Big Mama Taylor Blog

Big Mama Taylor Blog

Friday, January 25, 2013

Have you had your placenta today?

For some reason I have been dreading this post but I'm really not sure why!? I want to write about my decision to eat my placenta after this birth because it's interesting, and everyone seems to have an opinion about it one way or another. However, as funny as it could possibly be, my reasons for deciding to eat said placenta aren't really funny at all.

I decided to do this after a lot of research into the benefits of it, but also because I experienced a LOT of sadness after the birth of my first son Brooks. I wouldn't go as far as to say that I had postpartum depression because I was lucky enough to have a lot of help from my in laws, my mom, my husband, good friends - so I wasn't ever in a state true depression, and luckily I was able to avoid taking any kind of medicine. However, I wasn't in a great place either. Having a child is hard work, and the adjustment to your life afterwards is even harder. 

I know I am extremely fortunate to be able to stay at home with my 2 boys all day, but that doesn't mean that it was easy from day 1 and that every day is all happiness, sunshine and coloring books. Talking for 12 hours a day about what the zebra says (I'm sorry but what in the heck does a zebra say!?!?! I usually end up saying in a squeaky voice "I have stripes!") is a huge adjustment from working in a buzzing office and getting to talk to people (over the age of 2) every day. That's not even to mention the fact that new moms are dealing with body issues, hormones that are all over the map, and what I feel is an ever-increasing insanity of being today's "perfect mom."

Aaaah. To be a perfect mom in 2012. I am so far from it I can't even really pin down exactly what she is. But I have some examples....
*She is a size 4 and attends Pilates on Monday/Wednesdays and cardio fusion on Tuesday/Thursdays. She's chipper and cute and always has on blush.
*She has signed her children up for Spanish and Mandarin. She plans to begin lessons soon so she can help more.
*She never raises her voice and somehow follows 8 different parenting books each in perfect harmony.

Here's where I'm at:
*I work out when I can and on the days I am able to I end up spending that entire day in my stinky workout clothes 95% of the time. My 2 year old calls my stomach, when visible because I'm nursing my 10 week old, "Mama's squishy belly." I am usually chipper on Fridays.
*I'm just trying to get Brooks to be able to speak English.
*Every day brings a constant struggle not to yell at my 2 beautiful children "You are making momma crazy!" On days when I don't, I feel awesome.

But with all that being said, prayer has brought me to one very important realization: I am the perfect mom for Brooks and Luke. I do believe God chose me to be their mom and that I'm the best one for them. And there is some wonderful peace in that! I think I came to this peace through a lot of prayer, encouragement from a great husband, and 72 pills I have dubbed my "happy pills." 

SO yes. I am that granola lady who ate my placenta! I hired someone to come over to my house, and dehydrate my placenta, which my husband literally walked out of the hospital room with it in a bucket emblazoned with the words "bio hazardous material." He brought it home and stuck it in our fridge like it was deli meat. In case you are wondering, it looks pretty much like I thought it would, which is pretty frightening. It looks like a human organ.

Immediately after giving birth to Luke, Zac made a joke, asking me if I was hungry - of course I replied yes, I'm always hungry, then he motioned over to the counter where my placenta was lying. Literally I am still on the operating table! I had a natural birth but I gave birth in the operating room because by the time I got there I had Luke within about 45 minutes and there weren't any rooms available. Funny memories :)

Anywho, once the placenta was home, the woman I hired for "placenta encapsulation" came over to my house to dehydrate it. I am going to post just this picture to save my readers from horror because really this just looks like beef jerky :)


After it was fully dry, she ground up the placenta in a magic bullet, just like she was running an infomercial on how to make the best smoothies. By this time I was home with my new baby and my mood was all over the place. One minute I was ecstatic, looking at him and cooing, the next I felt like I could pass out for a week. It's extremely challenging to come home with a new baby to a rambunctious and confused 2 year old, and I don't think you can really prepare yourself, you just sort of have to dive in and do it.

Once the placenta was ground up into a fine powder, she the powder into clear gel caps and made 72 pills that I could take at my discretion. She said the typical placenta makes about 40-50 pills so of course I was proud of my apparently huge placenta, whatever that means. Maybe that explains why I was enormous at the end of my pregnancy!

