Becoming Mother

I saw this image on Pinterest and couldn’t help myself.

I believe I’m at the “Welcome, Muffin Top” stage.

In my first pregnancy, I didn’t reach this stage until about 20 weeks. I was kind of proud about that. Hey, look everyone! I’ve only gained 10 pounds so far! And I’m not really showing much at all.

Occasionally, I’d find myself in a conversation with another mom.  A smirk would cross her face and she’d say something like, “It’s because it’s your first. You show a lot earlier with your second.”

Those words haunt me.

As I dressed for work at nine weeks pregnant, I thought, Oh… That’s a little tight.

At ten weeks, I thought, Hmmm… Think I’ll need to dress strategically.  I wore larger pants that I had stashed away from those months when I was losing baby weight last time. I wore well-placed cardigans at work.

At eleven weeks, I realized that my profile had actually changed. I tried to suck it in. Ha!

In my default state, I have some floppy abs above my belly button, but it’s normally no big deal. I don’t do mid-riffs and I exercise enough so that I can still wear fitted dress shirts comfortably. Exercise has helped, but it has never made the flobby abs go away.

At twelve weeks, my uterus has just compressed my floppy abs, much like a push-up bra. Only, this shape isn’t very appealing. To be clear, I’m not talking about a rounded, pregnant belly. That’s not what this looks like.

This is more like a two-hump muffin-top.

This past Sunday, I put on a boxy, long tunic and some black leggings. I looked in the mirror and thought, Come on. You still have a bit of a figure left. Enjoy it while you can. It’s not time to completely lose your waist.

So I put on a black, chunky belt over the tunic. Kind of like this one:

I thought it looked okay. It brought my hips back into view and I thought, Yeah. We’ll go with this.

That was until I sat down.

I sat on the couch and felt self-conscious about the way my boobs and my two-hump pregnancy bump crowded around the cinch point.

Then, my daughter turned to look at me. Her eyes zeroed in on the belt. She couldn’t look away.

“You, you, you…” she started pointing.

Oh, God, she’s even stuttering. Here it comes. The moment my daughter says something that makes me feel humiliated.

“You, you…. You got your seat belt on, Mommy?”

Oh, sweet child of mine.