This has been the most perfect weekend.
The weather could not have been better, I got to see friends and read and make soup and spend time with our neighbors…really, just an all-around good weekend.
I’d had an especially rough week at work, and clocked many, many hours, lost quite a bit of sleep, and though this weekend included some work, I needed a few days to be by myself – I ran errands and ambled through Target all by my lonesome and it was awesome – and cook and sleep and kiss my husband and burn Fall-inspired candles. I went a little nuts at Yankee Candle with the Hazelnut Coffee and Pumpkin Pie varieties.
I probably pushed it a little too hard – I’m having some aches and pains that I could do without – but it’s been worth it. I finally feel like myself again, and sometimes it just takes a little downtime to make that happen.
I’m well-aware of how fleeting some of this is, this “feeling like myself” feeling. Or, maybe the better word is “temporary.” The self that I know is about to change somewhat – how can it not? I imagine I’ll still be persnickety, and not like shopping, and really still love scotch and soul music and get super irritable with people who call themselves “experts,” and I imagine I will still be a liberal, and likely want nothing more than an evening with Malbec and dark chocolate and the Real Housewives, but I know that the me I’m looking for now will look a whole lot different a year from now.
It’s perfectly fine by me, and I’m far too old to think that it’s going to negate who I am completely, but it’s still a strange notion just the same.
God, that and the ninth-month pregnant belly. I know the female pregnant body is beautiful, blah blah blah but GOOD LORD. That’s a lot of stress and strain on the skin and I’m not really ashamed to admit that I blacked out momentarily, viewing these bellies because that’s going to be me soon and that just looks like it hurts. A lot. I’m reading about my best birth and hypnobirthing and I embrace the beauty that is this experience and all that jazz BUT OH MY GOD. Again. Ouch.
I don’t think there is enough cocoa butter in the world to make that not seem ridiculously painful.
The belly stretching was never painful for me in any way, either time (and I went 11 days past-due with the second). The skin did itch at times as it stretched, but nothing that creams/oils/lotions couldn’t abate.
However, I’m not going to lie, the resulting stretch marks were *mentally* painful for me. I expected them to come, based on the fact that I already got them on my hips and breasts during puberty, but still, I am somewhat vain and it was hard to accept… Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade my children for anything and I’m glad my body nurtured them etc. etc. but I’m still having issues re-framing stretch marks as beautiful when I really don’t personally see them as such…
I agree with Felicia I’ve had two children as well and the stretching of the skin does not hurt at all but it can itch, although mine didn’t.
My sons are 16 and 17 now and sadly I still have the stretch marks but as I get older they bother me less and less.
My three giant babies ranged from 9 to 10.5 lbs at birth, and I loved natural birth – it was intense and hard work but it was amazing and doable and I would totally do it on a regular basis without complaint. But carrying them around for the last month or two is totally worth complaining about. And I am pretty sure my bikini days are over! But that said, I also kind of feel like it’s just a part of my body at this point. Even the passing thought of someday doing some sort of skin plastic surgery or something is more freaky than exciting to me, so I think I’m more accepting of it at a fundamental level than I am when I check myself out in the mirror before a shower and realize how much has changed from 5 years ago.
If I didn’t any sense, blame my first dose of sangria in about 10 months.
I heard that Olive oil is good. I was too busy working to get around to it, so I can’t be sure of anything. Sigh
I’m just going to say that my belly skin only itched *and* I didn’t get any stretch marks. They aren’t guaranteed for every pregnant lady, so try not to worry about them until/unless they show up. My belly button does seem slightly more “lived-in” than it did before, but it’s not like I was trotting it out for everyone to see pre-pregnancy, so I guess I can live with that.