The typical cycle is to take 2 pills a day for 2-3 weeks and slowly wean off them and just take them "as needed." I just took 2 a day for 2 weeks, and have since only taken 1 on days when I felt more down or tired. From everything I read, the point of doing this is you are flushed with so many hormones while you are pregnant, and once you have given birth, all those hormones are gone and the drastic decrease in them as well as all the blood/iron you lose can cause huge mood fluctuations. The placenta is literally full of everything good you needed for your baby and basically, we are the only culture in the world who DOESN'T do this. Just as I suspected, the pills made me have a much more balanced feeling post-birth than I had with Brooks. 

There were days after Brooks' birth that I can really only describe as feeling like you are drowning. Even though I loved him more than anything and I felt very grateful to be at home with him there were times I felt like I didn't want my life at all. In today's world it's so hard because there is so much pressure to be a perfect mom, nobody wants to admit that it's just hard, and sometimes it might not be what you expected. This was the challenge for me. I had to figure out this "new normal" in my life, and just the same, I now have to figure out my "new normal" with 2, and it is isn't easy. 

The best thing we can do for each other as moms is just be a little easier on ourselves. Be a little easier on your friends! If they cancel on you for coffee, assume they're at home banging their head against the wall. Because they might be! Let's watch out for each other a little more. Let's give each other a few more hugs a day. Let's bring each other coffee from Starbucks when we are having a good day and share our good mood. We are all in this together!


Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Liebster Award Nomination

Oh this is so fun! A friend nominated me for the Liebster award a few months ago and I figured I really needed to respond to it because another friend had nominated me awhile before that for the Versatile Blogger Award and I didn't respond yet. As Susanah at That Organic Girl explained, the Liebster is for up and coming bloggers who don't have as many followers, as in under 200. The idea is to get more people to start reading their blog and help them get more followers. So, an easy way for me to offend more people with my lack of a filter. Awesome! 

Thanks to my friend Susanah at That Organic Girl for the nomination, and thank you to my friend Mia Mauer Heckendorf at Ms. Mia Maree for the Versatile blogger award back in 2011! Both girls have hubbies in this crazy football world so it's always nice to get picked by fellow football wives too :)

Here are the rules...
  • Each person tagged must post 11 things about themselves
  • They must also answer the 11 questions the tagger has set for them.
  • They must create 11 more questions to ask bloggers they have decided to tag
  • They must then choose 11 bloggers to tag with less than 200 followers.
  • These lucky bloggers must be told.
  • There are no tag backs.
Alright so here we go...

11 Things About Me:
  1. I'm a complete sucker for animals dressed as humans. 
  2. If I don't exercise I am a scary, scary person to be around. I'm like a hamster. Must run on the wheel for a little while every day. Or in my case, push my 2 boys in the stroller or get thee fat rear end to the YMCA.
  3. I have 2 boys and a wonderful husband. My husband is extremely kind and it is my mission to raise my 2 boys to be kind.
  4. I love to eat alone in bed. Watching Bravo. That is my happy place.
  5. I ran cross country and track in high school. I am not very athletic but I love to sweat and work out. I joined these sports because I really liked that they didn't cut anybody.
  6. I absolutely hate the dentist, and I absolutely love really well manicured parks.
  7. It is very rare to catch me having brushed my teeth, shaved my legs, flossed, and blow dried my hair all on the same day. I like to save them all for anniversaries and Christmas. Mostly just anniversaries.
  8. I don't know what I would do without my husband. He is my best friend and understands me better than anyone else in the world. My favorite thing about him is that he is very even keeled and non-judgemental.
  9. I am very defensive of my family. I think this comes from growing up moving around a lot.
  10. I do not like being pregnant but feel like God has one more baby out there for me. Good thing the hubs knows what a Push Present is.
  11. Hard alcohol turns me into "College Sarah." And she's kinda scary. I can drink beer like I weigh 240 lbs and my name is Chip.

