Dear belly: a love letter (of sorts)

Dear Belly,

I am sorry it has been so long since I have said nice things to you.

Please know, that even at our worst, even when we were fighting all the time, I would not change any choice I made to get us here.

But that does not mean it has not been hard.

Very hard.

It has been 11 weeks since Della came, and at first, I thought I would hate you forever.

You were still big and full and not very doughy, just 8 months or more pregnant looking even though the baby was out and beautiful and in our arms.

The first three weeks were the hardest, since you stayed late term maternity-huge without budging. I wore my maternity pants with no alternatives, and avoided my profile. I could not see my feet, and had to lift you out of the way to catch a glimpse of my new scar to check for healing.

Then, miraculously, you began to recede. I felt impatient, kept stepping on the scale even though my weight was nearly down to pre-pregnancy. Within a few more weeks, my maternity pants were beginning to be big. By week 5, I was hiking them up, but no other pants, not even my fat pants fit. My stretchy pants were too tight too. Awkward inbetween-ness, I just wanted to have you be gone. I would sit and grab you in my hands like bread dough (you'd gotten softer and softer), and feel my own revulsion. Gosh, what a waste of energy better spent nearly any other way.

At 6 weeks I looked the same as I did at around 5 or 6 months.

At 7 weeks I bought pants that fit me as I was, not as I wanted to be.

Now, at week 11, I fit normal pants, one size up from before. You slob over the top a little, and my profile is not at all what I would want, with belly sticking out farther than boobs. But, you have done this amazing thing. You were beyond big with Della on the inside- mammoth in fact. Laughably large. And now, you are down to a protruding doughy jiggle that I am aware of but probably no one else in the world would be when seeing me either again or for the first time. You have done more than I can ask for, at nearly 44 and remarkably inelastic, you have made an incredible journey from way out there to back to the neighborhood again.

Thank you Belly, thank you for not staying as big as you were, and for coming down to the size you are now without effort on my part except, perhaps, the nearly impossibly inhuman effort of patience (I am not known for self patience, I confess)...

If this is what I look like, then, this is what I look like.

Most of the time, I think I can be ok with this.

Love, mostly, and except for sometimes,

Kate