I'm writing this while laying on the couch with the button of my jeans popped open. I've finally hit that point where I can still fit in my pre pregnancy jeans but they are just uncomfortable enough to make modifications. While reading some Mommy Blog somewhere in cyber space over the past few weeks, I saw this belly band advertised that would allow your top button to be open, but it would still hold up your pants- kinda looks like you have layered shirts on. I thought this was an amazing thing and would help to stretch out my time to NOT wear maternity clothes. Today I went shopping at the Outlets with my Mom and took my very first step into a Maternity store. I was hoping to find these belly bands and not really to look at anything else, but my Mama had other ideas. She pointed out maternity capris and shorts and cute shirts, all to which I thought "ugghhhhhh". Why the adverse reaction to preggo clothes you ask; let me explain:
Since the ripe old age of 2 I began to dance. Tap and Jazz were always my passions and still are to this day. But anyone who knows anything about dance understands that ballet is the foundation of it all. I never fell in love with it because I didn't fit the "type". I was always very tall and never what you would call petite, which is exactly what those ballet dancers were. Sleek, svelte, petite little beings who fluttered across the stage with their tiny frames. I always carried a little extra weight in my pre teens and teens. Nothing much but enough meat to fill out my already large frame. In high school I was one of the tallest on the team, which leads you to always being placed in the back. I had boobs and a butt to match it all and I didn't come to love my body until I was in my early 20s. It was then that I understood that having thick thighs and not being skin and bones was an amazing thing. I have always strived to stay in shape and of course would diet and over exercise hoping to achieve perfection. I've always been body conscious and everyone from my Mom to my Husband could not understand my obsession. Dance has done many things for me, but it also made me hyper aware of what I look like day in and day out. I was still a dancer myself when I started teaching at the age of 16. I would spend hours in the studio, on the field, performing week in and week out. And now as a career, I do much of the same. I am the example, I am what the dancers see. My level of fitness and confidence is what they will want to achieve or even surpass for themselves. Dancers spend the majority of their time looking in the mirror, constantly comparing or adjusting their movement to other bodies in the room. Unfortunately it is why so many dancers end up with eating disorders. There is always someone better, thinner, someone who can jump higher and turn faster and we rationalize that it is because they are lighter. Is it the truth? No of course not, but that's what goes through our heads.
I knew that getting pregnant would forever change my body, and of course I hope and pray that it will come back to what it was and able to do the things it did just 10 months before. I still can't help but fight it- fight the fact that my top button on my favorite jeans must remain open if I have to sit down, the fact that I am slathering copious amounts of organic coconut oil all over my stomach, back and boobs to prevent stretch marks, and that I really don't want to buy stupid looking maternity jeans with the elastic waist. I'm going to do it, but I don't have to like it! I came out of the maternity store today with exactly what I wanted- the belly bands. My only excitement was that they were on sale and had different colors. I'm creating a tiny human in my belly which is an amazing thought and from a scientific perspective, really intriguing when you think about how rapidly it forms. I always hear that mothers make incredible sacrifices for their children. Maternity store shopping is a sacrifice for this Momma!
P.S. I feel great this week- Eating well, no vomiting, I still hate bodily fluids from my animals, I can no longer smell their wet food without gagging, and I had a great prenatal massage this week.
xo-JV
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