Questions from my nominator Susanah:
  1. What is your dream job? I do love to write, so probably something where I was sitting and writing my opinion all day interspersed with playing with my 2 kids and eating chocolate. Yes this sounds like a perfect day.
  2. What are you going to be for Halloween? It has taken me too long to write this post, I didn't dress up and went as myself (an angry pregnant lady), and dressed my poor child up as humpdy dumpdy.
  3. What is one item that you could not live without? Hm....My phone is probably right up there and that's embarrassing. Either my phone or my running shoes.
  4. If you could have any animal as a pet, what would you choose? I am not a huge animal person but I love king charles cavalier dogs and if I had a dog would love to have this kind. For some reason I could actually see myself as that crazy older lady who owns a parrot. I don't know why.
  5. What is your favorite thing to eat? oooh so hard to narrow it down to one thing! I love chipolte's bowls, that is probably my favorite meal. I also love a really good burger, pizza, anything done with a white potato....and shortbread cookies.
  6. What is your favorite sport to play? Watch? I love to run, and I love to watch football. I am frighteningly horrible at any sport with balls but still love to play anything.
  7. What is your dream car? Range Rover. Black. With a very hip Justin Bieber song playing and no car seats in the back :)
  8. Toilet Paper roll under or over? OVER!!!
  9. What's the greatest city you've ever visited? This is tough. I'm not too insanely well traveled. Outside of the United States, I have been to England to visit a friend, Jamacia on my honeymoon, and Canada a few times when the hubs was playing in the Canadian Football League. I have lived a lot of different places all over the country but would love to be more well traveled outside the United States as time goes on. I am going to have to go with Cambridge, I found it to be so intensely historical and interesting. Dream trips include: Ireland and Greece.
  10. Was it the Chicken or the Egg? :) hmmm. The chicken? I really don't know. I love eggs. Scrambled with cheese, thanks.
  11. What do you think about the whole Organic Food stuff?...Feel free to be totally honest, won't offend me a bit. Ironically I just had a conversation about this yesterday with my friend Tyan because I bought a vita mixer. I'm going to try to see if making smoothies will help me to fulfill all the fruit and veggie servings I need in a day. I think that as I have more kiddos I feel a deeper obligation to feed them as healthy as possible. For me I don't actually focus as much on "organic" as just trying to feed them "good foods." Do I have animal crackers in my pantry as we speak, and do they have preservatives in them? Yes. Do I try to make sure we all get as many fruits and vegetables as possible? Yes. I think you can make yourself crazy or just try your best to eat as balanced as possible.....I tend to mix in a few nights a month where I just fall asleep with a large pizza on my lap and The Real Housewives blaring in the background. I mean a girls gotta live....
Here are my 11 questions for my nominees!!!

Readers, feel free to answer these questions as well? I think they could be great dinner conversations with the spouse this evening.

1. Would you rather be a man for a month or not have boobs anymore for 6 months?
2. If you have had to pee for 30 minutes and you have been holding it and you are dying about to pee your pants, and your only option is to pee in front of your first boyfriend or wait another 2 hours, what do you do?
3. Would you eat a small spider for $40?
4. On a typical day, what is the best part of your day, and the worst part of your day?
5. Would you allow a starting linebacker for the NFL to tackle you fair and square on a football field like you are Peyton Manning if you are allowed to eat cookies and cake the rest of your life and not gain an ounce?
6. If you answered the above question "yes," what is your favorite cookie or cake? If you answered this question "no," do you consider yourself crazy?
7. What's your favorite recipe? Please share.
8. What are 3 things you hope to have accomplished by the time you are 40?
9. If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?
10. Would you rather sleep on a pillow made of boogers for 1 month or have a booger that is clearly hanging out of your nose and there is nothing you can do about it for 5 straight days?
11. Who are your 5 dream dinner guests?

I honestly don't have the chance to read as many blogs as I would like but here are a few
My Nominees:
Susanah at That Organic Girl 

I hope you enjoy these other blogs! Stay tuned for Thursday when I explain why I thought it would be a good idea to dry up my placenta and eat the pills after baby Luke was born. Make sure to set aside time to read at lunch! Yum!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

The Day My Uterus Fell Out

Alright party people things are about to get real. It's about to get real real. My lady parts have squatted out 2 wonderful boys in the last 24 months. In the last 34 months I have spent 19 of them pregnant and 14 of them breastfeeding. That means I have enjoyed one of those 34 months. Just kidding. Sorta.

People without kids tell me they want to know the truth. "Tell me the real story Sarah," they say. "I know you will tell me how it is (read: scare me and scare me and offend me)."

Oh you want the real story? It has many complicated chapters.

