Monday, January 30, 2006

Pop!

A few weeks ago I moved into almost exclusively maternity pants. I probably could have stuck it out in my old pants a little longer than 12 weeks, but the maternity pants were so comfortable that I said screw it. Anyway, even though I've been in maternity pants, my old shirts still fit.

Until this weekend! On Saturday I put on maternity jeans and a long ribbed T-shirt - one I bought last year specifically for the time between regular shirts and maternity shirts. Anyway, it had fit a few days before, but by Saturday it was too short to cover the demi panel on my pants. I have a belly!

I'll be the first to admit that I have had some body image issues most of my life. I was a super-skinny, straight-up-and-down teenager; no matter what I ate (and I love to eat), I weighed 97 pounds. When I got to college, that started to change - I was still thin, but suddenly I had breasts and hips and curves, and it made me nervous. Not to mention that I have a very fat-phobic mother and everything in our house for a while was fat-free this and low-fat that. Enough to give anyone a complex.

Anyway, you might think and introducing pregnancy into that mix would be a disaster. In fact, it was the opposite. I LOVED being pregnant - the bigger my belly got, the more I liked it. My pregnancy with Joseph was the only time in my life that I've loved my body unconditionally, and it was an amazing feeling. I was a little anxious afterward when I wanted to lose the weight, but I told myself not to obsess, and I think I did a pretty good job. (I ended up getting pregnant again at about 9 lbs over my pre-Joseph weight.)

I have a friend, C., who's about 5 weeks ahead of me, also pregnant with her second child. A mutual friend of ours told me that she saw C. a few weeks ago and said, "Oh, you're getting a belly!" and that C. seemed insulted by that. I can't imagine that. When people say to me, "Oh, you're getting a belly!" I positively beam.

(It also doesn't hurt that Andy loves my pregnant appetite and pregnant body. I remember last time, I was changing one evening in our room and his face lit up as he said, "Your behind is getting so BIG! It's GREAT!" I told him that the genuine sincerity in his voice was the only thing that kept that from being #1 on the list of things not to say to your wife.)

In other news...

- the shower is this weekend and so is the memorial at the hospital. I'm proud of myself that ever since I made my decision about the shower, I haven't given it another moment's thought. Usually I second-guess decisions to death. Maybe I'm finally learning not to care what other people might think.

- still feeling vague flutters and blips but nothing more substantial for the last few weeks. I'm guessing it will pick up over the next month or so.

- work is busy but I think we're all setting into the routine of the reorganization. We're still short staffed but things are moving more smoothly than I'd thought they would. My promotion is still in the paperwork phase (damn academia) but I found out that I'll be getting a bonus to tide me over til then. Nice!

- Our vacation is coming up; I absolutely cannot wait.

1 Comments:

At Wednesday, February 01, 2006 10:44:00 AM, Blogger cat said...

Hurrah! Congrats on the belly! It is nice to have husbands who appreciate the rounder things in life.

 

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