First came love, then came marriage, then came the baby weight and granny panties.Then came baby and away went cute clothes, regular showers and glancing at my reflection in the mirror. I knew I had thrown in the towel, I just didn't need to see how far down the bottomless well it had fallen.
Losing weight post baby was a catch-22, I just didn't know it yet. Now my giant mommy tummy sags downward like our national flag on a steamy, stagnant summer day. Any minuscule iota of movement only worsens the view exponentially, inducing a flap-flopping motion as though a gale force wind has made its uprising. Unfortunately, my jowls of a dog mid-section doesn't blow away with the tropical storm force, but rather remains hanging southward, clinging to the rightful owner by shreds of skin (stretch marks) so thin I can nearly see the meat of my flesh underneath.
The stretch marks themselves used to appear bright red, screaming, "Look! You just gained a ton of weight in your tummy, thighs, underarms and butt! Ha, ha!" Nowadays most of them have faded to my normal, pasty, un-sun kissed skin tone. Alright, so my tummy has never seen the light of day. Had I known the reconfiguration of my body's physique after carrying a child, I would have taken extraordinary advantage of it, flaunting my once youthful Belly Button of Olde.
Just this week I caught Pumpkin sneaking a peek at the havoc run a muck on my midsection. I gathered my hair up into one of the two hairstyle options I have every day: ponytail or ponytail. When I started twisting the stretched out rubber band around it, my shirt lifted above the top of my jeans and, not surprisingly, my tummy pooched out. Pumpkin kept talking, but her eyes fixated on what she saw for a few seconds every time she started a new sentence. I asked her, knowing full well, what she spied. In her meager attempt to acknowledge, yet avoid her culpability in the "situation" going on beneath my shirt, she replied, "Nothing."
I persisted and asked if she saw my tummy. Then the floodgates flew open: "What is THAT?" She stared at my wrinkly belly. I explained what the stretch marks were and why I had them. Pumpkin grabbed my top and pushed it up past the underwire in my bra to survey the landscape only to seem utterly astonished at how they kept going and going and going...they were (and still are) everywhere!
She put her index finger in the air and looked at me like she does when she's about to do something she shouldn't. "Go ahead if you want," I conceded. Eagerly, her finger ran from top to bottom on all the stretch marks on my tummy. I asked Pumpkin what she thought about them. Her blunt response didn't startle me as much as the delivery. Confidently, as though confirming her hypothesis, Pumpkin declared: "They're like dead snakes." Sadly, I couldn't agree more.
Based on these findings, I'm officially banned from most nudist colonies 100 degrees North and South of the equator. Sweater vests have also permanently clawed their unattractive, fashionless selves into my year-round wardrobe staple list along with sweat pants and my aerodynamic, multi-faceted bras engineered by NASA's own command central. They employ the only qualified engineers in this continent with the capability to, against all odds, functionally levitate my droopy boobs above my waistline since their condemnation by gravity and motherhood.
Much to my own chagrin, I weighed the most I've ever personally recorded just before I found out I had a bun in the oven. In spite of this, I continued to gain the expected 30 pounds of pregnancy weight and checked in at my 38 week appointment topping out at 211 lb.s. My Ob/Gyn said my weight gain was, "perfect."
I'll never forget that. I sat dumbfounded on the crunchy exam table paper seriously considering pregnancy full time, Duggar-style.
When did weighing over two hundred pounds translate into perfection? Of course I fully realize the weight gain remained relative to the pregnancy, but I'd rather suffer through the labor of childbirth before asking what my doc honestly thought about my weight overall...and labor I did. For forty-seven hours.
My fail-safe for losing the postpartum baby pounds quickly fell through the cracks as well. Pumpkin had difficulty latching on and nursing because she had a tongue tie. We tried for a while, but it never went much of anywhere without frustration on both sides.
All of the weight I had earmarked to slide right off from breastfeeding not only stuck around in its tragically disproportionate location, but also migrated south permanently. And when I say "south," I don't mean Canadian geese style south where they head back north come Spring (after I became my un-pregnant self again.) I mean "south" as in the South Pole Antarctic. Even my boobs morphed into a version of an Antarctic local, the Chinstrap penguin: about 18-24 in. long (just like the twins) and similarly, also both 9 pounds each, possibly more.
