Yeah, they’re still happening two years later.

So I’m sitting there at my desk, happily tapping away at expenses & BAM! there’s a flutter in my uterus area.  It’s enough to make me take pause & freak the eff out that OH MY GOD, I’M GOING TO BE ON “I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS PREGNANT.” 

But then I remember that I’m already doing that female thing (send nachos & wine!) & we are staunch supporters of the Trojan man & there is simply NO WAY there is a bambino kicking away in my uterus.

But still.

Totally trippy.

Actually, I have two of them.

It all started after I gave birth to Harrison.  I expected the weight gain, was horrified at the water retention, & I took a little while to adjust to my bigger ribcage that just never went back down to the 32 measurement.  The lingering carpel tunnel has sucked, but a cortisone shot every few months helps.

First problem:  Hip pain.

My hips hurt.  They ache, all the way down into the bone & they feel overstretched & sore & nothing seems to help.  I’ve tried stretching & yoga & having Doug rub them, but all I do is yelp in pain the moment his hands hit that weird spot between butt & back.  I’ve tried to not carry Harrison as often.  I started wearing flats more than heels.  I gave up running.  Mostly, they hurt after I clean the house, which seemed weird at first, but cleaning the house requires a lot of lifting & squatting & reaching, not to mention occasionaly holding a baby while I vacuum.  Pretty please, oh wise internets that hold internet M.D.’s given by the School of Web MD, diagnose me.  Should I see a chiropractor?  Should I invest in bionic hips?

Problem Dos:  I gots me some stanky feet.

No, really.  Last night, Doug told me that my feet smelled like Satan’s breath.  (okay, he just said they smelled bad & I elaborated.)  Sure enough, I’m sitting here & I can SMELL MY FEET even though they are in shoes under the desk.  I bathed this morning, people, & sprayed my shoes with the smell-good stuff I picked up at Target last night.  God forbid I’m wearing my Born Mary Janes in the car with you, because we’ll just have to roll down the windows even though it’s 15 degrees outside.  I should get Botox injections into my feet, right?  I hear that helps for smelly pits, which thankfully, I do not have.

I cannot be alone in this.  Tell me you have stinky feet & aching hips, too.

• One in four women will experience severe depression at some point in life.
• Depression affects twice as many women as men, regardless of racial and ethnic background or income.
• Depression is the number one cause of disability in women.

Only one fifth of women who suffer from depression seek treatment.  One fifth of one in four, which means that in a room of sixty women, fifteen suffer depression but only three are getting help.

Translation?  Women are suffering, hurting, bruised to the core…& not seeking help.

What is it about us as women that makes us vulnerable to depression, & then paralyzed to receive help?

Through our determination to be seen as strong, rather than the weaker sex, do we not recognize the symptoms?  Do we push aside the exhaustion & irritability as “being a woman,” not understanding that they are signs of imbalance, just as much as tears?  Or maybe that guttural instinct to “buck up” as a mother & push through, despite the nagging anxieties & cloying despair.

In the era of the supermom, we feel pressure to be an odd mixture of a June Cleaver housewife & a Martha Stewart business mogul — are we afraid to verbalize that we cannot do it all?  Is there shame in that feeling that maybe, somehow, someway, we failed womanhood?

Or the shame that buries deep in our soul when the depression pulls us away from children & spouses & the focus of our life, but we fight a losing battle against it & we are too afraid to say, “I am sorry, but my heart is not here.”  We are told that women should not feel this way.

Or perhaps the shame of the neighbor’s wagging tongue that has already weighed the label on our sweater, the car in our driveway, the organic qualities of our dinner, & the manners of our children.  Dare we expose one more Achilles Heel to the harshest judges?

Is it the rising cost of healthcare in this downtrodden economy where some of us struggle to keep shoes on small feet & food in mouths?  Perhaps it is a failure of the medical field to screen properly & then offer options.  Or even the lack of options (did you know there is only ONE inpatient postpartum mood disorder clinic in the country?!).  Is it because it is one more task on our growing lists, where small children cannot tag along?

No matter the cause, I boldly say this —   Women, you are worth it.

If you are hurting & suffering & scared, please know that you deserve to feel better.  It is not weakness that asks for help – instead, there is courage in the acceptance.

photo credit

Despite what some may think, I’m not a weirdo that holes away in a basement selling Avon & listening to Christmas music in August.