*Your vajeen. She's never gonna be the same. Never. After my first gorgeous little boy came flying out like he was on a 40 foot slide at a water park, the 82 year old man on call stitched me up with what I can only describe as fishing wire. It looked EXACTLY like fishing wire. I remember holding Brooks and being so insanely happy he was mine then glancing down and watching a man sewing. So weird. This time the doctor on call (I have no luck at getting my actual doctor....) told me I didn't need a stitch afterward. Which I can only assume means, "lady your vajeen, she's (it's a she right?) a lost cause, so I'm gonna save you from the pain associated with stitches and let you attempt to right this ship in the next few months with approximately 1 gajillion kegels. Do them in the grocery. Do them while you run. Do them while you watch the Real Housewives of Beverly Heels. DEFINITELY do them while you sneeze. Best of luck."

*Your cute stomach. Go ahead, head to the bathroom and look at it. See how underneath your belly button there's that tautness that you worked so hard for in spin class and refusing the morning donuts at work? Yea that's a goner. Forever. Don't worry though you can buy control top panties. They will just roll over and quadroople up when you bend over, but you can grab a hold of them and yank them back up when you stand back up. And don't worry they only cost $72! What are these things laced with, flecks of gold?
Sorry can't speak for a c-section but I can only imagine that after slicing through 4 layers of abdominal muscle that it's a challenge in a completely different way.

*Your brain. You can do sodokus until your eyeballs fall out but your brain will turn to mush the minute you pop out those precious babes. If you're really lucky, it might even happen during your pregnancy! I put the milk in the cabinet, leave the house with 2 different shoes, have left the house and done 3 hours of errands completely braless, I call my children by each other's names on a daily basis. The list goes on and on and I can only assume that when you give birth they actually sail outta there with a large chunk of your brain.

*Back to the body. The boobs, specifically. I can only speak for the effect of breastfeeding but man she ran a number on my tatas. I do love breastfeeding and I wouldn't take it back. It works for me and makes me happy to provide for my little men. But watched your nipples be pulled through the pump machine just makes you feel like a milked cow, and once your husband sees this on a regular basis, well you've just gone somewhere that you can't get back from. I'm not saying it's a bad place. It's just a different place. It's a place where you have to pick your boobs up and place them into your bra cups. It's a place where, and I've made this comparison on a blog before, but your boobs look like you dropped 2 clementines in panty hose. I've done the pinterest inspired armpit fat-dropping workouts. There is no picking these puppies back up. They live down by my belly button now.

I decided that post-baby number two, after 9 weeks of walking, light running, and doing the bike at the gym I was going to have to change things up to make my stomach not look like something off of a TLC operation show. I worked out throughout my whole pregnancy but my stomach is just in a state of disarray and something has to be done.

I decided that this week I would try out the cardio fusion zumba lumba dance mania class at the YMCA we go to. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and how safe I'd been playing it on my little machines upstairs.

I know I have a couple male readers, so sorry to my husband and Pop! But it must be said: Working out while breastfeeding and during the lovely post-baby body recovery phase is just a hot mess. 20 minutes into the class, my nipples could cut glass and I could feel my milk coming in. With every burpee I looked down on the ground expecting to see half a gallon of breast milk for the class to share. I look around and see women 50 years older than me doing jumping lunges like they've been drinking coffee for 8 hours straight and I can barely get 1 inch off the ground. This 60 minute class will be some of the more embarrassing moments in recent history but I must plunge forward.

I can only assume it's the lovely post baby hormones but I am sweating like nobody has ever sweated in their life. This gymnasium must be air conditioned, but the heat, my gawd the heat. There is a woman about 4 rows in front of me with one of the nicest behinds I've ever seen. I hate her. I hate her so much. I wish she would turn around so I could tell myself she has a nice body but only a decent face. No don't, nice butt lady, because I'm sure your face is great too. She probably even has on a coat of mascara or two and blush. I hate the mascara gym people. I really do loathe you.

Everyone is decked out in Lululemon tops and cute cropped pants. Some women are wearing  nicer outfits than I have actually gone on a date with my husband in. I have yogurt on the bottom of my target workout tank and the butt of my 5 year old workout shorts are sticky but I honestly don't know why. During crunches I swear I see tiny little black stars and slightly move my neck so I don't get yelled at for not doing the exercise. I think I might have passed out there on my mat for a moment but I can't be sure.

With every single direction the petite instructor is giving, I want to yell "No." It's taking a lot of willpower to not yell No. If there were a youtube video taped of me for class it would probably be titled "Girl who hasn't exercised in 14 years attempts jumping, being normal."

