Pain in the Belly

It goes without saying that pregnancy and childbirth change a woman's body. Her body goes from taking care of itself, requiring a normal number of calories to function which results in a normal amount of output.

Totally unrelated, did anyone else giggle at Clinton's potty joke during the debate the other night? She's simultaneously putting cracks in the glass ceiling AND normalizing bathroom woes for women. Plus potty jokes are just funny.

Anyway. Like I said, a woman can eat a relatively normal amount of food and expect to go to the bathroom a normal number of times each day. Come pregnancy, all of that changes. Each pregnancy is different, but most women experience bouts of extreme appetite at times and no appetite at other times. And toward the end of the pregnancy, when all of her organs are squished by the baby, she'll likely be peeing 1,000 times a day. And not a normal amount of pee, but a few drops. And then she'll stand up and have to pee again.

The struggle is real.

I don't really miss that season of pregnancy.

Even when the belly deflates after the baby comes out, things are different. And kind of weird. I know I'll never look and feel like I did prior to baby, but I'm a little concerned about the this issues that seem to be permanent fixtures now. Primarily in the abdomen region. Thanks to the C-section, that area is vexed with constant soreness and pain when my pants are too tight. My pants always seem to be too tight.

Although I now weigh a little less than I did when I got pregnant, none of my clothes fit the way they used to. My feet grew half a size and my shirts are tight in the bust. But my pants. My pants are the worst. Fitted waistbands are of the devil. They cut into my belly right where the doctor cut into me. So there's pressure and discomfort all of the time.

I think it's because I now have what is fondly referred to as a "C-shelf." It's this flab of skin that just sort of camps out right above my incision. That extra bulge adds extra pressure on my waistbands making it all so very uncomfortable. Either it's that, or someone snuck into our house and tailored all of my pants so they are just a few inches smaller in the waist. It could have happened. I was pretty out of it those first few weeks, especially when I was on codeine.

So pants stink.

And now that baby is super active and wiggly, one of her favorite activities is to stand in my lap and then crawl up my belly. The C-shelf makes for a perfect little platform for her to stand upon. It is two parts adorable and one part ouch.

I've heard from some fellow C-mamas that the pain never really goes away. The achiness becomes forever stamped on their bellies.

When I get bummed out about this, I just remind myself that it could be a lot worse. Had labor gone on for days, I could have suffered from an obstetric fistula, a condition that way too many women suffer from all over the world because they don't have C-sections as an option. I'll take an achy belly any day over that.