Okay, scratch that.  I totally listen to Christmas music in August.

I have a job that I love as it challenges me & puts me in front of clients on the daily.  Which is wonderful, because I love people.  But having to look my best every day?  oh, do I often fail.  I was most worried before returning to work after my son – I had 40 extra pounds on my frame & no clothes that fit.  I was losing hair like a husky & had this weird thing going on where my feet sweat a lot.  (new motherhood = totally glamorous)  But after three months of maternity leave, we still had a mortgage to be paid, so I bought a few new pairs of slacks, slipped my stinky feet back into my pumps, & tried desperately to still feel confident & pretty in my job.

I realized quickly that the weight would take awhile to melt off.  But I could brighten my face up in just a few minutes with my old trusty friends, the blush stick & mascara wand.  So I covered the dark circles under my eyes that appeared sometime during the 3am feeding & dusted a little bronzer across my cheeks to help me look among the living.  I am not a huge make-up enthusiast, but surely, I entered my new stage of life as a working mother with a little more confidence each day until I was comfortable with my clients once more.

CoverGirl & BlogHer wanted to make sure I was staying on top of my game almost two years into the gig of being a working momma, so they sent me the new CoverGirl Lash Perfection mascara to try out in a brown-black shade.

Oh, my.  It is very pretty on.  I never really believed that mascara could “lengthen” lashes until this one & I didn’t even have to dig out a toothpick to take out clumps!  (kidding! I’m too clumsy to put sharp objects near my eyes.)  It held up beautifully, even though the tears of a therapy session.  Also, this may have been the first mascara I have tried where I didn’t look like a raccoon by 5pm.  Thank you, Lash Perfection, for not smudging under my eyes.  Love you, mean it!

Here’s the good stuff - one of you will win a $50.00 gift card to Drugstore.com, compliments of CoverGirl & BlogHer!

Rules:
No duplicate comments.
You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a)      Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
b)     Tweet about this promotion & leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post.  ie “Getting pretty with @HeirtoBlair & CoverGirl! Win $50 to drugstore.com  http://wp.me/pRSLA-1So”
c)       Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d)      For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older.
Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.
You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.

Enter between October 4th – November 4th!

While we’re on the subject of make-up and looking great, you might want to check out the “Looking Your Best” posts in the Life Well Lived section of BlogHer.com. There are some great application tips and ideas for switching up your look for fall! http://goo.gl/K1rSL

I sit down on the tiles, leaning back against the cold sides, but I’m staring at the belly, so stretched & soft from child-bearing.  The child-bearing that led me to this place so many times, both physcially & emotionally, for the past three years.  I close my eyes against it’s constant reminder of miracles & pain & the sacrificial love of motherhood.  I sit up cross-legged & spread my hands through the running water, tracing the rivers they make with my palms & I wonder if I will ever leave the floor.

The floor where I cried over my lost baby.  Where I ripped out my heart over the baby I birthed.  Blood & tears, both escaping me.  Where I escape & pray to find answers to the part of my brain that does not seem to click the way it should, the part that wraps silently around my entire life until I back into a corner & let the water fall, warm & steady.  I am a constant mess; ripped & broken & pieced back together so many times that I wonder if my flaws show to the outside world.

I wonder how I feel both renewed & trapped behind the white curtain, relaxing to the rhythmic fall of the water while I place my head in my hands, raggedly running fingers through my hair as I fight for hope, for relief, for feeling that it will all be okay.

A soft knock on the door, a patter of small feet wrapped in cotton as the boy flings back the curtain with a joy & exuberance I wish for in myself.  Relief floods my heart, hope reaches up to my eyes.  His impish smile stretches past his cheeks into my heart & I nod over his blonde head to my husband that yes,  I am okay.

____________________

p.s. i wrote this two weeks ago. i’m doing better now.

Which is why a part of me died inside today when a lady walked up to me at a work luncheon, rubbed my tummy & said, “Oh, you’re…!!”  Mortified & beat red, I said, “Oh, no!!  No, of course not!”

I expected her to pull back & shrink away in defeat.

Until she said, “No?  Really??”

THEN A HOLE IN THE FLOOR OPENED UP & SWALLOWED ME.

(oh, wait.  that didn’t happen.  i just wish it had.)

