On feeling normal again

People often wonder how long it takes to get your body back after pregnancy. For me it was roughly 19 months.

Right, this may get graphic- so if you don't want to hear all about my lumps and bumps please look away now.

I started feeling like my body was own when we came back from a holiday in Wales. I think what did was the hormones. This isn't based on anecdotal evidence, rather than actual science, but there seems to come a point after her first child when a woman's hormones make her forget the horrors of child birth and concentrate only the cuteness of babies.

J and I have decided now isn't the best time for us, but for a few weeks I was raging burning mountain of mummy-hormone.

Lots of helpful websites say really helpful things like 9 months on, 9 months off- that's great if you don't have any other major life events happen but couple a newborn with buying a house, loosing two close relatives and stress eating (plus just plain not having time to cook!) and you're looking at a long slog to lose the weight.

Being overweight after the birth of B was horrid actually, I'd never been overweight before but despite trying diets and healthy eating, then sinking back into piles and piles of cake it all just seemed to fall off gradually. About 3 months ago, at around 12 stone I logged back into MyFitnessPal in fat desperation only to be told that I'd reached my goal weight from last year. In June 2013 I'd been dreaming of being only 2lbs overweight, but in June 2014 I felt fat, fat, fat.

So normal is relative. But overweight wasn't the only unpleasant legacy my pregnancy left, there've been huge raised scars in unmentionable places, haemorrhoids, stretch marks, saggy boobs, and a saggy skin apron. Cheers very much 9 lb 13 baby.

The scar used to get in the way when doing you know what, and was actually downright depressing - I felt less of a woman- but that went down after around 18 months. This seems like a inordinately long time for a scar to heal, but apparently I'm just lucky.

The saggy skin apron is a bit less saggy, but I still need to wear a long vest under normal-length tops so I'm not conscious about it popping out.

The stretch marks are flatter and more skin coloured now, they're not ugly they're just my stripes and I think they're here to stay. This probably means they'll fade soon- and I'll start to miss them.

So there you go, this is how pregnancy has changed my body. It's not exactly as it was but it's now perfectly good enough for me to accept going forward.  I'm worried about what another baby would do to my body, but not enough to stop me wanting to have one.  I used to read blogs from mums, saying they were proud of their lumps and bumps and I though I'd never get there. But I seem to be there now- this is my normal.