Alex Davies
Easy Elevated Everyday Style
What if walking up to your closet filled you with creative possibility instead of that "ugh" feeling? I want to help you make clothes a source of inspiration and a way to embrace your body every day.
Why I bought Bigger Jeans and Other Postpartum Thoughts
Hello • Apr 18, 2021
Why I Bought Bigger Jeans
If there’s anything on par with the challenge and dread of swimsuit shopping, it has to be the search for new jeans four weeks after pushing a baby out of your hips.
Why don’t you just keep wearing those comfy maternity jeans and wait a while, you ask?
Well, that would be smart, but some stubborn part of me couldn’t wait to wear a normal waistband (with belt loops and a button - ‘cause yoga pants don’t count) after months of hiking up that cumbersome belly band over my watermelon sized abdomen.
In fact, one week after giving birth, I boxed up all my maternity clothes and shipped them off to my expecting sister-in-law. Sayonara!
I couldn’t wait to get those belly bands and ruched tops out of my closet. Even if my hips still looked wide enough to carry a baby, I was done with being pregnant.
My baby hadn’t been outside in the world for more than two minutes when I practically yelled, “Yay! I’m not pregnant anymore!” followed by the laughter of relief. Those feel-good birth-conquering endorphins will make you say some silly stuff.
I know there are women out there who think pregnancy is delicious. They literally feel high from the hormones.
But I believe I speak for the majority of moms when I say that pregnancy is a 9 month obstacle course you just have to crawl through to meet your baby on the other side.
I’ve blogged before about how I sucked the joy out of my first pregnancy by fighting all the changes.
My second time around the block was still something to wrestle through. There was crying and constipation (that’s a whole other saga to tell), aches and aggravation. I wasn’t exactly basking in the glow.
But I did feel confidence in my body and its capability. Less fear that I would be a round beach ball shaped person for the rest of my life. Assurance that my body could push a person out and bounce back later.
And that confidence translated into the fourth trimester.
It’s now six weeks since I yelled, “I’m not pregnant,” and held a wrinkly gray person on my chest for the first time.
My belly is still squishy. Add holiday weight to baby weight and you bring new meaning to the description of the bride’s “heap of wheat” in the Song of Solomon.
My hips feel wide and my thighs are jiggly. Red tiger claw marks stripe my sides where pregnancy #2 stretched back out the scars from pregnancy #1.
But despite the stories of motherhood marking my whole body…
Despite this being the first month of a new year when workout and diet plans are swirling all over the place and everyone is talking about the gym…
Despite my history with fear and insecurity…
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I’m proud of my body. I’m confident it will work it’s way back, even if my hips are made new by carrying around two precious girls and my stretch marks never fade completely.
And I’m not in a rush anymore.
About a month after delivering, I hooked a rubber band through the belt loop of my pants that didn’t zip all the way - the pants that I could squeeze over my thighs but squished my hips. I pulled a tank top down low to cover my belly and the open zipper. And I realized, this is going to take some more time this time around.
And that’s okay.
Confidence believes something. But not to the point of delusion. Confidence sees the situation truthfully yet doesn’t lose hope. It can wait and still believe for the outcome it wants to see even if it’s not going to happen overnight.
So that’s when I decided to buy bigger jeans.
It’s not a white flag. It’s not an admission of failure and abandoning hope.
It’s a way to be patient with my body. A way to stop punishing it for changing while it’s still in process.
The aftermath of creating a human doesn’t magically conclude six weeks or even three months after you disconnect the umbilical cord.
In other cultures, the window defined as postpartum can last a year or more. Chinese medicine considers it as a three year period of healing.
More than just your body’s recalibration takes place. You become a mother (and there’s volumes that should be written on what those four words really mean).
Plus, you get to know the quirks and idiosyncrasies of a brand new personality that’s forming in your family all while keeping a miniature utterly dependent person alive with basically just your boobs. (And if your kiddo is on a bottle instead of breasts for whatever reason, I know that brings its own set of challenges to navigate which are absolutely as valid.)
That’s all a mouthful, but it’s the reasoning (which I was mostly unconscious of at the time) that helped me march into the Gap outlet with a newborn wrapped to my chest and patiently try on nineteen pairs of jeans in various shapes, sizes and styles because, let’s face it, I don’t know what to call my current shape (curvy, round, boyfriend, girlfriend, stretch, straight, etc.), and I had no clue what size would work.
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For me, and this totally does not have to be true for you…
But for me, wearing a pair of “real” jeans - aka no maternity belly band and no need for a rubber band and long cami - is my way of choosing to celebrate instead of shame.
It’s my way to show my body grace and thanks and say it’s more than okay. It’s actually great because you did a fantastic job making a tiny human and you’re doing awesome now keeping her alive and growing.
So I hope this encourages you and reminds me today to tell our bodies they’re doing good work because the business of keeping us and our tiny people alive is no joke.
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