The elusive pre-baby wardrobe. The “dream” to wear the clothes you loved before you were a mother begins even while you are still pregnant.
The jeans and skirts and tops you shopped for and wore in your favorite moments slowly disappear. Your belly grows, everyone knows. But even your bra stops fitting. Hell, even your jewelry stops fitting: rings, necklaces, bracelets, watches. It all gets too small. It’s easy to miss your favorite watch on your wrist, even if you are on a journey you most likely prayed for.
The baby comes, and suddenly, you are in a body you can’t recognize. It doesn’t matter that you did this incredible life-giving stunt.
As I listened to my husband tell me my stretch marks are beautiful, I looked at him and wondered: If you had a body you lived in until your thirties, and suddenly I changed the whole thing for you, how would you like it?
I delayed my return to fitness for a couple of years. I just wanted to enjoy my babies and not think about my body during what I knew were fleeting and precious moments. But, eventually, for my health and longevity, I got back into it, and I’m so happy I did.
I feel stronger and have more energy to do the things I love. It also helped me achieve my dream of wearing the clothes I love: the pre-pregnancy wardrobe I hid in the attic, hoping to wear again.
I’m one of those women who loves clothes—truly loves them. I love the design process, the construction, and the expression that comes with getting dressed. I had picked all those clothes before and wore them so lovingly and thought of them often.
Finally, I was the right size again. Yet, I discovered something I didn’t expect. They did not fit. Those clothes I had idolized as a symbol of being myself again didn’t fit at all. They zipped and closed, and they looked anatomically correct, but I wasn’t the girl I was when I wore them back then. They didn’t fit “me” anymore.
I had changed a lot inside as much as I had changed outside.
I laughed as I thought about the years I spent missing the garments and how I had daydreamed of wearing them again. I spent so much energy archiving the clothes, lamenting, and sometimes crying over not being able to wear them, and in the end, I didn’t even want to.
