Post partum landmarks

If you read the pregnancy and birth books then the post partum landmarks go something like this:

• First few days breasts produce colostrums
• 3-5 days after birth full milk comes in
• blah blah blah
• six week check after birth
• blah blah blah
• two years later you might feel like having sex again

That’s all well and good, though Mr. C might argue how good the last point is, but it isn’t what I was really worried about. Here is my list of the landmarks that really matter

Week one:

• Get home and realise that the hospital may have given you the right baby but they have sent you home with someone else’s body.
• Realise you can cut your own toenails and shave your legs by yourself, without several mirrors and contortions worthy of the Chinese state circus.
• Squeeze into jeans – admittedly your husbands.
• Breasts swell to size resembling Dolly Parton

Week two:

• First attempt at lying on your stomach in over six months despite being hampered by pneumatic breasts.
• Squeeze into a pair of pre-pregnancy denims, well okay they are a pair of shorts with a high lycra content but still pre-pregnancy denim.
• Squeeze into non-maternity trousers that do not have a drawstring waist.
• Realise that you might be physically able to cut your toenails or shave your legs but you don´t actually have time to.

Week three:

• Squeeze into your own pair of pre-pregnancy jeans, they don’t close but with the cunning use of a hair elastic threaded through the button and button hole and a long top no-one will know. And yes okay, they always were a little too big.

Week four:

• Brave the skinny jeans – let’s just say it is a little too soon for those.
• Re-organise wardrobe, out with the maternity wear and in with pre-pregnancy clothes, well the ones that fit.

Hmm am I just a little bit too concerned with the clothes and in particular the jeans. I admit it I am, but you know the baby is doing just fine. She is putting on weight and seems happy so I must be doing something right.

Now about the wardrobe reorganising;
During my pregnancy I put on two stone, equal to 28 pounds or 14 kilos, which is nearly a third of my pre-pregnancy body weight. One baby, several humongous wee’s and a couple of weeks of breastfeeding later and I am back to only three and a half kilos (seven pounds / half a stone) over my pre-pregnancy weight. Yay!
I have an extra couple of inches on my hips and several thousand on my bust so there should be something in my pre-pregnancy wardrobe that should fit.

Lots of my trousers and skirts now fit because I either brought or made them as the smallest size available and they hung on my hips. Now I know what it feels like to have fitted clothes. Everything else is just plain too small still.

For tops I always took fitted styles so anything very fitted now just looks like a dolls hanky when held up to my new Partonesque frontage. Fortunately I have lots of t-shirts which means I am not walking round in just my skirts and maternity bra. This makes going to the shops so much less embarrassing.

Dresses – well let’s just forget those as they were all fitted to my bust.

So now my post pregnancy wardrobe is lots of bottoms and t-shirts, a perfect excuse to shop for clothes or the makings to make clothes.