No, I’m not talking about the baby bump you have while you’re pregnant.  This is about the bump that you have long after the baby is out in the world.

Maybe when I was reading all my pregnancy books, I just ignored everything that was going to happen after giving birth.  I figured that I had enough to deal with going through the discomforts of pregnancy and dealing with how I was going to push this little human out of my body.  I didn’t give a whole lot of thought to all the bodily horrors I would experience after my uterus was vacated.

Case in point: my stomach.  I always used to have a relatively flat stomach.  My fat generally gets stored in my back side, so I never worried about it.  I had ab muscles.  And as you get fatter and fatter through pregnancy, your stomach stays kind of hard.  There is a baby in there, after all, taking up that space.  And that made me feel like, ok, my stomach is still fine, I can’t feel any fat.  But after the baby came out I was shocked.  I didn’t expect the disgusting slab of skin that was hanging from my body.  Mortifying.  What can you do but shove it into your pants and pretend it’s not there?

Now it’s a little over a year since I’ve given birth, and although my stomach went back to a pretty nice size, it is obvious that a baby used to live in there.  The skin got stretched out, and even though it keeps shrinking, it isn’t back to normal.  There’s always a little pooch, and after a big meal, I look approximately 15 weeks pregnant, in my opinion.

Could I pump up my fitness regime and eat less popcorn, peanut butter and chocolate?  Probably.  Will more time help my bump continue to go down in size?  I really don’t know.

What I do know is that I need Spanx, Body shapers, Control tops, whatever.  Give it to me.  My butt already sticks out, so I don’t need my belly sticking out the other way.

What’s your experience after having a baby?  Did you ever get your belly back?  Give me some inspiration!

And just for fun, I’ve included a photo of my (enormous) baby bump.  This is the day Logan was born – about an hour or so before the worst pain in the world!