Except I DO look knocked up today.  Frickin’ 1950′s style dresses with twirl skirts.  I quit you.

My man knows to hand over the debit card when we’re in a two-mile radius of that green sign.

Plus, I had to pee & I figured I’d be less likely to get some undiscovered disease from a Starbucks bathroom.

“Hey, do you mind taking Harrison with you?” he asks as he selects the gas grade.  I’m all, sigh-here-we-go-motherhood, but I unstrap the toddler & carry him across the 5,000-degree parking lot.  The air-conditioning blast in the coffee shop deliciously slaps us right across the face as I hurry to the bathroom, silently praising myself for all the months of dedicated Kegal exercises.   Thank God, a clean toilet.  Thank God, seat protectors so I don’t have to cramp a quad hovering over disease.

Wait.  Where am I going to put the kid? He’s not wearing shoes & while I would kill for her abs, there’s no way in hell I’m letting my toddler mimic ol’ Brit-Brit.  I could throw in the towel but I seriously have to pee.  So I shimmy out of my pants & undies one-handed with a toddler on the hip, doing a weird thing where I have to lift him with my left arm off my hip & pull quickly with my right arm & then my pants are around my ankles & I kind of penguin-waddle to the toilet.  Where my bare ass stands while I pull out a seat protector & manage to not drop the kid while pry it apart.  (I should have done the seat protector first.) Then I turn & sit with the toddler on my lap & OH MY GOD, THIS IS THE BEST PEE EVER.  I may have sighed with pure delight.  Harrison’s sitting on my bare lap looking at me like, “Lady, I always knew you weren’t right in the head.”

I keep my left arm clamped over him with my right arm pulling toilet paper & then there’s this moment where I’m pretty sure we’re going to topple over onto the tile floor but I manage to get my pants from my ankles back up to my hips, flush the toilet with my foot, & then wash my hands one at a time by transferring kid from left to right.  Pull out a paper towel, open up the door, Kobe Bryant that shit all the way to the trashcan.

VICTORY IS MINE.

I head back to the car, iced coffees in one hand, toddler in the other & Nate’s like, “Babe, I’m so sorry.  I completely forgot you were going to the bathroom.”  & I’m all, “Thanks for that one-handed pee” while I hand him the coffee with the right & strap in the toddler with the left.

BECAUSE I AM SUPERMOM, HEAR ME ROAR.

You know how moms always say that they’d “give their right arm” for babies to stay little/innocent/clean/polite/joyful?   The good news is that you can totally cash in that extremity.  Because momma, you’ve got life covered with only one hand.

Twice I’ve been told that I look “really effing tired.”

oy.

It all started when I decided to treat myself to a pedicure.  It was one of those days where I was like, “OH MY GOD, I COULD EAT AN ENTIRE CINNABON” from stress, but I decided to grab a diet lemonade & get some pampering instead.  I slipped off my heels & slid into the big leather chair as she began to work on my (very pitiful) feet.  Somewhere between the bubbles & the feet rubbing & the chair massaging, I fell asleep.  Straight-up conked out with mouth wide open, potential drooling  & probably snoring.

read the rest…

I mean, of course I can.  It’s my blog.

I don’t hate my body.

I may want to lose 20 lbs or more, the post-baby FUPA may get in the way of comfortably buttoning some styles of pants, & I do wish my arms looked like they did when I was 16.  But I don’t HATE my body.

Growing up, I did hate my body but only because people misused the word “big” to describe my height.  ”Oh, you’re so big!” was okay when I was five, but not when I was thirteen.  Those weird PE classes when we learned to ballroom dance & the girls outnumbered the boys?  Yeah, I always had to be a “boy” because I was “big.”  Which is why I’m pretty amazing at leading a fox trot.  I hated my height because it meant I was shoved to the back of every picture, every line, every assembly.  When I was eight, I started getting boobs & wore my first bra.  I’ll never forget the first time the boys unsnapped it from over my shirt while the librarian read us a book.  I cried in the bathroom, hating myself that I was the only girl in our class to wear (& need) a bra.  When I was fourteen, my mother & I took my old cheerleading uniforms to the tailor in hopes of letting out any length to help me be more comfortable in the skirt – they managed to let out 1/4″ in a skirt.  It barely covered my rump.  I had hips, where other girls stayed straight.  I cried almost every night, wondering why I couldn’t be “small” or “cute.”  When I made the Varsity squad at sixteen, they special-ordered me uniforms because they’d never had anyone so “big” on the squad before.

