Fat Jeans (and Fat Genes)

I finally broke out the pregnancy jeans. My poor button-fly Levis were just too maxed out to go on anymore. And with my muffin top of baby fat hanging out the top I’m sure this move was well overdue from a fashion perspective (I’m at that point of pregnancy “fatness” where if you didn’t know I was pregnant you wouldn’t guess I was carrying a baby inside me, you’d just think I was really letting myself go). And, now that I did it, I may never go back. Oh the comfort of an elastic waistband! Where have you been all my life? And they’re so ego boosting too! No matter how big I get they just keep stretching and, yet, according to the tag on the inside, I’m still just a size 6 – hooray!

And I think they may need to do a LOT of stretching. While shopping for maternity clothes last weekend the store gave me a pillow to wear to help me see what the clothes will look like when I get bigger. I mean, because clearly my stomach is the ONLY part of me that’s going to balloon up. That’s how it works, right?

Here’s what I’ll no doubt look like in a few months when I’m just as slim as ever with a just giant blob of a stomach out front.

I always thought that if I ever got pregnant I would finally have an excuse not to obsess about my weight anymore. As if, suddenly, after 30-some odd years of calculating every calorie I ingested and worrying about where it would appear on my body later, all this negative self image stuff would magically be forgotten the second I learned that it was, in fact, now okay to gain weight. No, not just okay, EXPECTED. Normal. Healthy. Spoiler alert: The totally didn’t happen. (No shit, right?) If anything I think about my weight more than ever (which I previously thought was impossible. But, in the sage words of Mr. Justin Bieber, “never say never.” Also, add calling Justin Bieber “sage” to my list of things I also thought I’d never do).

As always, I blame society (well, mainly I blame Heidi Klum. I mean, every other season of “Project Runway” there she is, looking svelte as ever while rocking the cutest little pregnant belly ever. And then *poof* it’s gone like that! Bitch). But realistically I know that every single pound I put on has to come right off again after I push this sucker out of my unmentionables (plus the couple extra pounds I meant to lose before I got pregnant but never really got around to doing). And, as we all know, losing weight is tooootttalllly easy. And, I’m only guessing here, it’s so much easier when you have a newborn (going to the gym will be a breeze! I mean, babies do nothing but sleep. Sleep allll the time! I’ll be at the gym constantly! Running marathons before you know it). But losing it all and getting back into shape is what’s expected of us and, like all suckers who forsake their comfortable stretchy jeans and yoga pants to go back to the world of cold zippers and buttons, I’ve fully bought into the concept of wanting to look thin and pretty as much as the next gal.

So every morning I step on my scale (even though I KNOW it’s unhealthy to weigh yourself daily because it gives you false positive results and false negative results when you obsessively do it so often) to make sure I’m only gaining the “recommended” amount. And I drag myself to the gym and carefully plan out healthy meals and worry about every new piece of chub that appears around my midsection and what it will ultimately make me look like in several months time. Why? Because even though I see plenty of skinny women who leisurely tell me about the 65 pounds they gained during pregnancy I know that they do not have my genes (even if, once upon a time, they couldn’t even cram themselves into my stretchiest of stretchy jeans). These are women who you can tell just by looking at them are born to be skinny (like that aforementioned gorgeous bitch Heidi Klum).

I’m not saying they’ve never worried about their weight. All women do. All. I’m just saying that, genetically speaking, some women have to think about such things a little less than the rest of us. Oh sure, they may have other problems, like bad skin or brittle hair or a flat butt or something else that women obsess about instead of being overweight. But regardless of how freakin’ huge they got when they were carrying their kid they were always going to take that weight back off … because that’s how they’re built. But, if you’re like me and you’ve spent pretty much your whole life struggling to keep your weight in some sort of semi-normal (though never ever ever “ideal” by our own impossible standards) range then the concept of getting fat, even if you’re supposed to get “fat” because you’re carrying the weight of another whole human being inside you, turns out to be pretty hard to swallow after all.

But I’m trying to embrace it. I really am. But because I’m crazy (though my husband the therapist assures me it’s just normal “crazy” and not the “get thee to a loony bin” kind of “crazy” so I’m good. Also, he doesn’t approve of me using the term “loony bin” – or “crazy” for that matter – but he’ll just have to forgive his “crazy” wife for her wrongdoings on this one) I have to focus my weight obsession elsewhere. I mean, I can’t just make my concerns disappear. So instead I worry about my child and his/her genes and whether or not he/she will also someday unhealthily obsess about his/her weight. If I have a girl the answer to my question is undoubtedly “yes,” even if she does somehow inherit some long-unknown to my family hidden “skinny genes.” But if it’s a boy he is not necessarily exempt either. Oh sure, we all love Chunk from “The Goonies,” but in a “he’s so fun to make fun of” way. I’m hoping that, as a professional, GAR can counsel our kid through it if need be … but he wouldn’t really be able to charge our own child his normal hourly rate, and that’s sort of like taking money right out of our pockets. So yeah, THAT’S why you’re not getting a car for your 16th birthday kid!

Anyway, I guess I shouldn’t let myself worry too much. There’s still an entire lifetime in store for our kiddo and we really have no idea what he/she will become. And that’s part of the excitement – waiting to find out. Besides, if anything I should be worried that our kid will inherit GAR’s insane Marge Simpson hair. I mean, seriously, look at this kid!