Post-class, I'm walking around like I spend the last 3 weeks at a Dude Ranch riding a horse named HopALong. I must be crazy but I went back to class today. Despite all this work, my tatas remain low, my stomach has not returned to it's 18 year old taut self, and well, I can't see how I could possibly add Kegals to this 60 minute torture session. Seeing as how this class is 1 hour on Tuesday Thursdays mixed with the amount of chocolate only I know I eat, I expect to look like Gisele in approximately 3 years.

I'm really trying to be more consistent and write on Tuesdays and Thursdays every week, so next week stay tuned for a blog about how I turned my placenta into pills following Luke's birth as well as a Liebster Award Nomination post.




Tuesday, January 15, 2013

The Real Birth Story

I wrote this puppy when Luke was 2 weeks old, with plans to finish it the next day. And now he's 9 weeks old tomorrow. Sheesh. Where does the time go?! Well, with a 2 year old and a 2 month old, I spend most of my day worrying about how much hormones are going into the meat in the United States and writing our congressman about it, working on those pesky cuticles, and doing bar method pilates. Just kidding! In reality, I'm getting pooped on, peed on, leaking breast milk to and fro, and sometimes, letting myself eat raw cookie dough at the kitchen counter while having a good 3 minute cry. Nonetheless, I must share the birth story, even if it is late, so here it is!

Welp, here we are. 2 weeks post-baby, he just had his first bath and a 25 minute breastfeeding session and he's in a deep coma, and I have poured myself my 2nd glass of postpartum wine (it's for my heart. It's very important to get enough drinks to keep your heart healthy). It's time to get real about the birth. Oh that's like a man's nightmare line, isn't it?

I truly loathe being pregnant, so when everyone kept saying to me, oh just wait, you will miss it when it's gone, I would think, ok maybe I will! Maybe I will be one of those women who touches the phantom baby in their belly 3 months after giving birth, longing for another kick. But NOPE. Just as I suspected, I was ready to throw an "I'm not pregnant anymore!" party in my room directly after pushing out my little nugget. And I was enjoying a delicious "I'm not pregnant anymore!" craft beer brought in by my wonderful friend Jessica a mere 24 hours after his birth. In my hospital bed. (For all you haters, I drank it over the course of 2 hours, and beer helps with breastfeeding let down! Booyah!).

I was scheduled to be induced on November 14 at 5 a.m. My husband was scheduled to be on a plane to Buffalo, New York at 1 p.m. that day and I was 39 weeks by one due date, 38 weeks 2 days by another due date. I didn't want to risk him missing the birth so we scheduled the induction. I wasn't thrilled because I like to have a natural labor, no epidural or drugs of any kind, so I wasn't happy about even having the Pitocin drip to induce contractions, but I also didn't want to give birth with the Hubs in New York, so this was our best choice. Here's how it really went down....

5:13 p.m.
Weirdest feeling knowing I'm being induced tomorrow. My first labor, my water broke 3 1/2 weeks early so there wasn't this time to think and know what was coming. This time around, I dropped my little boy Brooks off at my mom's house and drive away bawling like an idiot. Feeling guilty for bringing another child into this world instead of just focusing on him, then feeling crazy because there's that Duggar lady who has like 83 kids so I guess it's ok for me to have a second one. Call my best friend Tara and beg her to tell me I'm normal. She lies and promises I am.

5:56 p.m.
Hmmm. In a weird twist of events I'm home alone (never) and it's just me and the pantry. This is my last night of no-guilt eating. Things are about to get nasty. Cursing my idiot self for not stocking up on a box of macaroni and cheese. And by a box, I mean 3 boxes. Frozen pizza with Dove Chocolate toppings it is!

6:23 p.m.
My husband informs me he will be home earlier than usual, like 8 p.m. I better hurry and make myself sick with food before he gets home. It's much more normal to do this alone. In the dark. In my bed. Watching the Kardashians.

8:12 p.m.
Husband is home. I feel ill. I've probably eaten 3,500 calories in the past hour. I tell him it's contractions. Weirdly, however, I do feel a little bit like I'm having some real ones.

9:45 p.m.
The husband seems oddly happy and that angers me. Oh, you must be happy because you're not having your vagina turned inside out in the morning. Ok makes sense. Oh you've fallen right asleep because you're just going to a little show in the morning? Fabulous. I'm tossing and turning with visions of forceps dancing in my head. Un.Fair.

1:00 a.m.
Wake up. This is the real thing. These hurt. Why did I ever think this was a good idea!? I should have stuck with one kid and tried to make him Superman. If all my energy was just focused on him he might have a shot at turning out normal! My energy will now be divided and the best I can hope for is that one if them is kinda good at spelling and the other one is decent at T-Ball.

