That Mummy Tummy

I have, at times, mentioned my mummy tummy on this blog, when talking about my weight loss journey, general dieting and how I feel about myself physically. I don’t think though that I have ever spoken about this new feature of mine negatively. Purely that it’s there, it’s something I have, a fact of my post-baby body.

My mummy tummy has had many forms over the last five and a half years of being a parent. Straight after LP was born it was like a deflated balloon, still big and squishy and nothing like I had been expecting. The term jelly belly is still in my mind from those weeks after her birth and it took a good few months to lose that jelly like feel. By the time LP was a year old I was already pregnant with her brother so my body didn’t have much of a chance to get back to normal and settle down before it was tasked with growing another baby.

Once Little Man was born my body had time to relax and I, almost immediately this time, focused on dieting and trying to lose that baby weight. I am now at the lowest weight I have been in adulthood. But although my weight is lower my body has changed and one major change is this tummy that I now have – a tummy I am sure I will always have, no matter how much weight I lose.

It’s a tummy with stretch marks. A tummy that sticks out slightly, almost shelf like underneath. It’s a tummy that I often stroke absentmindedly, thinking about my two pregnancies and remembering the lovely pregnant belly I had.

This mummy tummy,  with loose skin around my belly button and above the waist band on clothes, has been created purely from having babies. It’s a reminder of that journey to become a mother and it’s testament to the incredible task my body has completed.

My stomach will never again be the way it was before children. It will never be flat and I doubt I will ever put that belly piercing back through my navel. But this mummy tummy of mine is something I will always appreciate more than the lovely flat stomach I once had.

Without this mummy tummy of mine I wouldn’t be me. A mother to two small children, a woman who has grown and given birth to two beautiful babies and wife to a man who has seen my body change so much over the last ten years and loves me even more because of that.

I’m sure this mummy tummy is a permanent feature now and it’s one that I’m quite fond of. It’s a constant reminder of my journey into parenthood, much like scars are a reminder of how they came to be. And having this mummy tummy isn’t a negative to me, it’s a fact – and as much a part of who I am as having ginger hair or wearing glasses.

Aside from during pregnancy I have never been that comfortable in my own skin and I’ve written before about, years ago, thinking I was fat when I really wasn’t. Now, at 32, and having been through so much I think my body deserves a break. It is what it is and I am proud of everything it has been through, everything it has done and everything it has achieved. It’s time to give this mummy tummy a break, stop trying to change it and just accept it for what it is – a lasting reminder of those wonderful years gone by.