Body By Baby

Slowly, slowly, slowly but surely I am coming to terms with my "body by baby."   I've decided to document my "journey" (I would say back to my "pre-baby" body, but I've accepted that there is no such thing in existence anymore) forward to my "body by ME!"  Because ME is the only way this body is going to change.  I've become more and more inspired recently by women who are embracing their baby bellies.  No matter how saggy, stretched out, or stretch marked!  I've considered documenting pictures of my (hopefully) changing body, but don't want to be offensive!  So I've decided to at least document with words my "Body By Baby" to "Body by ME." experience.  I'm going to start with a timeline going "weigh" back (ha!) to my glory days if you will and documenting my body before baby.  Loving the alliterations here! 

I don't know why, but I remember all these numbers.  Perhaps I was obsessive with the scale at some points in my life.  For the record I'm 5'8."

At my skinniest-125 lbs. graduating from high school.  Boney is more the word probably.
135 lbs. graduating from college.
Sometime during the post college years my weight fluctuated alot and I actually got up to around 154, but I do feel that my "ideal" weight is around 140.
By the time I got married I was weighing 145.
One year after I got married i was weighing 157!  hmmm....first year of marriage
And this is the exact time that I got pregnant!  So my offical pre-pregnancy weight is 157.
I gained 48 pounds while I was pregnant tipping the scale at a whopping 205!  I cried.
I was SWOLLEN!

Here is where I started to learn a lot about my own body.  It's hard to accept the staying weight when everyone around you that also just had a baby is wearing their regular clothes one MONTH post-partum!  Geez.  Now, everyone and their mama and strangers and their mamas would tell me that if I just breastfeed the weight will come right off.  Well, I am breastfeeding! And I did for 14 months.  After the initial weightloss immediately after giving birth I plateaued at 176 for a LONG time.  Still 20 lbs. more than my starting weight and 30-35 lbs. more than where I really wanted to be.  I learned later that apparently 1 in 5 women DON'T lose the baby weight until they STOP breastfeeding.  Keeping my fingers crossed I carried on.  Well, that does make some since.  I mean I guess I have all this extra armpit fat and backfat to help support the D's that I'm carrying around.  Sure enough around month 9-10ish the weight starts coming off pretty steadily and sure enough just as my baby is turning one I'm buttoning my old pants and the scale tells me I'm 153!  A little less than where I started!  And sure enough just as soon as I'm buttoning my pants I'm peeing on a stick and it's telling me I'm pregnant AGAIN!

I am determined not to gain as much weight this time and make an effort not to.  All is going well and I am maintaining my weight better and not gaining as much weight as fast.  Then summer comes and I'm not working and it's hot as blue blazes and I don't want to move.  Then a lot of different things happen and I'm on "bedrest" for the most part.  Granted I probably would have gained the 50 lbs. anyway, but I tell myself that's why. 

So here I am eight months out of my second pregnancy and that dreaded plateau is still lingering.  The scale tells me 177 on a friendly day.  However, I have noticed things shifting and I did button up some pants that were one size smaller than what I had to purchase initially to go back to work in.  And honestly it's not the number that absolutely kills me.  It's the belly.

Clothes just don't fit right.  There's a certain sagginess to it that's hard to explain.  If I pull up my pants too high there's the mom bulge that just looks ridiculous.  If I don't pull them up high enough then there's the spill over.  I really don't know what to do with that extra skin that's just hanging out down there.  If I could just pull it up and duct tape it in place all would be well.  I do worried that it may never go completely away and I assume that it probably has something to do with the two c-sections.  But I'm embracing, remember?  And the stretchmarks.  I can handle the stretchmarks as long as some toning happens.  So far, I've been doing a lot of walking, working out with Carmen (Electra that is, in order to be "Fit to Strip" ha), push-ups and baby curls:)  So this is my journey.  And as soon as school is out I'm going to be balls to the walls working out so I can make an appearance this summer in my bathing suit with a skirt. 

Here's my before picture.  Oh the streching!!!  Only 33 weeks here:

Maybe I'll work up the nerve to post a recent before picture of my current belly....

O vs. C

Well we all know that girls mature faster than boys, duh!  But little Opal is living proof!  She is after her "big" brother all day long following him around and studying his every move.  We already know she's a good bit ahead on the weight charts.  Case in point, Opal is eight months old and weighs a whopping twenty-two pounds if not more by now.  Cannon didn't weight that until he was a year old.  My little chub chub.  She's been wearing twelve month clothes since she was six months and can wear some eighteen month clothes!  Cannon still has some eighteen month clothes that he can wear!  They have worn the same size diapers for months!  And they fit Opal more snuggly than Cannon!  Here are a few milestone comparisons between Opal and Cannon.  (I still haven't put any of them in her baby book!  Poor second baby.)

-Cannon got his first teeth (two bottom at the same time) at 6 months.  Opal got hers (same teeth on the bottom) at 7 months.
-Cannon crawled at nine months, Opal at seven.
-Cannon pulled up at nine months, Opal at eight.
-They both started sitting up around the same time, but Opal became a lot sturdier a lot faster.  She has to keep up with her brother.
-Cannon didn't walk until he was sixteen months old!  At the rate Opal is going it might not be long, but I am hoping she holds out a little longer! I know once she starts walking we are all in trouble!

Cannon and Opal have the best time together.  They play together and talk to each other.  The other day Cannon said, "Let's play with the tractors, Opal.  Come dis way."  He is a good big brother and lets her know when she is not doing the right thing!  haha.  I try to keep up with the darndest things he says and I'm going to make a list soon.  I think soon we'll try to put them in the same room together.  Maybe when Opal starts sleeping through the night!  Cannon was sleeping through the night at three months...Opal not so much.  That's one thing he's got her beat on!