Actress Aja Naomi King celebrated the significant achievement of giving birth to her first child by proudly giving fans an unfiltered glimpse into her body after baby.
The 36-year-old welcomed a son recently. She didn’t share his date of birth, but she did talk about the ways in which bringing a child into the world, an effort that spanned a few days for her, made her especially thankful for the strength of her body.
“No, this is not a pregnancy Before picture. This is the After. After days of labor. After experiencing what felt like my insides being ripped apart, no lie. After experiencing the unimaginable beauty of childbirth, this is what is left behind. This Gorgeous Body!” she wrote alongside photos of her posing outside in a nursing bra and underwear.
“So in celebration of myself and my body for ‘Doing the Damn Thing’, I wanted to share this photo,” she added. “No make up, no editing, no filters (and you know I love a filter!)…Just Me…a woman in awe of her Body and her Baby!”
The comment section for the image was filled with applause and support from the former How to Get Away With Murder star’s famous friends, as well as love from her fans who were grateful to see what they called a “real” postpartum body.
Her partner, Dan King, celebrated the birth of the couple’s first child by sharing a photo of himself with their baby boy resting in a carrier sling.
The arrival of their son, whose name hasn’t been shared yet, comes after King revealed during her initial pregnancy announcement in March that she suffered two “painful” miscarriages in the past. She was honest about worries she had with her pregnancy based on those losses, but was confident that she and her “rainbow baby” were healthy and would be fine.
“I won’t lie, it’s been hard to not carry my fear with me throughout this pregnancy. To believe that it’s real and that this baby will be okay. That this beautiful gift will remain. But I try to not ignore the facts, and the facts are that I am healthy and my baby is healthy, my baby is growing and now kicking and constantly reminding me of their very real presence within me,” she wrote. “I really just want to say that if you’ve gone through this or are going through this, you don’t have to carry the weight of it alone. And for some
( I won’t attempt to speak for everyone) it can be freeing. So I take this piece of freedom and I hope for someone else it allows them to feel a little less alone.”
