The postpartum wardrobe has a lot of boxes to tick. Flattering, comfortable, confidence boosting, easy to feed in, conceal chunder/poo/snot stains, the list goes on! I am trying to buy new jeans. I find it a stressful task for a number of reasons. And I’m still emotionally scarred from purchasing my first apres baby pair.
The baby was approximately 2 weeks old. We were in town to register his birth so had dragged our sleep deprived selves out. I’d managed a shower but hadn’t really had time to do my hair around feeding and needing to be out the house for a certain time, so I’d scrunched it and popped a hairband on. In my wisdom, I’d decided Primark was the best place to purchase jeans from because they’d be cheap and wouldn’t fit me for long. (Ever the optimist, me.)
Leaving hubs, the baby and the middle child on a seat outside, I plodded into the changing room, selection in hand. When I’d drawn the curtain across the cubicle, the first thing I was confronted with was my clothed reflection. The hair, which I’d convinced myself was ‘cute’ with the hairband, was far from it. I looked a cross between Hagrid and the Honey Monster! It was a stark reminder that hair straighteners are an essential for me. Fortunately I keep hair tie round my wrist at all times because I like cutting the circulation off to my hand. I faffed for a bit trying to improve the barnet situ, but what I needed was a qualified stylest, back basin and hair tools to make any sort of improvement. Resigning myself to the fact I’ve been cursed with shite hair I began peeling off my maternity jeans. And that’s when I saw myself, full length, for the first time since giving birth.
My stomach looked like a balloon, one that was inflated several days ago and has been lost behind furniture, deflating into a wrinkly ball. My stretch marks were a livid red. I’d managed to avoid them for the first two pregnancies but my third saw me adorned with them. My belly button was still the gaping chasm it became as my skin struggled to contain my growing baby. This mottled angry flesh hung like an apron and as I stared at my reflection, I began to cry. Try as I might, I couldn’t keep the corners of my mouth from droopping, like each side had been weighted. Tears gathered in each eye, I tried to stop them by taking breaths but it didn’t help. There were mirrors on all sides and a rather aggressive fluorescent light beating down on me. I couldn’t not see myself! I grabbed the first pair of jeans (2 sizes bigger than my pre- pregnancy size) and winced as my stitches pulled when I leant forward to put them on. They slid fairly easily over my lower legs, got noticeably slower at the thigh, but trying to tuck my tum into the waistband was like trying to get Jus-Rol croissant pastry back into the can. It wasn’t pretty. I tried the next pair. Also uninspiring but they did up and most of my flesh was tucked into the waistband. I faffed with the hair again, making little to no improvement and left the cubicle trying (and failing) to appear chipper.
The thing is, we’re expected to ‘bounce back’ after birth, we’re bombarded with articles about getting our ‘firgures back’, post partum diets, and uncomfortable contraptions that promise to make our bodies look like they haven’t grown babies. In TV and film, women have babies in one scene and in the next are flat stomached and perfect. And as much as I told myself I’d change, some of it temporary, some permanent, I clung to hope that by some miracle, this time it would be different. That I’d be like the photo-shopped celebs and the only evidence that I’d been pregnant would be my baby.
The changes to my body hit harder third time round because before I found out I was pregnant, (and for the first time in my life), I was happy with my body. I was maintaining my size with exercise and less snacking but not in a way that was onerous, restrictive or unrealistic. I had a level of fitness. I was happy, confident even! Not something I’d been able to say before.
My stomach has continued to deflate over the past 10 weeks, (although it has plateaued now and may start inflating again if hubs and I keep eating the ‘nice’ icecream we hide from the kids). I am now in the market for MORE jeans. I have some stipulations. 1) They must be high rise. High rise is the mum tum friend. Low rise jeans were all the rage when I was a young ‘un and there is a special place in hell for them! They give even the slimmest of wearers a muffin top. Show part or all of your arse when sat down and some of the more extreme low rise jeans require a wash board stomach and bikini wax…
2) They must not be ‘ripped.’ Ain’t no way I’m paying forty quid for something that looks like it’s ready to be replaced! Honestly, why in the name arse are people paying for what look like faulty goods?! And you know it will only be the second time you put them on that you get your foot caught in the ‘designer’ rip and make yourself a pair of shorts with one long leg…
I found myself in Next today, after an unsuccessful jaunt to M&S where the colour jeans I wanted in the style I wanted had frayed hems (whyyyyyy?!). There was a sale on, huzzarh! I found 2 pairs of jeans, and shuffled off to the changing rooms with my 6yo and the baby, in his pram. First issue was that all the changing rooms were the same size: small. Meaning that once the pram and the six yo were inside I had an area the size of a postage stamp to get changed. I pulled the first pair off the hanger. I have no doubt my arse was causing all sorts of curtain protrusions as I attempted to put them on. Getting them on was harder than I thought, a lot harder! Turns out some joker had hung size 10 jeans on a size 12 hanger. Well I’d come so far, I had a sort of morbid determination to see if I could get them all the way up. I could. Managed the buttons too, although they were practically trembling with the effort of staying attached to the fabric. I felt like my legs had been encased in concrete. It was at this point the 6 yo piped up with ‘Mummy, why are your eyes all wet like you’re going to cry?’
‘Because mummy can’t breathe in these jeans darling, someone put the wrong size on the hanger.’
As he digested this and was quite vocal on who could do such a terrible thing, I attempted to remove this second skin that was had a smaller surface area than my actual skin. Of course my pants came down too, trying to seperate knickers from jeans was not an easy feat, especially considering the space I had. The 6yo had pulled his cap over his eyes to protect my modesty but was loudly narrating the fact that they were too small.
Having removed the first pair I was decidedly sweaty (mostly panicking I’d need to ask a shop assistant to cut me out of them). I reached for pair number too, having learnt my lesson I double checked the size on the hanger was the same as the actual jeans. It was a match. They slid on like a dream. Button fly though. Not a deal breaker but not my favourite. They did up, enveloping my mum tum in soft demin, score! I checked the price, £12 in the sale, absolute bargain! Owing to the space issue (and the frequently farting infant making it a suffocation hazard) I stepped out of the cubicle to check out my potential new threads.
And that’s when I saw it. The huge gaping knee. Threads of shredded denim hanging down the leg, more holes above the knee! What fresh hell is this? These jeans were only a couple of bloodstains away from looking like they’d been in motorbike accident! They looked ridiculous, and so did I.
Dis-robing for the second time I put on my elasticated baggy trousers resigned to the fact I may never find my perfect pair of jeans. I’m aiming too high, perhaps I’ll shoot for ‘acceptable’ instead. I’m starting to feel my age in clothes shops, I found myself loudly asking where the bottom half of a t-shirt was today. The music is too loud, the lights are too dazzling and I have a sort of style now that I stick to which means I’m always looking for something specific rather than finding something and liking it. I am beginning to be baffled by ‘fashion’ finding some of the offerings in shop windows downright stupid!
I can’t tell if my views will cause the boys to roll their eyes in despair when they’re older. If they’ll go to great lengths to avoid shopping with me to avoid ‘mumbarrasment’. Much as I’d roll my eyes when my mum used to say ‘we wore those when I was a kid’ now I find she was right, fashion is simply the same clothes coming in and out of fashion. (Don’t tell her I said that, I’ll never hear the end of it!) The only thing that changes is me, softer and wobblier but after a shaky few weeks with an acceptance of my body I’ve never had before.
The Postpartum Years 