The wonderful panelists are: Maggie Mason from Mighty Girl; Mindy Roberts from The Mommy Blog; and guest panelist Kierna Mayo from Cafe Mom.

Thank Goddess that someone finally wanted to come out in the open and talk about being happy with their post-baby body.  Including talking about the hush, hush subject of the changes in the landscape “down there”.  Before I became pregnant, the last and final thing that held me back from taking the plunge into motherhood was the question of what it would do to my body.  I was very happy with my body and all of its individual parts before pregnancy.  Don’t get me wrong, by no means did I have the perfect no lump, no bump body but I was healthy and fit and happily curvaceous.  But, as with a lot of curvaceous women, pregnancy can be doubly hard on us since any extra weight just seems to cling like superglue on plastic.  I knew that if I got pregnant I would be in for a fight to get back to where I started from.  But then one day I decided to take the plunge.  My happy existence with just my husband and my parts wasn’t enough and I felt that sacrificing my body to the life of a child would be acceptable.  And now we have our little 9 month old beautiful EJ.  And before I go any further I want to say I wouldn’t trade any lump, bump, or sag in the world for her. 

When your still a “girl” as Mindy Roberts put it, you hear tails of gaining weight when pregnant and then the struggles to lose it.  And you hear the scary stories of that last 15 pounds that never come off.  You read literature that says 30 or so pounds is appropriate for a woman to gain but they never tell you that some woman gain weight just by thinking the about the word pregnant.   They never tell you about the 70 POUNDS you might gain like I did. Yes world, I gained 70 POUNDS  in my efforts to have our healthy daughter.  I want to say that again just to drive the point home.  70 POUNDS!!!  Let me add that it was 70 POUNDS of healthy food weight.  I wasn’t  the one in the fast food drive through everyday.  And I didn’t crave anything bad either.  For me it was red grapes.  It was amazing how many grapes I ate.  I kept thinking my kid was going to come out purple and taste like a fine wine.  I also played tennis all the way up till I was 35 weeks pregnant so it wasn’t like I was holding down the couch either.  I was up and active, getting exercise the whole way through. So, as you can see, all my weight was simply love child weight.  

EJ wasn’t a  large child when she was born, however the doctors thought she was going to be an elephant for as large as I was.  In my 6th month we went and took a tour of the hospital and one of the labor and delivery nurses stopped me as we were strolling around and asked me if I was looking for labor and delivery.  When I told her I was just there for the tour and I was only 6 months along she looked at me with all her years of maternity nursing wisdom and asked me if I was having twins.  When I said no, she then asked me if I was sure I was only 6 months because I was HUGE!!!!  I’ll never forget that.  I mean, that woman has seen so many births and women at the end of their pregnancies to “know” and I was the one that surprised her.  Hello!!  

As you can imagine it’s been a little of a rocky road for my post-baby recovery from 70 EXTRA POUNDS.   Let me say that just one more time… 70 POUNDS!!!  But I’m happy with my progress.  I still have the dreaded 15 pounds that I can’t seem to shake but the rest came off easily enough.  Still eating healthy and playing as much tennis as a new baby will allow.  I even had one older lady tell me that I was losing weight too fast.  I haven’t been doing anything special to try to lose it but when she told me that, I couldn’t help but laugh.  I just loved the irony since, in today’s world where woman are faced with the idea that they have to have their bodies back to pre-baby scale the day after their kids are born, I get the one woman who tells me I’m losing weight too fast.  You would laugh too. I wish I can say that it was due to my discipline or hard work but in reality I think my body is just returning to what will be it’s new “normal”.  What that will end up being I don’t know.  I’m not hindering it in anyway by loading up on junk food but I’m certainly not helping it by living off lettuce alone.  

The other subject that is rarely talked about and even I will keep it to a minimum (I don’t want to make my parents blush too much when they read this) is what happens “down there” after pregnancy.  Yes, the geography all changes folks.  I could repeat the famous “well, you try to squeeze a watermelon…” but I won’t go there.  We have all heard the different takes on that one.  But I will say this to those… um “visitors” to the nether regions. You will never, ever, ever get it, unless you’ve visited the watermelon idea yourself, but please just believe us when we say with only half hearted voices, “Um ya honey, that feels…um…ok.” It’s not because we don’t love you.  It’s just because we don’t recognize or own va-ja-ja’s anymore.  Ok?  Do you need more information on that?  

Aaahemm, moving on.  Can I say I’m happy with my post-baby body.  You betcha!  Am I still in shock as to what’s happened to it?  Yes, I won’t deny it.  I think the thing that surprises me most is how things aren’t where they used to be.  I’m fitting easily back in to my pre-pre pregnancy jeans but I’m still carrying 15 extra pounds??? Huh?  All I can say is it’s because it’s all traveled to different areas of my body.  Those areas that used to not contain much lumpage are now lumpy.  It’s almost been interesting in some ways to see what changes have happened.   I’ll be honest and say it’s easier to go out in public with my extra lumps if I have my child with me.  I have an excuse then.  But do I feel ashamed.  Hell no! Will I do it again!  Definitely! Will it be any time soon?  No, we aren’t planning on planting anymore watermelon seeds anytime soon.

Yep, losing it!!!