I already had the baby

Yesterday I went by to see my sister and her new baby. She just got home from the hospital and she was resting upstairs. She was tired and sleepy, and baby Elizabeth was also snoozing away. I looked at my poor sister in bed. She was battered and bruised. Her arms had the needle pokes and so did her hands. She still had the wrist bands from the hospital on, and she had tape marks from the bandages pretty much everywhere. I couldn’t help but remember the first days of being home from the hospital after having my kids.

Being pregnant (for me) was wonderful. I felt good, I ate what I wanted and I was able to gain weight without feeling the guilt. I enjoyed every day of the 9 months I had to have my kids. I figured I would deal with the nonsense of weight loss later on. It doesn’t take much time to go from feeling beautiful and pregnant to feeling fat and ugly. Once you give birth the afterglow of pregnancy is far behind and so are all the cute stares and comments you get from complete strangers. I have not met one person who does not think a pregnant woman is adorable and precious. You are woman with child. You then become woman with “fat stomach”.

Everyone has their own advice to give you. “Breast feed and the weight comes off faster” or “don’t worry you’re weight will go back to normal after the swelling goes down.” So we wait. So we breast feed...and nothing. The last 10 pounds still belongs to someone else and we somehow do not remember having this body before we were pregnant?

A woman gives up a lot more than her freedom when she has a baby. She gives up the “why don’t my jeans zipper up anymore?” She gives up the “Do you want this shirt; it will never fit me on my boobs anymore?” It doesn’t mean that you won’t get back into shape. It doesn’t mean that you will never look great again. It just means that you will have to work at something you may not always have time for.

Our lives change once we have children. We want to go to the gym, but we may not have the time. We want to go for walks with our girlfriends, but our kids may not go to bed in time. We want to eat healthier, but we may not be able to sit down and actually eat what we should. A man may gain weight with us, but with 1 week of drinking extra water, they lose 10 pounds. That’s just the way it is.

I know my sister will bounce back and get back to her “old” self soon. I will look at her and think she looks beautiful and back to normal, but she probably won’t be satisfied until she can zip the jeans back up again. I eventually fit back into everything I wore before baby aliens invaded my body. I had the feeling of “OMG am I ever going to be me again?” but it happened. I didn’t think it would, but it did.

Yesterday I remembered a “situation” days after I gave birth to my twins almost 2 years ago. I had gone for a walk with the older 2 and there was a neighbour outside watering her plants. I felt pretty good; I even think I thought I looked good..lol. So she looked at me and said, “Holy Di, when the heck are you going to have those twins? It feels like you have been pregnant forever.”...lol..Well now I can laugh, but at the time I wanted to run in the house and hide...so I answered (knowing she would feel like crap)..” I had them 2 weeks ago.” She quickly said, “OMG, you were far, I couldn’t even see you”..lol. I actually felt bad for her because she is a mother and she knew how that must have made me feel. She made an innocent mistake.

A woman eventually gets back into the game. Although it seems foggy and blurry at first, we do get there. Sometimes we just don’t feel like working out. Sometimes we just don’t feel like eating healthy. Sometimes we just want to go to the drive-through and order a Big Mac. It’s ok to feel like that. It’s ok for my sister to feel like her insides are hanging out and to feel like she has been hit by a MAC truck and to see her husband walking around comfortably in his clothes he wore last week, because eventually she will zip up the jeans and button up the shirt again. She will become the woman she was. She will walk proud with her daughter in hand encountering another woman (who just gave birth) and she may accidentally ask her, “How many months are you?” and get that ever dreaded response no woman (or man) ever wants to hear...”I already had the baby.” Oops... and then she will continue on her merry little way, feel bad, but know that woman will eventually fit in her skinny’s again, just like she did.
That’s my peace today!

I made this a lot when I wanted something good but healthy
Buschetta Pita
3 pita breads
1 or 2 ripened tomatoes diced
1 clove garlic
fresh basil
salt and oregano
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/4 cup olive oil

Slice the pita in half and brush with oil. Bake in oven for 10 min at 375 degrees. In a bowl mix all the ingredients and the remaining oil. Once pita is ready evenly spread the tomato mixture on all slices of the baked pita.