The Fourth Trimester Blog

Remember the episode of Sex and the City when the girls go out, and Miranda is able to fit into her skinny jeans? The ones she was not able to wear in forever, but because she slept with Steve, got pregnant, had Brady, went back to work and didn’t have time to eat, she was once again able to slip right in them.

 

This has not happened to me. Here’s the skinny (ha!):

 

Prebirth

Prior to the conception of my son, I got thin. I’ve had three major skinny periods in my life and each time, my weight loss had nothing to do with a trendy diet, or infomercial exercise program, or stringent calorie counting.

 

Nope, turns out, if I want to slip my body into a size 8 dress, I have to do it by not eating.

 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I studied psychology in college; I’m not advocating any type of eating disorder here. I’m simply saying that to keep my body thin, and thin in the recommendations of the National Institute of Health for my height (6’3″), eating what seemed like a “normal” amount goes out the window.

 

The heaviest I should be, to maintain a BMI of 24, is around 192 pounds. I’m pretty sure I only weighed that when I was 16. Or never. At my absolute thinnest, I weigh around 200. And that’s with a caloric intake of about 1,500 per day.

 

So with eating less, lots of yoga/walking/treadmill activity, I found that size 8. Don’t be envious. Or roll your eyes. My time in a size 8 has been miniscule. Weeks, only. A month maybe. By December of 2009, I was pregnant. By the time we rang in the New Year, I was eating for two. Adults.

 

The Pregnancy Pounds

There are many times during a first pregnancy when the mother-to-be throws up her hands and says, “Man! Nobody told me that!”

 

The physical changes your body goes through to grow and birth a baby are absolutely awe-inspiring and phenomenal. My first frustration in this department came in the first month of my pregnancy; my hormones were surging, and it seemed, overnight, I’d plopped on 10 pounds of bloat.

 

Yeah, remember The Bloat? It’s horrible. No one tells you this will happen. You blink and suddenly it’s like your body is in the middle of your worst period, and you’re posing in the mirror like in one of those water pill commercials, desperately trying to button up a pair of jeans and thinking, “Crap. What am I gonna look like in eight more months?”

 

The hormonal craving for cheese doodles and chocolate anything did not help either. A really accommodating husband, with strong chocoholic genes, was a problem. I’d packed on the pounds so fast that weeks and weeks before we were ready to announce our pregnancy I was sure all of my girlfriends, especially the new moms, were going to out me.

 

I also was not a cute baby belly pregnant woman. I think in our minds, we’d all like to look like Heidi Klum while we’re pregnant. Stylish, thin and a lovely bump out front. I never got that bump. Instead I should have worn a sign that said, “I’m not fat. I’m just pregnant!”

 

Even now, I look back at those pregnancy pictures and up until about six months, I don’t look like I have any sort of bump. I just look… thick. This is not a good look for me, especially me. The ins and outs of being a tall woman are another writing project entirely, but being so tall is part of my inherent desire to get back to the one of my thin stages. Thick doesn’t include this.

 

The Numbers Don’t Lie

I know I’m a brave woman. I’m about to tell you how much weight I actually gained during my pregnancy. Before I had my son, I was around 200 pounds. By my first doctor’s appointment, at 10 weeks, I was at 213. The week before my son was born, I was at 253.

 

I know.

 

Thank god for breastfeeding. In the first three months post-birth, I dropped half the weight. I know this because every doctor’s appointment for my son at my family doctor’s office required a little maneuvering. I got on the scale with the baby, then me on the scale without him to determine his growth. And my happy shrinkage.

 

With such great momentum, I assumed by six months of age, I would have lost all of those nasty 53 pounds. Not so. By his six (and a half) week checkup, my son was 19 ½ pounds. I was still hangin’ on at 218.

 

“They” say that it should take a new mom as the equivalent of the length of her pregnancy to take all the weight off. (Although someone should explain that to my friend Molly, who looks better than she did before she became a mom.) Point is I now have two months now to kick that last 18 pounds. Yikes!