Post Partum

[flea]

This site: http://shapeofamother.blogspot.com/ is abut celebrating the post-partum body, in all of its squishiness, saggy skin and stretch marks. Which, go empowerment yay! Except it also makes me - 33 years old, 2 weeks post-partum with my second child, probably only 10 pounds above my quite thin pre-pregnancy weight and half of that is my temporary D-cups, not a stretch mark on me - shamefully vain. (I mean, people, I look foine! mr. flea ogles me!)

I know health and beauty derive from luck, not virtue, but on the other hand I spent way too long with the Greeks, who always had those things confused, object lessons in the person of Alcibiades notwithstanding.

In other post partum news, I am now going to tell of my near-death experience in the lingerie section of Nordstrom's. But I'll cut it, since while it is somewhat surreally humorous, it also involves a fair amount of post partum girly TMI.

So it was Monday, I'd had a baby 6 days previously, and my mother wanted to go to Nordstrom's on her last full day here, and she wanted me to come. I was like, whatever, but still trying to roll with my control freak mother and do what she wanted. And I'd been feeling really great, and had really light lochia. Off we go, Dillo too.

Nordstrom's at 10:30 am on a Monday is filled with the sort of people you'd expect to see at Nordstrom's at 10:30 am on a Monday. Anticipating this I had dressed up in a new light blue skirt. And while I was pushing a dirty 3 year old Graco and not a Bugaboo, hey, I was born a natural blonde! Mother immediatel ran up to lingerie via escalator, leaving me to find the elevator and follow. I arrive, mother dives into the dressing room with the tape measure lady, Dillo starts to fuss so I pick him up, and then I feel a gush. Yes, I am suddenly bleeding like a bleedy bleedy thing, standing holding a newborn, in a light colored garment, amidst the fawn and dove-grey elegance of the Nordie's bra department.

I walk to the bathroom, slowly and carefully. I am not sure if I feel like I am about to pass out because of blood loss, or because of alarm at the potential of becoming a public scene. Or both. I arrive safely (still carrying Dillo), and discover it is a small miracle that I have not left a trail of blood across the store. Also miraculously, my skirt is unmarked. My pad, underpants, and legs, another matter. I do extensive preliminary cleanup. Still holding a now asleep Dillo. I venture back, bareassed under my skirt, to find my mother. Happily she has just purchased some black underpants, so we do a trade - me underpants, her Dillo. I go back to the bathroom and put them on, realize I have forgotten to acquire a quarter to purchase a maxi pad, and track down Mother, now halfway across the store. Returning, finally feeling secure, I find her in yet a third corner of the store. Only at this point does she ask if I need any help or want to sit down. (I was angry at my mother for a reason last week, you see.) We sit on a bench just outside the store entry and I drink some water and eat a granola bar. Dillo, bless him, sleeps. My mother flits back into the store and starts trying on blouses (ugly ones, even - nobody should wear elbow-length sleeves) over her clothes. I finally break it to her that we should probably go home. She leaves Nordie's with regret.

When we get home, the first thing mr. flea says is, "you look pale. Are you okay?"

(I am fine, by the way. And have been out and about several more times since them with no ill effects.)

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Eep! And, EEP!!! Glad you were okay. But it sounded scary.