What? You mean you're NOT conforming to the ideal of being a 'yummy mummy'? How disgraceful! What kind of mummy to be are you? You must look like an icecream stick with a bump on it, didn't you know?
ARGHHHHH! I blame the media's obsession with approving of 'stars' who don't "let go of themselves" in pregnancy. In fact, how many of those stars don't even bother? The media then has a love/hate relationship with stars who work towards regaining physical approval by working out after the birth - oooohhh, too soon, bad mother or oooohhhh, there's a shining example, she's skinny again (read: what's wrong with you, it's 5 months later and you still wobble). I HATE IT.
This is how much I hate it: when I was pregnant I actually lost weight in the first trimester, but it wasn't noticeable to many because the people I'd worked with had only known me to be a bit plump (two years before that I was not, but Depo Provera can do that!) and it seemed that I was putting weight on 'responsibly'. A colleague was also pregnant a bit ahead in time of me and I absolutely LOATHED the unfavourable comparisons - "oh, at x weeks, D was so much bigger than you", "don't get as big as D, there's no need and you look great", and "at least you're not as big as D". What???? There is no way I want to be complimented at someone else's expense! Yeah, it may work for other people, but I think it's so hideous and superficial and completely invalidating of the other person, who is doing something wonderful in cooking a little person...why should it matter how publicly digestible my figure is???
We're told to feel dissatisfied with our bodies at every turn and in many ways. Without these messages, we would accept the changes and not have to waste energy on hating how they look. To me, it's like underarm hair. If it weren't so unequivocal that our society wants women to remove it, I'd bloody well leave it and be HAPPY about it. I do not buy when women say "I do it for myself". In fact, every time I do it, I show DP and say "I do this for you" (legs and bikini, too!), just so that we're both under no illusions about my motives. It's a social pressure that I am responding to, and only because he asks me to do it. So, if he's going to ask me to do it, I'm going to let him know when I do it so that he knows I'm indulging aesthetic convention.
So, no WONDER you aren't valuing the changes your body is making (beyond the bump)! We tell women all the time that there is only one nice way to be pregnant and if you don't comply, then it's very unsatisfactory and dont' try to feel nice about it!
My mum is still an offender, though she thinks she's doing a good thing. She keeps saying how nice I look when I'm slim. There's an unsaid "so don't put on any more weight" implied there! And when I have put some on and then lost it, she'll say "oh, you look nice like that, don't put any more on"...which tells me that she didn't like the way I looked before that...and she can't see how conditional that is and that it's upsetting to me. It even upset me when she kept on about how my sister wasn't able to lose her belly after her first baby. It gives me no joy whatsoever to be compared favourably to anyone. I like to be appreciated in my own right, not in comparison to someone related, someone I know or a famous person. Just unconditionally accepted for what I have to offer.
My pg body was not my ideal body with a bump tacked onto it. I knew that whatever my body was doing it had to do. And it would do what it had to do afterwards, too. Two and a half years later my sides still wobble and are soft and untoned. And you know what? My boy loves to stroke my sides and press his hands into them whilst feeding or sleeping I'm literally his soft place to fall, as well as his emotional soft place...and that's my most important role to date. How other people approve or disapprove of it doesn't make a difference to my boy. I give him unconditional acceptance and I get the same back
When a new mother tells me that she is going to go for walks to lose weight or whatever, I dont' make a fuss and I don't tell her it's a great thing - I don't want her to think I approve of the race to 'get her body back'. Instead, I talk about diet and eating useful carbs, proteins etc over eating junk food - particularly because lactation is going to take all the good stuff and leave you with the crap to store in your own body!
Just think, Marilyn Monroe and her peers were lusted after by millions of men, and emulated by millions of women...and size 14-18 was de rigeur among them all!
I am really struggling this time around.
I dont know if its cos I started out 10 kilos heavier than I was with DS1 - I do know I was devestated not to get back to my pre preg weight, after all I had over 2 years to do it.
Part of it is because i put on so much last time I'm terrified of it happening again.
then there are people constantly telling me how huge I am and asking if I'm sure its now twins - yeah that makes me feel better
I know for the most part I am eating better this pg than the last, when I was constantly ravenous.
I'm exercising but no more than normal, prob 45 mins 4 times a week.
I just feel unhappy about it. I do get jealous of those pg women they use for model who look like a size 8 woman with a canteloup up her top.
I REALLY hate that my BBs dont get any bigger, not enough to go up a letter anyway, just a number or too - at least if I felt better in that dept maybe I'd be a bit happier about the whole thing.
Grr, I dunno, part of me just wants it all to be over so I can go to my 6 weeks appt & start WW again.
I'm literally his soft place to fall, as well as his emotional soft place...and that's my most important role to date. How other people approve or disapprove of it doesn't make a difference to my boy. I give him unconditional acceptance and I get the same back
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