Dealing With Post-Pregnancy

Many women are used to living in bodies that are outside the perceived “norm” (if we want to avoid even trying to define what the “norm” is anyway).  But there are times when our bodies seem to intersect.

For example, it’s generally assumed that all brides will try to lose weight.  It’s just the accepted norm, in my experience.  If I had a friend or coworker getting married, she was probably talking about her diet and the boot camp classes at her gym.  I didn’t do that, though.  Actually, I had to exchange my wedding dress for the next larger size a couple of months before the wedding because I had gained weight since buying it.  I didn’t try to gain weight, but I was stressed due to graduate school and I’m a stress eater.  But that’s a different discussion.

Weddings are one of those experiences where people sometimes have behavioral and physical expectations of others.  Another one of those experiences?  Pregnancy.

It seems fairly simple, right?  A woman gets pregnant, the baby grows, the woman gains weight, her shape changes, and so on.  We’re all roughly familiar with the expectations of the process.  If you read enough articles or blogs written by pregnant or formerly pregnant women, you also learn that people feel free to comment (often!) about the size of a pregnant woman’s belly.

Even that, in a way, is the norm.  But that wasn’t my experience and, even now as my son nears three months of age, I’m still trying to fully process my pregnancy experience.

I didn’t have the big belly.  I’ve been overweight or obese most of my life, yet during pregnancy, I didn’t gain much weight.  By the time I went in to give birth, I had gained 10 pounds.  My son weighed 8 pounds, so I was back at my pre-birth weight before I even came home from the hospital.  I was healthy throughout the pregnancy and my son is perfectly healthy, so it’s not that anything was wrong – but by the reactions of people throughout my pregnancy, you might think so.

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