I'm not a vain person but I do feel like I am in a process of mourning my old body - not that it was a particularly great one, but it was one I had known for nearly 3 decades and I had grown used to and accepted the bits I didn't like. Now I have a new bit that I don't like, quite a large obvious bit in the form of my stomach which means my bikinis will be going in the next trip to the charity shop. The only advantage being that it makes the bits I didn't like before seem not so bad now!
If truth be told, I feel like I don't even recognise my stomach any more and 4 months on it still doesn't feel like its part of my body. Its not helped by the fact that I still have a large numb patch next to my caesarian scar which I don't hold up much hope of getting any better given the length of time which has passed. I can't bear anyone else touching my stomach and I can only just about stand to touch it myself - in fact I keep making myself touch it by rubbing in the bio oil to try and make the stripes disappear and to get used to it.
I keep telling myself that I will get used to my new stripey stomach but I think its going to take a while and buckets of bio oil in the process. Deep down I worry about going through the process again if we decide to have another baby. Will I reuse the old stretch marks or will I get even more? How can I get more stretch marks? There's no skin left on my stomach to stretch! Can you get stretch marks on stretch marks? Please God no!!
Aside from the numbness and the stretch marks, I do of course have a little baby pot belly but by contrast I'm actually quite attached to this new squidgy bit.
When I think of my own mum, I love her squidgy bits the most as those were the most comfy bits to cuddle into when I was a little girl. I think I'd be sad if my body came out of the 9 months of carrying Josh without some kind of badge of honour and for me that's my squidgy bits.
So despite the obvious war wounds
which I am still working on accepting, I love my new squidgy bits. They remind me of where my baby came from and I know they will be bits that Josh will love and want to cuddle into when he's older.
Great post on the squidgy bits. I was quite irritated about my new *ahem* silhouette, until I talked to a friend my same age who's never had kids. It turns out that she was experiencing the same belly issues (although not to such an extent). Nature ... whaddya gonna do?
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