Clothes Make the (Wo)man

One of the mildly depressing post-birth realisations is that the mother's prepregnancy clothes still don't fit. It takes about six weeks for the uterus to shrink from the size of a (admittedly deflated) watermelon back down to its original pear-like dimensions, and the new mum is in a limbo of not-quite-maternity and not-quite-normal clothes in the meantime. I have lost half my pregnancy weight already (the vast majority of that disappearing on the night of the birth - quite a weight loss plan!) but my pregnancy, er, girth, is not going away quite as quickly.

Part of these new dimensions are actually caused by shifting bone. The hips spread during late pregnancy and birth, thanks in part to a hormone called Relaxin which allows the ligaments holding everything together to loosen up. I have heard of a few exercises which will help convince the hip bones to move a bit closer together again, and Martin will be helping me try some of them. But the non-bone portions? Some of it is uterus, and some of it is good old fat. I'm coming off nine months of pregnancy food restrictions and two months of blood-sugar food restrictions, so my whole menu of possibilities is changing, and I have to make sure not to go too mad on the Previously Forbidden Foods and actually keep to a nutritious and balanced intake. But there is SOME wiggle room, because as a nursing mum I have to take in an extra 500 calories per day! Pass the oatmeal cookies, please? Hey, oatmeal is good for lactation. ;)

I've got two boxes of pre-pregnancy clothing which I will be going through over time to figure out what still fits and what doesn't. I've already been able to put away a few maternity trousers which are now too big - hooray!