1:34 a.m.
I have told my husband it's time to go but now I'm going to shower and blow dry my hair. Last time during birth I looked like a cross between a water monster and Lady Gaga and even the nurses couldn't look me straight in the eye. My husband is up pacing around like a crazy person putting random things in the car. He keeps knocking on the bathroom door while I straighten my hair. Urge to kill him increases but then I will not have a ride to the hospital.

2:05 a.m. En route to hospital and everything Zac is doing is wrong. He is taking wrong way on highway. He is going too slow. He is driving annoyingly. We pull up to hospital and he plans to park. Yes, park and walk in together like we are going shopping at Old Navy for jeans. I tell him if he doesn't drop me off he's not allowed in. He looks excited at the prospect.

2:50 a.m.
I'm checked and dilated to a 7. Really thought I'd waited long enough to just walk in there and push so now I'm mad. And ain't nobody want to see Big Mama Taylor mad. 25 minutes later I tell someone to check me again and I'm ready to go, so a group of nurses huddle to discuss things and I know somethings up. Turns out all the rooms are full and I will be taken into the c-section operating room because Luke is about to fly out of my vajeen. It hurts like the dickens to lay so I force said huddle of nurses to let me walk. Everyone thinks I'm crazy. Finally get to operating room and it's go time baby. I say lots of fun, and funny, things to Zac like "this is our last one, I hate your guts!" and "Can you knock me out still, is it too late?" He will later make joke directly after birth about how when I was doing squats to ease the pain my bare bottom was visible for all to see. Hilarious.

3:45 a.m.
Luke is born! I was so enormous I was positive I was squirting out a 12 lb linebacker. They weigh him and inform he weighs 6 lbs 11 oz. Many people I know have twins this weight. And looked better than me pregnant. I curse my stomach, then look down at it and am frightened. After birth 1 it looked like a waterbed. Now it looks like a waterbed that 3 little boys have been jumping on for 2 hours. How the heck do those Victoria Secret models walk in those shows like 3 weeks post birth?! If I was my husband I would wear eye patches for 3 months!

3:57 a.m.
Have a near disaster when Zac almost accidentally goes below the waist. We all know that nobody is coming back from seeing that disaster. It suddenly seems insanely bright in this room. Get a girl some mood lighting for Heavens sake. Doctor checks things out and informs me I won't need any stitches. I don't like the sound of this at all, not one bit. You're telling me I just pushed out the squirming human being 2 feet away from me and my vajeen is good to go? Like I'm good to just pull on my sweatpants and walk outta here? Blimey.

4:15 a.m.
I must get out of this hospital gown. This is absolutely the worst fabric known to man. I'm somehow roasting hot and freezing at the same time. This fabric is nubby meaning only one thing: This robe has been worn  before. Nurse comes in with breakfast and I eat that breakfast while waiting for the hubby to bring me back another breakfast. Must.Stop.Eating.Like.I'm.Still.Pregnant.

5:12 a.m.
Get another shot to breastfeed precious baby Luke. I forgot how wonderful this is, and by wonderful I mean feels like 27,000 tiny dragons are all gnawing at my ta tas. Over the course of the next 3 days I have no less than 8 nurses tell me I have wonderful breastfeeding boobs. Aaaah, just the compliment every lingerie model dreams to hear! Next stop, Playboy! Husband sheepishly asks me if he can leave so he doesn't miss team practice before they head to Buffalo. He's hunky and I can't resist his charms, so I say yes and remind him to bring the placenta home in its bio hazardous lunch pail. (Don't you worry, another post to come on that later).

When leaving the hospital 2 days later, I see that the woman in the room next to me was a beautiful Chinese lady who is now a size 2 and wearing a gorgeous dress. I am in my sweats which I'm pretty sure have puke on them, and which barely fit over adult diaper. I'd say that my stomach is rolling over the top of my sweats but it's so much  more than a roll. It's like a tidal wave of all the pregnant eating mistakes. Even with my postpartum Kardashian belly band on, I couldn't fit into a mumu, much less the get up she's in. She's in a flowing maxi dress, hair done, beaming with pride at tiny Chinese baby. Her husband glances at mine with pity. Note to self: must find out if she has secretly been here 6 months and re-staging her exit just to make me crazy.