Like that time my cheerleading coach referred to me as a “brute” in our varsity awards ceremony in front of every student athlete & my squad never let me live it down.

This, my friends, is how “big” & “brutish” I was as a teenager:

(please check & respect the whispy bangs, brought to you by the late 90′s)

(also?  I never moonlighted as a hooker. The flapper gig is me dressed up for “Gatsby Day.”)

For years, I refused to buy anything that had a heel higher than an inch.  I didn’t want to be “big.”

In college, I finally found confidence to love myself.  It had a lot to do with my sorority & the girls in there being beautiful & making me feel like I belonged.  It had more to do with a full scholarship that made me a big cat in the business school.  I bought my first pair of real high heels.  I dated a boy that took me dancing & told me I was beautiful, then I met a man that told me he loved every inch of curve on my body, as well as the curves in my heart.  (I married that man.) I wore an incredible dress down the aisle & to this day, I love how happy & healthy I look in our wedding pictures.  To be all Days of Thunder on you, my curves were downright dangerous that day.

I wasn’t a size 2, but I didn’t feel “big” – I felt beautiful.  I had a breast reduction, which helped clothes fit properly.  I ran a mile straight in under 10 minutes for the first time in my life.  My body nourished two lives, one briefly & the other one sleeps peacefully across the hall as I type this.  It chases that boy around the backyard, lifts him into the swing, carries him on it’s back when he’s tired.  It rarely fails me or that devilishly handsome man in the bedroom.  It hugs tired clients, distraught with worry, & then comes home to wash away the days grime from both floors & child.

I love that body. MY body.

I remember each one of those stretch marks, from ballet class to childbirth.  That weird lumpy hip fat spare tire?  I think it’s a fair price to pay for motherhood.  At 28, I may not be ready to give in to gravity, but I am also not meant to look like a college co-ed.

So when I’m frustrated that my body gains & loses & gains again when I’m counting every bite in my mouth & sending my leftover birthday cake down to my brother, I have to take a deep breath in & remember that both me & my body are more than the number on the scale.  I remember that it’s more than chugging Slimfast, but rather nightly walks with my family & taking home half my meal.  I still yearn for a smaller waist, a smaller number on the scale, comfort with the lights on at night.  I hope to stave off the Type II diabetes that runs rampant in my family & instill healthy living in my family.

But at the end of the day, I am more than a number on the scale.  I am not an insecure thirteen-year-old girl.  This is the only body I have & by God, I’m going to love it.

I trudge out of bed & stand in front of the mirror, turning sideways & pinching the belly, stretched by motherhood.  sigh. It pretty much looks like a deflated balloon that’s been mauled by a bear, as my friend Lala says.  Ugly, my heart says.  The reason for it sleeps in the next room & for that, it is beautiful, my head argues. I squeeze on some shape wear, just so the waistband of my grey slacks will fit more comfortably.  I tug a sweater over my head.  Not too bad for a mom, my heart rationalizes.  It’s getting a little snug, my head debates. I pat concealer under my eyes, sweep my hair off to the side with a clip.  Nate walks in & wraps his arms around me & says, “You look pretty, sweet.”   My heart soars at his compliment but I scoff, “Even more proof that love is blind.”

A constant debate of self-esteem & body image.

I struggle with loving my body despite the extra pudge.  Feeling confident in my curves & embracing them as who I am.  I fight perfectionism & try to give my life-producing body the affection it deserves.  I will never be stick-thin & leggings will never be a good look for me, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t have a positive body image.  Love me?  Love my love handles.

On the flip side, I struggle with not becoming complacent in my body.  I want to embrace my curves & accept the hips that could put J. Lo to shame, but I don’t want to use it as an excuse to the let the size in my jeans slowly crawl upwards.  & so I struggle to find balance between positive body image but not settling.

Do you struggle with this?  Any words of affirmation that you tell yourself in the mornings?

p.s.  McFatty Monday is the most tongue-in-cheek title ever.  I’m not calling me fat, you fat, & I’m not even saying that your dog is a fatty.  It’s a community of encouragement through weight loss, body image, & healthy choices.  We love it here.  Join us?