Post-Baby Body Blues

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If discussing gut flab isn’t your thing, leave now, because I’m about to let it all hang out.

If there’s a word stronger than blues but less severe than depression, I’m there when it comes to how I feel about my body post-Emma. I used blues in the title because it was alliterative and I’m nothing if not a fan of a good alliteration.

Y’all, I pretty much can’t stand my body right now. I’m about 10 pounds above my pre-Emma weight (which was 10 pounds above my pre-Joshua weight) and somehow those 10 pounds have made me at least two sizes bigger. I’m officially the heaviest and biggest I’ve ever been in my life and I pretty much hate it.

I mean, on the one hand, I look at my kids and I look at my body and I’m all “HOLY CRAP! I GREW TWO HUMANS!” This Rah-Rah-ing is especially stronger after my VBAC. I grew two humans and then my body pushed one out of my vagina with no pain medicine.

That’s pretty freaking amazing and my body did it.

But then there’s two weeks ago when I wanted to take Joshua to the park and had no shorts to wear. A skirt was out because my thighs rub together so vigorously it’s like they’re trying to start a fire that would melt a glacier and really, skirts aren’t playground appropriate.

So I put on my “skinny” jeans. And by skinny jeans I only mean that the style. They certainly aren’t the smallest pair of jeans in my closet

They were snug, but they fit, so off to the park we went.

(Also, have I mentioned we live in the south? AKA the surface of the sun? If skirts aren’t playground appropriate, neither are jeans.)

While traipsing around the playground, I had a moment of panic when I stopped dead in my tracks between the fort and the swings as I realized that my gut flab was touching my thighs. INSIDE MY JEANS. Like, full on, stomach skin on thigh skin.

People.

My thigh bone may be connected to my stomach bone but my stomach and thighs are not actually supposed to touch when I’m STANDING UP AND WEARING JEANS. (There’s a little more leeway here when I’m sitting down. But not much.)

It was a million degrees that day. And I was wearing jeans AND a baby while chasing Joshua around the playground and attempting to play with him. So I decided I needed to buy some shorts.

I bought two pair in my normal size–a 16. I mean, that’s what size the jeans were, right? They didn’t fit. Like, couldn’t even get them up over my thighs they were so tight. So, I bought two more pair from a different store, in a size 18, for “breathing room.”

They didn’t fit.

NOT A SINGLE THING IN MY CLOSET FITS.

Honest to God. Nothing.

(Just so you know, the fact that I can zip those skinny jeans doesn’t mean I should zip those skinny jeans. Or that the zipper isn’t damn near about to burst out of the seam exposing my gut flab to all the world and scaring any innocent passersby who happen to see it.)

Know what’s especially bad about nothing in your closet fitting? Aside from the nakedness and only being able to fit comfortably into yoga pants and knit skirts?

I have nothing professional to wear and I’ve got an interview on Friday morning.

I’ve been to every store I can think of and tonight, I bought a pair of “Women’s” pants. At the advice of the sales lady, I bought a 16.

The sales lady needs to go back to sales lady school. They were the wrong size.

I mean, they zipped. But I’d poured about ten pounds too much sugar into that five gallon bag if you know what I mean.

I don’t FEEL like I look two sizes bigger than I was before I got pregnant with Emma. I don’t FEEL like I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been.

Tomorrow, I’ll take those pants back and exchange them for another size. The biggest size I’ve ever owned in my life.

And then I might just have myself a good old fashioned cry.

I’d have an ice cream and a glass of wine, but that seems self-defeating.