I used to be pretty darn happy with my perky Ds. Then I got pregnant and they got alarmingly large. Now that I’ve stopped breastfeeding…let me paint you a picture.
Have you ever blown up a balloon, not tied it and let it go? It flies around the room, finally sputtering and dying, completely deflated on the ground.
Yep, that’s about accurate.
I was going to wait until after my 6-week checkup with my OBGYN on Thursday, but I couldn’t wait any longer – I joined WeightWatchers Online and got started! Their PointsPlus program has a breastfeeding option, so I figured it was okay to start it since I’m not depriving myself of what I need to keep producing milk for C.
I’ve done WW online before and lost 10 pounds in one month (then I got pregnant with C and had to stop!), so I’m excited to start back up with it again. It’s so easy to see what you’re eating, what foods/which times of day are your weak points, and I love the graph that tracks your progress.
Now to wait until Thursday’s appointment to get the “ok” to start working out! 
Goodbye, baby weight – hello, goal weight! 
Ugh…I didn’t want it to get warm so quickly. I don’t have anything to wear!
I’m in this “in-between” phase for clothing options and it is not fun! I have a pair of maternity jeans from early in my pregnancy that I’ve been wearing, but they tend to fall down easily since I don’t have the belly to hold them up. I have sweatpants. Other than that…I need to lose another 2-3 inches in my waist before I can comfortably button my pre-pregnancy pants. Boo!!
This would be less of an issue if the seasons hadn’t changed drastically between my pregnancy and post-partum attire needs. I was pregnant in the height of winter, so all I have are warm clothes to wear right now!
Can’t wait for my 6-week checkup when I can get the OB’s “ok” to start working out. I have a feeling that, if I didn’t have a c-section, I would fit into all my pre-pregnancy clothes by now. But since I can’t do anything to workout my abs, it’s a bit difficult.
How long did it take you to get back into your pre-pregnancy clothes? What did you wear in your “in-between” phase?
I have a few different pregnancy apps on my iPhone, and for the past few weeks my baby’s size has been the equivalent of a watermelon. This week, that watermelon is now between 6-9 lbs (goodness, I hope he’s not 9 lbs!). I can definitely tell that my belly is huge, because it’s getting in the way quite often…
The other day, I pulled on a pair of maternity jeans that I hadn’t worn in a week or two only to discover that they were a bit tight in the behind. There hasn’t been any other change in the way my other pants fit, so I don’t know if my butt is expanding or if the jeans were in the drier too long. :’( Needless to say, my body image took a bit of a hit at that moment.
Later, the hubster was lying on his stomach when I walked into the room. My eyes went straight to his tiny, tight butt and I almost burst into tears. I whined, “Will you still love me if I end up with a big butt?!?!?!”
Thankfully, the hubster has been very kind with my crazy body image issues lately. He even offered up the ultimate sacrifice: he asked if I wanted him to get fat with me.
The larger the baby, and therefore I, get, the more I feel like there is a 2×4 stuck in my core that is impossible to bend over or around. It makes me feel a little hapless sometimes, because I’d really like to be able to lean and bend over to reach or clean things. I can only imagine how I’ll feel as I get closer to full-term!
I had no choice any longer. I was down to one bra that fit without hurting. I just can’t keep these suckers contained anymore! Off I went…to the lingerie department. Looking around to make sure no one I knew was in sight, I made my way over to the super ultra large cup section. The kind of bras you might remember hanging in your grandmother’s shower. I was horrified.
I was even more horrified when one of them fit. It was gloriously comfortable, and I had to purchase it. Then, of course, I chose the line where the lady in front of me took FOREVER to check out. No lie – six people managed to get through the line next to me while I was standing there with this hideously large bra in my hand, waiting for this woman to finish her transaction. For the love of all that is holy, just let me get through this line!!!
When it was finally my turn, the lady lets my ginormously, shamefully huge bra sit on the counter while she has me scratch off a discount ticket, scans my credit card, checks the signature…basically for an eternity. And the person in line behind me was a man. I have never walked out of a store so quickly as I did when she was done helping me check out!
Then I remembered – they’ll only get bigger!!! I think I’ll be purchasing my future bras online.
At 16 weeks, my increasingly protruding belly has had me thinking about my body image quite often lately. I feel very “large and in charge,” and I know that my belly is going to expand a LOT more than I could even imagine right now. The more I obsess over it, the more I have been thinking about how society socializes girls to think about their bodies. Even as little children, we’re taught through media and society that a curve here or a larger than normal body part there renders us completely unattractive. I cringe when I hear very thin women talking about how big their calves are or how disgusted they are when their upper arms jiggle. We spend way too much time worried about imperfections that we perceive.
Now that I actually do have a noticeable belly, I realize how inaccurate my perceptions of my body have always been. Even when I was in great shape, I never wore shorts because I felt like my thighs were too big and I always had an obsession over my stomach because I didn’t have washboard abs. The fact is that I have an athletic build – my thighs will always be bigger than some because they are muscular…and that translates with any other body part I might obsess over.
These revelations about my own body image have freed me in a way, but I still am struggling with the way my body is changing. Trying to reprogram my brain from wanting to hide my stomach to celebrating in my new bump is difficult. I hate looking at myself in the mirror without clothes on, because my stomach is growing straight out. It makes me self-conscious to see the stretch marks that are sprouting there and worries me to think of how many I will have once my due date rolls around. I’m a work in progress, but I’m trying. I think pregnancy liberates women to look at their bodies in a new way, and perhaps appreciate what they have even more after delivery.