June 22, 2021
This is how my belly looks like now. My stomach is mushy, my skin is loose and I have stretch marks. This is me now. I look like this. I accept it. I grew a human in there and that’s pretty freaking awesome.
For 37 weeks I had no stretch marks. None. During the whole pregnancy I was waiting for it to pop up because I expected to get them (because it’s part genetic and part how your skin is and no amount of coconut oil can prevent them, it can only possibly help to reduce the damage). And then boom, closer to 38 weeks I got a few lines by my belly button and within one week the very front of my stomach was covered.
When I had entered second trimester I told my husband that I really don’t mind getting stretch marks, or lets call them beauty marks, but when I get them I hope that it wont be right in the front. With the size of my bump that was growing completely straight forward I thought for sure that I would get marks on the sides. Well, of course, where I least wanted, that’s the only place I ended up getting them.
I’m not gonna lie, I was a bit bummed at first, but then I reminded myself how cool it is to have created a tiny person who lived inside my body for 9 months. Women are awesome, our bodies are amazing and I am grateful to even have been pregnant. My beauty marks and the lose skin is a reminder that I created my daughter. This is how my belly looks like now.
To something else. I had my 6 week postpartum doctors appointment this morning. I saw the nurse for a few seconds to check my blood pressure and stuff and then when my doctor came into the room she started talking to me like if we had seen each other ten minutes earlier and had been in the middle of a conversation then haha. That’s what I like about her, she is so easy to be around. Then I gave her the gifts that I had brought. Jim bought three pink Calla Lily yesterday and two chocolate bars for her and two for the nurse that was there all night when I was in labor (my doctor will see her tomorrow at the hospital). Along with that I wrote a thank you card or each of them. My doctor has been there since the beginning in 2018 and I really do appreciate her support and encouragement through it all. The main nurse was also really amazing and she needs to be appreciated for her work. My doctor gave a few long hugs during my visit and told me to send Christmas cards with pictures of our Lily:) She’s just the sweetest, I’m very grateful to have had an amazing doctor like her through this journey.
Anyway. My abdomen still has a small gap, but my doctor seems to trust that with my dance background I know how to help my body to go back. My “downstairs” area hasn’t healed completely yet, I might have two more weeks of healing ahead, but that also doesn’t seem to be a problem for starting to work out. So, now I can slowly try to do some pilates, ballet, yoga and other dancing again which is nice.
She told me that there’s really no ab muscles so I have to really start from scratch. Well of course there’s no muscles, I just had a human being living there taking up all he space and I couldn’t exactly do any ab workout:) It’s weird to know that I have to start from zero, but it’s also quite exciting in a way 😀
Another good news is that my hcg level is <1!
Because of my partial molar history I had to get a blood test done today to check my hcg (the test I did week after week and wasn’t cleared for 18 months). The result came in this afternoon and the number is a better one than I got exactly one year ago when I did my final test. Yay! I have been a bit worried that it would take a long time again, but it’s all good. I’m very happy.
Jim and Lily was waiting outside the clinic during my appointment