I'm standing in my undies inside my closet, cursing the mirror and its offensive reflection. My waist has returned, but my widened hips make its small size look ridiculous and disproportioned. A soft pooch hangs off my abdomen like a deflated kickball. Giant pink stretch marks stripe my hips, and some smaller ones are even on my thighs. I turn around and look at my backside. Yep, there too. It looks like a cat clawed my rear end. I need to lose about 25 pounds to get back to my pre-baby weight. At 6 weeks postpartum, you can forgive yourself all the flaws and extra weight, but at three months you start to get restless with your new look. Never before have I so much dreaded bathing suit weather.
But that's not even the issue I'm struggling with right now. I can always avoid getting into a bathing suit. But what I can't avoid (not without going stir crazy) is having to go out into the world in front of people. In regular clothes. I am fed up with struggling to find something to wear! Only about 15% of my clothes fit, and only half of that I can nurse in. For 12 weeks I've practically lived in yoga pants or stretchy lounge pants. If I've had to go out, I've rustled up a couple of sundresses that work, or I've used the Bella Band or a hair twistie looped through the button hole and around the button to hold up my undone jeans, but those tricks will only get you so far before you get tired of them.
My issue is this: I don't want to wear maternity clothes anymore because I'm not pregnant and don't want to look pregnant. But my regular clothes don't fit. But I don't want to buy new clothes because I'm (probably vainly) hoping that I will lose the baby weight soon, and the new clothes will be useless. So what's a girl to do? I could stay sequestered at home in my yoga pants, or I could accept the reality that it may be a while before my clothes fit and break down and buy some transitional clothes. Be warned: if the hormones don't give you the baby blues, your postpartum body might put you down in the dresser dumps!
But that's not even the issue I'm struggling with right now. I can always avoid getting into a bathing suit. But what I can't avoid (not without going stir crazy) is having to go out into the world in front of people. In regular clothes. I am fed up with struggling to find something to wear! Only about 15% of my clothes fit, and only half of that I can nurse in. For 12 weeks I've practically lived in yoga pants or stretchy lounge pants. If I've had to go out, I've rustled up a couple of sundresses that work, or I've used the Bella Band or a hair twistie looped through the button hole and around the button to hold up my undone jeans, but those tricks will only get you so far before you get tired of them.
My issue is this: I don't want to wear maternity clothes anymore because I'm not pregnant and don't want to look pregnant. But my regular clothes don't fit. But I don't want to buy new clothes because I'm (probably vainly) hoping that I will lose the baby weight soon, and the new clothes will be useless. So what's a girl to do? I could stay sequestered at home in my yoga pants, or I could accept the reality that it may be a while before my clothes fit and break down and buy some transitional clothes. Be warned: if the hormones don't give you the baby blues, your postpartum body might put you down in the dresser dumps!
Amen! About 12 weeks after Sadie Mae was born, I was frustrated and got rid of EVERYTHING in my closet that didn't fit (basically everything). I thought I would never fit into them again.
ReplyDeleteWell, here I am almost a year later with only about 4 shirts in my closet. Thankfully, I didn't get rid of my jeans... but I'm getting pretty tired of wearing the same shirts over and over.
Give it some time.
Yoga pants are still okay!!!!
And I'm so glad I'm not the only one who has stretch marks on my hips, thighs, and butt!!!!!
It took me awhile to lose all of the baby weight too! I will say that once I was at your stage where I was sick of maternity clothes but couldn't fit into my normal pants yet, that I went to buy a pair of jeans that were on sale at Target for 5 bucks. Yes, they were bigger than normal, but they fit, and I felt better. Now they are too big...that will make you feel better once the time comes...it just takes awhile!
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