about me
dinka @ souzek.com
instant message
lincoln
kids

Sledding '05
Veronika's Card
Autumn Adventures
Baby Girl?
European Vacation 2002
Digby

Archives
Being Catholic
Current Affairs
Digby
Handmade
Immigration
In German
Links
Miscellaneous
Motherhood
My Life
Recipes
Reviews
Thoughts And Opinions

Expat mama
finslippy
Jabberlingual
Mimi Smartypants
Moonstitches
Open Book
Two sleepy mommies
Zoom Vienna

My amazon wishlist

One of the best-kept secrets of new motherhood are the specifics of the postpartum belly. While for nine months every woman joyfully displays her gradually expanding belly in cute maternity clothes and numerous photos, after the baby is here, there is a chilling silence. I am here to do a "Where are they now?"-report on the cute little, ok, enormous bulge you used to see around here about 8 months ago.

Uhm. It's a lot smaller but it has lots more character. Instead of saying: "Look at me, there's a little miracle inside!" it's saying something like: "Look at me, let this be an eternal penance for any vain thought you have ever entertained in your entire life!" Unless you were a lucky bastard or 16 when you had your first baby, you will have to admit you know what I'm talking about. Surprisingly when I did a search on "postpartum belly" on google there are barely any results and if you do an image search you will see... more pregnancy pictures. I can't help wondering if this is part of a conspiracy - either to make you forget what you look like so you have more kids or, more likely, to make you feel miserable because obviously no one else has that problem. Instead you will be bombarded with half-naked postpartum pictures of celebrity moms who seem to have popped a 9-pound-baby in their favorite yoga pose and 5 minutes later slipped into a bikini for a photo shoot to show the world that you CAN be a mom and a superskinny superhottie at the same time. Because ultimately we all know that for women there is nothing as important as being a superskinny superhottie.

On that note I will out myself and let you all know that I have failed in that department. Miserably. I am still a superhottie (says my husband and he is totally impartial because he knows that I would never make his life hell and poison his lunch if he said otherwise) but superskinny... no. Let there be a picture of a postpartum belly on google right now.
Turns out, when you are pregnant and your belly stretches over an entire human being, once the baby is out, you are left with a big roomy bag right in the middle of your body. All the extra skin is sort of hanging there wondering what to do now and since there really is nothing to do it relaxes around your waistline, throwing a flabby hello over your jeans to anyone who'll look. It will add some interesting patterns when you try to wear pantyhose. If you wear them at the usual height they will create a clearly defined break splitting the flab into the upper and the lower flab. The other option is to pull the pantyhose all the way up to your bra and spend the rest of the day feeling the edge slowly rolling down while the lower part of the belly is actually doubled and you feel like your belly button is kissing the skin underneath. It's a brand new body part, competing with the breasts for the "How low can you get?"-title. (When Veronika weans I will give you the update on who won.)

Prepartum Ladies, I am here to tell you it is not pretty. It will probably never get as pretty as it was - even if you never had a flat belly. There is just something ... jiggly about it. The good news is, well, there isn't, but it sure is fun to scare the not-yet-pregnant-women out there! :)