Invasion of the Body Snatcher

“It ain’t that bad for someone who’s had a baby!” At least that’s what I told myself this morning after checking out my rear end in the mirror after cramming myself into a pair of fresh-out-of-the-dryer Seven jeans. After pulling them up a little higher to avoid the dreaded “muffin top”, I started trying to remember the last time that my body actually belonged to ME. It was a pretty easy realization…right before I got pregnant!

From the minute of conception, a woman’s body has officially been taken hostage. Don’t get me wrong, I expected to look and feel much different during my pregnancy, but I really wasn’t prepared for the aftermath. The baby was out of my body, but the invasion was far from over!

Let’s start with the boobs. If men really understood what happened to a woman’s breasts during and after pregnancy, he wouldn’t want to touch them ever again. What once were two great assets that you used to stuff into a push-up bra in a low cut shirt so you could “strut your stuff” now had one sole purpose. FOOD! My son had not been out of my womb for five freakin’ minutes before the nurse was trying to attach him to my boob. As all of us moms know, if you aren’t breast feeding or at least attempting to right after giving birth, the Wicked Witch of the Labor and Delivery Ward, (a.k.a. Lactation Consultant) is pacing back and forth in front of your room huffing and puffing and giving you looks of complete disapproval and utter disgust. Am I wrong?

I wanted to give the whole breast feeding thing a shot, and it seemed to be going ok at first. My son latched on fine and other than feeling like I had this baby permanently attached to one or both of my boobs, I figured it wouldn’t be so bad. After about two weeks of feeding him every hour for an hour at a time and feeling completely exhausted, my husband and I decided that we needed to get our son on a bottle so that he could help me with feedings in the middle of the night. Again, trying to do the “right thing”, I decided that I would just pump my breast milk but feed my baby from the bottle. I was SO relieved that I would finally have some assistance and thought to myself, “This is GREAT! I am getting my boobies back!” WRONG again sister! I had been pumping for a couple of days and realized that about 4am, my breasts felt like two rocks that were about to pop out of my chest. I set the alarm so that I could go downstairs and pump out some relief. I remember the first time that alarm went off. The house was completely quiet, both of my boys were fast asleep, and suddenly I found myself in our kitchen sitting TOPLESS at our breakfast bar hooked up to this contraption like some sort of dairy cow. What’s wrong with this picture?? I was almost fast asleep sitting up when the device started to make some weird gurgling sounds…and then proceeded to quit for good. Yep, that’s right. My top-of-the line pump was dead as a doornail.

I had never known what true 24 hour discomfort felt like until I had to go cold turkey on letting my milk dry up. Holy COW…no pun intended! I mean, seriously? You could’ve cracked eggs on those things they were so hard! I was absolutely miserable, so I googled home remedies for relieving the pain. The best one I found? Cabbage. Tearing off leaves of cold cabbage and putting them in your bra seemed to do something to help the swelling. Before having a child, I would call my husband while he was on his way home from work and ask him to pick up a bottle of red wine and a romantic comedy to watch. Now I was calling him and saying, “Honey, could you please pick me up a head of fresh cabbage on your way home?” Let me tell you, there is just nothing sexier than the scent of wilted cabbage coming from your bra. To any men reading this…do you still wanna touch ‘em? I didn’t think so.

Ok, ok, so my breast feeding days were short lived and are long gone, but this body is STILL not the one that I remember. Again, I tell myself all the time “It ain’t that bad!”, but I’ve finally accepted that things will never be in the quite the right place ever again. If you hear of a doctor who does a good “ass-lift”, let me know. Every time that I see some cute-as-a-button twenty-something who is far from the land of breast pumps and cabbage and has a perfectly tight little tush, I just laugh a little to myself. YOU JUST WAIT HONEY!! Give it a few years and you’ll be begging for the ass-lift too!

The Mommyologist’s advice for women who haven’t had children yet: “Flaunt it now, or forever hold your G-string!”