Motherhood: It Ain’t My Bod Anymore!

“You’re not fat. You’re just mildly fat.”

Bless his little heart, that boy of mine.

If I wasn’t only eight weeks postpartum, this statement might have made me poop my pants a little, which is an attractive (albeit colorful) way to put it, I know. Granted, it did make me do a Magoo right into the wall, but…whatever. Comes with the territory. Kids say the darndest things and all that crap.

For those keeping track at home, and I just know my legions of fans are, out of the thirty pounds I gained during my pregnancy, I have lost twenty-three. I’m not fretting about it too much considering I haven’t even started any kind of exercise regimen. I think it’s more of a patience thing. We hand our bodies over to the Goddess of Pregnancy for nine months, so once that sweet little babe has made his or her way into the world, we are ready to lay claim to the control of our bodies once more.

Can I get a what-what?!

Like I said, I’m not fretting about the weight. When I discovered (read: was surprised off my ass) that I was pregnant, I wasn’t exactly at my most self-accepting size. For the most part, I was at the chunkier end of my personal weight yo-yo, so in my quest to lose the baby pounds, I have a bit more than the seven pounds left to go to be where I’d like to be. The thing about new motherhood, and one thing that I had quite forgotten from my first time around with a newborn ten years ago, is that even after birth–(oftentimes) your body still does not belong to you.

I breastfeed. My body most certainly does not belong to me.

A few weeks after she was born, Avery started exhibiting a certain brand of fussiness. Honestly, it was hard to tell if it was normal newborn fussiness, growth spurt behavior, or something more in line with colic or reflux. I tend not to be an overly nervous or smothering parenting type, and even at two months I still question whether this is just a normal thing that will pass. I should probably note that her fussiness is nowhere nearly as bad as some that I’ve read about in online forums and whatnot. And when she is happy and content, boy, is she ever a good baby. It was just enough that with some spit-up issues, I thought maybe I should check with the doctor about it at her one month checkup.

His deduction did not make me too happy. He felt that she was having a sensitivity to dairy. His diagnosis differed from mine (what with me being an honorary Doctor of Squat and all) in that I felt she was having a sensitivity to caffeine. (Yes, I had started drinking coffee again after she arrived. Sue me.) He smiled like I was a four year old and said that maybe my caffeine intake made her gassy, but he doubted that was the problem and it sounded like dairy to him. Either way, he told me to cut dairy out of my diet, and why not try cutting the caffeine out as well. He gave me an additional list of foods to also start eliminating if those didn’t do the trick.

Coincidentally, dairy and caffeine: pretty much all I eat.

So, here we go again. I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant. So I couldn’t really indulge in carbs or the like. Now, post-pregnancy, I figure all I can eat are carbs and the like. So much for promising weight loss progress. It took me about a week of migraines to cut the caffeine back out. I’m now clear of my drug of choice. (Sadly.) It actually wasn’t that hard. I had only been drinking coffee again for a few weeks. The dairy, however…well, the dairy has been a bitch to send packing.

Have you ever craved cheese like a crack whore on a cocaine farm?

(I have no idea what that means.)

I would kill for cheese. Seriously. I don’t drink milk other than to soak up my Fruity Pebbles, but cheese — cheese is my boo! I didn’t really know what I was doing. I first cut down a bit. After a couple of weeks, it didn’t seem to be doing anything. When I called the doctor, I pretty much was lectured for not eliminating it completely and to try doing that first. So I did. Cold(ish) turkey. And it got a little better, but there were still off days. Then I did a little internet reading and realized that it was milk protein that was the offender and in so much more than just cheese and yogurt. Like, Cheetos, yo. (Who knew?) Every little thing seemed to have milk protein. So I’ve been more careful. And day by day, my happy, smiley baby is less and less fussy in the afternoons. Until the other day when I had tofu for lunch (here we go again!). Come to find out, apparently a sensitivity to soy is extremely common in babies who are sensitive to cow dairy. Still, I miss my boo.

I just ate a vat of pasta. And by vat, I mean a family-of-six serving. (Dudes, I’m starving!) But I’m still learning, and we’ll get this down to a science. The good thing is, it doesn’t seem bad enough to be an allergy, and from everything I’ve read, as the months go on, I’ll be able to start introducing these things back into my diet. And then maybe we can do something about my “mild fatness.”

Until then, I’ll just thank my lucky stars for the cooing little girl relaxing in the swing next to me.