to Self that overcoming the pregnancy loss has taken a toll on her physically and mentally and that one of the hardest parts after the loss was living in a postpartum body, “without the baby.”
Describing her body a year ago as “truly, truly broken” Perri said she “had to make it almost like my job to heal my body because I had gone through so much.”
“One of the hardest parts was having the postpartum body without the baby. Looking like I just had a baby, and not having the baby,” Perri confided.
“I actually would get mad when I looked at myself. It was a reminder, every time, of not having her,” she shared.
Perri, who is also mom to three-year-old daughter Carmella, says she went through a lot of therapy to heal from the loss, saying “I have done so much work to be able to talk about it.”
“There wasn’t a day I wasn’t doing a healing thing, whether it was yoga, EMDR [eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy], being in a sauna, eating really healthy,” she said. “I did a lot of therapy: regular therapy, trauma therapy, couples therapy. I really just did the most I could possibly do.”
Perri says there isn’t a widespread cultural rulebook for parents grieving miscarriage or stillbirth, or as she puts it, our culture “doesn’t have the best language around death generally,” so Perri decided honor Rosie’s memory in a way that speaks to her.
A few years back, Perri released an album of lullabies for her daughter Carmella, so she said it made perfect sense to release a second volume in honor of Rosie “because it carries forever the narrative –the correct narrative — that she exists. I have Songs for Carmella, and this is the same album cover. It uses the same font. It’s the second volume. Because Rosie is my daughter. And she will remain part of our family forever.”
Now after a year of grieving, therapy, reflection, and self-care, Perri says it’s the first time she’s truly spent so much time taking “care of myself.”
“While I was healing from losing her, it felt like I was coming into my body for the first time,” Perri explained. “I don’t think I’ve ever taken care of myself as much as I have this year. I stopped looking in the mirror. I stopped trying to fit into my old clothes. I stopped trying to hide my body. It’s probably the most gentle I’ve ever been with myself.”
Songs For Rosie is out now.
