I had honestly forgotten how much I’d hated my postpartum body nearly twenty-five years ago after I’d had my first baby, Bella-Lena. Last night I was sitting here feeding RR in the wee hours of the morning and I guess that was the catalyst. At three thirty am I was Alice in Wonderland and fell down a hole, landed right there, a brand new baby and a body I didn’t recognize.
I’m not sure if I made too big of a deal about it at the time. I didn’t discuss it with other people really. Were other women feeling the same thing?
I’d luckily always had a very healthy metabolism and could eat and eat without gaining a pound. When I’d first gotten pregnant with Bella-Lena I was slim with a flat stomach. I was pretty confident in my skin.
I came of age with some pretty skinny role models, well not role models but people who seemed influential, Kate Moss for example. Just like Twiggy in the sixties, waif-like skinniness was cool in the early 90’s.
So after gaining nearly seventy pounds in my first pregnancy thanks to pre-eclampsia, well that and a very insatiable appetite, I didn’t recognize my postpartum body. It really bothered me. My flat stomach was gone. The taut skin on my flat stomach was gone.
I remember going shopping when Bella-Lena was about a year old and being disgusted with myself in the mirror. Why did that body have to leave me. How will I get it back. How do I deal with this body.
It was a very big upset in my life. Of course I was more than happy to have this baby but who was I now? I couldn’t wear the same types of clothes that I did pre-pregnancy. I had to totally change my style and honestly even my feet got bigger.
Nowadays, a quarter of a century later, I’m cool with it. At the time however, it was a shock to me. I’m happy to notice that nowadays it seems that women are nicer to themselves. They’re better at being happy with whatever shape they have. I am too. At forty-nine I’m definitely, let’s say curvier, but I’m alright with it.
I just wish I had been nicer to myself in 2001.
bloom.planted.north 
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