Zebra Stripes and Shoes

It started with the shoes; years of high quality, leather, fashionable footwear. Some bought in Europe, some as far off as Venezuela. For this fashionista, a careful collection she felt was irreplaceable. A hundred or so pairs. A ridiculous collection for a new mom. 

Western societies don’t prepare women for life after childbirth. We have loads of magazines, cultural references, tv shows, and movies glorifying beauty, sexiness and what a woman looks like. They’ve done a thorough job mapping out loads of scenarios of what attracting a mate should look like… and then we drop the ball.

You’ve landed your mate, you've been praised, honored and glorified through the acts of bridal showers, weddings, and baby showers. "You’re glowing, you’re so pretty, congratulations, I’m so happy for you…” Nine months later you’re so large you can’t see your feet. Someone else has to help you and your cankles into cheap shoes a few sizes up and oozing in comfort. We tell you your body will bounce back. Just go to the gym, take the baby for walks in the stroller, watch what you eat, sleep when the baby sleeps, you should be back to yourself within the year.

Very little is said about the dark pink, zebra stripes you end up with all over your belly after birth. Or that your belly is still full as if you’re pregnant for weeks after delivery. There is little discussion on the change of silhouette your motherly body now has. 

She couldn’t sit to eat, to ride in the car, to nurse her baby, for two months postpartum. No one talks about that misery. A family friend reminded her of her less than svelte appearance - “looks like your legs and feet are still really swollen”. “No shit” she thinks, “it’s the middle of August, humid as fuck and I’ve just had the most painful, horrid experience of my life.” 

Nearly a year later, when she realizes this is probably all the ‘bouncing back’ her geriatric, postpartum body will do, it’s time to face the hoard, the carefully collected, fashionable wardrobe she is secretly quite proud of. 

Pants were easy enough -  they fit or they didn't. Too well loved to sell, bag them up to donate. Skirts: this mom bod does not agree with skirts, keep the one especially stellar skirt from Spain. It won’t ever fit again but maybe her daughter will like it when she’s older?

Shoes…”why must I give up this collection?” she asks herself, “I love pairing the perfect shoe with the perfect outfit.” But reality check: “do I even go out anymore? I’m not even working in an office, plus, most no longer fit.”

Her swollen feet, heavier body, age, burden of motherhood, have left her feet a good size or two longer and even a bit wider. “Fuck. Maybe I can sell some of the higher end brands…” Hah, the slim, petite bodied young woman she used to be only wore a 6.5…not many takers in that size. 

Any time friends came over for the next several months, she’d bring out the bag of shoes she couldn't bear to donate, hoping Cinderella would waltz in, they’d fit and she’d give them a second life, in a good fashion forward home. No dice. The baby's nearly two now. “Do I really have to donate these? Fuck. Yes.” She went through the twenty or so pairs one last time, pulled two higher end pairs, for future sentimental self torture, and boxed up the rest to haul to Value Village.

Grateful for the crop tops and high waisted shorts to tuck her belly flap into, she finds herself pregnant again. It was a painful, high risk, geriatric pregnancy that had her in and out of bed several times a day. No chance to stay on top of fitness this time. Between the chaos of keeping an active toddler alive and pain drenched, constant fatigue, it was pretty hopeless. 

Another year later, after the second baby, dark pink stretch marks criss-crossing older, white ones, creating an ugly reminder of the changes women suffer. She’s naked in front of the mirror, assessing her flaws. Weighing herself daily and realizing she isn’t going to get much smaller anytime soon. It’s time to stop the daily self-torture: a wardrobe full of fabulous clothes that are either outrageously small or just not flattering on her almost middle aged, mom bod. 

Several months of sorting, grieving and facing reality, she gifted what she could to friends, sold a couple of key gems, and was forced to donate good quality, carefully collected clothing she treasured and adored. Travel souvenirs, vintage treasure hunting scores, etsy handmade numbers. She sobbed. It hurt. 

Many trash bags and boxes later, she boiled down her wardrobe to only clothes that fit her body today. Her full, round abdomen, that makes her look six months pregnant all the time due to diastasis recti, (a painful, gaping hole, where her toned abs used to be), abdominal muscle separation. Every time her kids put pressure on this gap in her muscles, it feels like she’s been punched, that all of her internal organs are being smashed under a ton of bricks. She got a hernia in her stomach one winter while moving houses. Every day, she wakes up with a back ache. At night she tosses and turns trying to find a position to give some relief to this painful reality of motherhood. 

Lots of fitness and physio experts offer strategies and exercises to heal, correct, fix diastasis recti. She's tried them. She’s trying them. She tries to remember to try them, between trying to remember Kegels to fix and tone other damaged muscle tissue, to trying to remember to brush her teeth and wash her hair regularly.

Thank goodness for pajamas. Warm, comfortable, cozy, they fit. She still grieves her lost wardrobe. She tries to feel good in her oversized, draping replacements. Most from thrift shops as her kids soil them somehow nearly daily, within the first hour of dressing. Maybe when they’re older she’ll have time to exercise, remember her body repairing moves, and buy a fabulous, middle aged wardrobe. “Spain, I’m looking at you. Dublin, you’re next. New York, save me a seat” she daydreams.