jillian michaels fit i am not. but if i had to choose, i would rather have my baby boy... with flab and stretch marks to show for it

it's simple, really. since giving birth to le bebe over eight months ago, i've had to come to accept that my body will never quite be the same as it used to be... sometimes reluctantly. but fully, none the less. i don't just say so from a body shape perspective. there are other things besides shape that have changed by having a baby. for instance, between four and six months postpartum, i lost SO much of my hair {freakin' hormones!}, especially around my forehead, and it greatly affected {thinned out} my hairline... so noticeably that, now that it is growing back in, i look rather funny... all these short little hairs sticking straight up. i don't care, though. i'm just happy they grew back at all.

i don't mean to paint a picture that i was any kind of runway model before i had a baby. and whether i was or wasn't is not the issue. it's more about things changing from how i have always known them to be. i've never been big on change. so having been accustomed to so many things about myself and seeing them change whether i wanted them to or not was/is not always easy. there have been times i did not feel like myself... not comfortable in my own skin. and i'm just now getting around to being used to the new me.

so i chose to write out how i really feel when it comes right down to it... literally write it out, right there on the part of me that changed the most. i had quite the basketball belly before issac decided to make his entrance into the world. so it's not a surprise that it would not quite bounce back to what it was.

an easier-to-read view

there are some that might think, "why would you even weigh the two together... the value of having a child against the cost of the physical changes it imposes?" well, truth be told, i found that the bliss and ecstasy of having your own baby makes you blind to any negative feelings in the beginning... anything like "ughhh, i feel so large 'cause i don't fit in any of my clothes!" or "boy, do i look tired when i don't sleep much for months on end!"... even "yikes, i'm going bald!" but after a while, when the day-to-day sets back in, the blinders fall off and you start to once again recognize your appearance. again... it's less about what i look like, and more about how i feel. and i just don't feel myself... my old self. i guess that's because, in reality, i'm not.

of course, this is nothing new for the plight of a mom and the sacrifices she makes {of which the apprearance-related sacrifices are the least}... literally giving up her body for another. but it's new for me. and at forty, i think i'm not bouncing back the way some of my younger friends have after having babies... even after a second or third! and i don't have the luxury of being pampered like some of the celebrities you see who look exactly the same a few weeks after having a baby as they did before.

so i'm learning to embrace this new me. in a society where women are ridiculed for having "mom butt" or "teacher arms" {you know... that flabby, jiggly flesh on the underside of your arms that wiggles when you wave? ohhhhh, yes... i have it!}, it's difficult to look at myself and say, "you're just fine the way you are. this is how it should be." i have to force encourage myself to be content {even happy} with the new me and accept the changes. all so much easier said than done. 

don't get me wrong. i don't excuse myself from living a healthy life. i need to eat healthy and exercise more than ever before. and not for my appearance, but for my level of energy and strength to raise a son. so embracing is different than excusing. and i think that is where lots of women get hung up after a baby... the ones who slowly let themselves go. i hope i won't embrace so much that it becomes laziness. i could see that happening so easily with me.

i look forward to the warmer weather, when this will all look a little different, because i'll be more active again, and no matter what the clothing sizes say, i'll just feel better. {by the way, i don't own a scale, and never have. i'm not obsessed with a weight number. it's simply that i don't feel like myself, and that is bound to happen when you can fit in only about five percent of the clothes you wore a year and a half earlier.}

well, i had not meant to write so much. i know it's probably difficult to see just where my thinking ends up in all of this... am i okay with the new me? or am i not so much? i'd say, a little of both. even when i'm not okay with it, i know this... my comfort level or lack of comfort in my own skin is worth it. i would not trade what caused this new me for anything in the world. and quite frankly, i would do it all again and again.

like i wrote on the photo above, the minute i saw christy's prompt for in the picture in february at the beginning of the month, this immediately came to mind. now, today is the link-up party on her blog, and i had to scramble to quickly get some self-portraits done for it, so i threw it all together at the last minute in order to participate. but the thoughts i've written have been on my mind a lot longer.

i know that the majority of you who read are women, and i'm guessing several of you are moms. so i'm curious how you got through this part of being a new, first-time mama. i'm guessing i'm not alone.

. . .

you can see more "write on" themed self-portrait work from other participants here.