I was aware that my body would not magically regain its pre-pregnancy shape after I gave birth, despite me wishing it to.  However,  I was not prepared for how drastically different my body would be.  It is two months later and I still have roughly 15 lbs of my pregnancy weight to lose (I gained 45).  I am sick to death of all those women in the mommy forums saying how they gained only 10 lbs during pregnancy and are now wearing their old bikinis from college because breast feeding helped them lose so much weight!  Are you kidding me with this?  I know for some women that this is probably true, but there seems to be an inordinate number of them in those chat rooms.  All I can think is that someone is lying….hmmmm…..

As for me, I refuse to lie about pregnancy, birth or motherhood.  I felt duped by the cult of misinformation surrounding those three topics and I would like my friends and family to be more well-informed than I.  So here’s the low down: I swelled up everywhere.  I gained water weight at such an alarming rate that  I know have stretch marks all over my body, not just my tummy.  My legs, arms, hips, and butt swelled so fast that I now have reminders of that lovely, bloated time in my pregnancy.  And while the weight is coming off (I have ankles again, thank God!), the stretch marks remain.

I’m also not going to pretend that things are in the places they were before.  My breasts are larger than ever and now that I’m breast feeding they are beginning to feel the effects of gravity.  It makes me sad to see my absolute need for a bra.  It also solidifies my place among mothers.  My hips also scream motherhood, as they were once considered curvaceous and now may just be called…wide!  I do realize that a baby made its way out through them, and yes, it is probably a blessing that God endowed me with such motherly proportions, yet I still sigh when I see the growing distance between my waist and my ever widening hips.  Once upon a time, my figure was described as “hourglass”, and these days I am beginning to look like an exact replica of one (not the slender, Day’s of our lives ones, but the bulbous ones that sit on chic mantle pieces).

To top it all off I am in the middle of the “wedding years”, in which nearly all of my friends, cousins, college roommates, co-workers, etc are getting married.  On top of these are the endless bridal showers, bachelorette parties, engagement parties, not to mention the usual spring/summer events of graduations and parental celebrations. The problem with all of this is that my old pre-pregnancy clothes don’t fit yet and I refuse to wear my maternity dresses any longer, so I’m being forced to purchase nearly an entirely new wardrobe of event attire.  To add insult to injury, my hourglass figure now makes this even more difficult than it was before.  Plus I have to consider any breast feeding that may need to happen.  So all of my dressy clothes have to be somewhat stretchy.  Ugh! Not easy to find