Like most mommy-type people, I have a love/hate relationship with my body. I lack a sense of scale – there are no full length mirrors in this house. I often don’t know EXACTLY what I look like head-to-toe until I’m in a department-store dressing room – at which point it becomes “Oh my GAWD I can’t believe I left the house looking like this.”
And then we get to the naked stuff. If how you look dressed is important, how you look naked should be equally as important, right? Yeah, that’s where I fall into the floor sobbing in a heap. Three pregnancies, two breastfed babies, several hundred pounds gained and lost and gained again. After Joe’s pregnancy, my skin said “Yanno what? Hell widdit. I give up.” My stretchmarks have stretchmarks.
This is what I looked like 3 days before Joe was born (he’s 3 now). Because of the forementioned issues with sense of scale, I didn’t crop out the counter behind me. It is this picture that helps keep me centered when I look at pictures of myself today. Great belly pic, right? Awww, who are we kidding? that thing’s HUGE! I couldn’t drive my van – because I couldn’t steer without hitting my belly. With the seats all the way back. I know my blood pressure was high, but I don’t know HOW high. The main descriptive word in my life was
Although this isn’t necessarily my starting point for my current “get healthy/7 in 07″ goal, it is an important marker for me. That is my “never again” photo. I will never again be that stressed-out, that careless with my health (another post in and of itself), that… miserable (is miserable the right word? I don’t really think it is but we’ll run with it.).
I’ve seen that picture give or take a dozen times but yeah that’s a big belly.
Will you have babies for me? *bats lashes*