The Glamorous Beginning of Motherhood….

Have you seen all the Hollywood mothers out there?  You know the ones I’m talking about – they are equally fashionable when they’re carrying the extra baby weight as when they’re not and they somehow magically show up in their pre-baby bodies approximately 3 months after delivery, usually at some fancy awards show wearing a designer gown, draped in diamonds.  This portrayal of those early phases of motherhood as something so glamorous truly makes me laugh.  Actually, I was so hormonal after the births of my children that at the time seeing such women was more likely to make me cry…

 

I had girlfriends kind enough to tell me that after delivery, I shouldn’t expect to look much different than I did when I showed up to birth each bundle of joy.  Somehow I just couldn’t believe that.  After all, a whole person was moving out and that had to make a big difference….right?  In a word, “no.”   Everyone will be overjoyed about the new baby, but your body will somehow resent the fact that the nine or ten months of baby growing are now over. 

 

So, you head home from the hospital and have high hopes that as you walk around in your zombie-like state, you can at least put on a pair of decent pants and perhaps a shirt that doesn’t look like a mu-mu.  This is where I wonder what the Hollywood moms do.  Surely they can’t walk right in the door when they get home with the baby and walk right into their designer jeans too, can they?

 

Once I settled into the fact that I would still be walking around the house in what I was wearing prior to delivery, I also began to have this weird feeling that I was being followed.  And do you know what?  I was!  It was my new rear-end!  It had grown to new dimensions and it followed me everywhere I went.  Whether I was trying to feed the baby or even trying to do something relaxing like take my first shower in two days, there it was – and it had two friends tagging along in the form of new thighs.

 

I’m happy to report that during those first post-partum months I learned to be forgiving of my body.  I developed an even greater awe of God and His infinite wisdom in figuring out how to keep the human race growing despite ourselves.  This body, this blessing,  has given me two of the most important things in my life so I celebrate it – even for the times when there was more of me than I normally prefer.  And of course, with consistent workouts and good nutrition I’m getting back to my “normal” and even looking forward to taking on some new fitness challenges.  It hasn’t been glamorous and I’ll never be one of those moms on the cover of People  who jumps right back into her “skinny” clothes, but I’ll trade glamour for what I’ve been blessed with any day.

 

Stay tuned for some of my preggie pictures… I wouldn’t want you to miss out on what a 55 pound weight gain looks like J