lessons in the losses: pregnancy & all it's curves

lessons in the losses #6: some jeans will never fit the same way again but that just means i need new jeans that fit the new me

for most women, i think pregnancy brings up lots of body issues & insecurities.  even if you had been in reasonable control of your weight before getting pregnant, you are suddenly ferociously hungry at all times, exhausted & more emotional than you have ever been, & gaining weight at an alarming rate.  not exactly a formula for staying secure. you're not your self.  the strategies & coping skills you may have turned to before are no match for spiking hormones & the hungry little hippo which now calls the shots.  there are more than enough warning stories of those who "just let themselves go" after baby.  i think most women would agree that it can be a touch unnerving to take the plunge into parenthood trusting that you will be able return to your small self again.  but no one stays the same after becoming a parent.  it truly is an incredible transfiguration.  when i look back at what my ideals were about becoming a parent, i am proud to say that most of those have successful transformed into life giving realities.  but they didn't start that way & it certainly doesn't mean everything went as planned.  we definitely had some altering & compromises to make.  but the essence of our goals & intent as parents, was fairly intact in the end.  without the generous covering of grace & a committed attitude to change, i don't know that we could have become what we are today.  we have by no means arrived as parents but we are not where we were which is the important thing.
so even though i am dreading having the baby pudge hang around for awhile, i am determined to change it.  even though i occasionally entertain thoughts of "the fourth one always does a woman in", i refuse to give up on who i want to be.  not just in the physical appearance department but in the overall, who He has called & is continuing to chisel me into being. do i miss the mark? daily.  that's what grace & a vision for the future is for.  i know that even after having baby & losing the baby chub & perhaps a bit more, i know my body will never be the same shape.  And i don't mean that in a bad way.  just a different way.  there will be bulges where there wasn't before.  curves which were formally straight lines.  but then there will be the signs of change, the signs of life of where i housed three little lives.  my body did that.  i did that.  and i can do this.