Sometimes I wonder if all the worry and thought I give to my appearance doesn't masquerade as a diversion from what really matters in life. I have to prioritize myself so I can live as the best possible version of me because if I am not taken care of, there isn't much of me to give to Pumpkin. However, the amount of time I spend thinking about exercising and eating less nowadays almost seems equal to the hours I wasted stressing about how I looked before losing weight.
Stepping out of my running shoes after 5.5 miles became much easier than stepping off the mental treadmill of body image obsession and how it directly affects my mood. And if I'm really honest, it probably also affects my attitude and patience with Pumpkin. Regardless of the amount of weight I carried, I always preoccupied myself with concern over how I measured up with other moms, either celebrity or friends. For instance, it took me four years to reach a pre-pregnancy weight, and it only took ____ four months!
And when I didn't fixate on others, I spent even more time measuring up against myself. Do I look the same in my skinny jeans today, weighing 143 pounds as I did when I weighed 143 pounds before I got pregnant? Does that really matter? Did it matter when I weighed 243 pounds? I wish I had all the answers!
Maybe I should be less concerned about my waist line, and instead draw a waste line around the time I spend fretting over appearance because the bottom line is: I can't control what others will think when they look my way. Appearance will not matter in 100 years, but the time invested raising a little girl whose confidence comes from the knowledge in her head and her heart, will. She may gain or lose a few pounds, but she cannot earn or lose my love.
I'll never forget that. I sat dumbfounded on the crunchy exam table paper seriously considering pregnancy full time, Duggar-style.
When did weighing over two hundred pounds translate into perfection? Of course I fully realize the weight gain remained relative to the pregnancy, but I'd rather suffer through the labor of childbirth before asking what my doc honestly thought about my weight overall...and labor I did. For forty-seven hours.
My fail-safe for losing the postpartum baby pounds quickly fell through the cracks as well. Pumpkin had difficulty latching on and nursing because she had a tongue tie. We tried for a while, but it never went much of anywhere without frustration on both sides.
All of the weight I had earmarked to slide right off from breastfeeding not only stuck around in its tragically disproportionate location, but also migrated south permanently. And when I say "south," I don't mean Canadian geese style south where they head back north come Spring (after I became my un-pregnant self again.) I mean "south" as in the South Pole Antarctic. Even my boobs morphed into a version of an Antarctic local, the Chinstrap penguin: about 18-24 in. long (just like the twins) and similarly, also both 9 pounds each, possibly more.
Sometimes I wonder if all the worry and thought I give to my appearance doesn't masquerade as a diversion from what really matters in life. I have to prioritize myself so I can live as the best possible version of me because if I am not taken care of, there isn't much of me to give to Pumpkin. However, the amount of time I spend thinking about exercising and eating less nowadays almost seems equal to the hours I wasted stressing about how I looked before losing weight.
Stepping out of my running shoes after 5.5 miles became much easier than stepping off the mental treadmill of body image obsession and how it directly affects my mood. And if I'm really honest, it probably also affects my attitude and patience with Pumpkin. Regardless of the amount of weight I carried, I always preoccupied myself with concern over how I measured up with other moms, either celebrity or friends. For instance, it took me four years to reach a pre-pregnancy weight, and it only took ____ four months!
And when I didn't fixate on others, I spent even more time measuring up against myself. Do I look the same in my skinny jeans today, weighing 143 pounds as I did when I weighed 143 pounds before I got pregnant? Does that really matter? Did it matter when I weighed 243 pounds? I wish I had all the answers!
Maybe I should be less concerned about my waist line, and instead draw a waste line around the time I spend fretting over appearance because the bottom line is: I can't control what others will think when they look my way. Appearance will not matter in 100 years, but the time invested raising a little girl whose confidence comes from the knowledge in her head and her heart, will. She may gain or lose a few pounds, but she cannot earn or lose my love.
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