It seems like I should be able to ignore it, but everything seems like "oh yeah, on top of THAT, how about another curveball?"

The big, floppy tummy, the puffy legs, the gigantic scar - none of it can go away fast enough, and it's lingering and taking its' time. I got some good initial weight loss, but of course it's stalled now, leaving me at this massive weight unable to fit back into my old clothes and unable to consider wearing the maternity clothes, I couldn't even bring the maternity clothes to the hospital to be honest, wanted them away from me as soon as we found out she wouldn't make it, like her impending death made me not pregnant anymore - anyway, so basically, I look like absolute crap all the time. On top of the "normal wear and tear" of being post partum, my eyes look like raccoons and I can't keep my contacts in my eyes for some reason, my skin is so dried out it is flaking, and my hair - let's not even go there. I just want to shave my head.

I'm not a person who's usually fussy about my appearance, not a makeup wearer, I haven't had a haircut since a rather unsuccessful trim of split ends freshman or sophomore year of college, unless you count when I took the scissors to the split ends myself, and as the mother of a two year old boy it's not as though I am putting on the haute couture for going to the grocery store. It's just looking at the pictures from this weekend, I look like a big blob with bruised knees. I see pictures of myself and cringe.

It's not that I care, it's just that I don't want to look ridiculous on top of everything else.

I'm with you too. I gained so much unwanted weight when on bedrest and now it's driving me crazy. I'm in between my maternity clothes and regular clothes too. I've found myself avoiding leaving the house at times because I feel so self-conscious. It's pure salt in the wound.

I've thought about a haircut, I'm just worried I'll let myself get talked into doing something crazy with it since I don't know what the devil to do with it. It's now just this big mass of hair that goes past my waist and is the best kitty cat toy in the house when it's braided up.

I don't know, it does seem petty, and normally I don't give two hoots about my appearance unless I'm actually dressing up for some reason, but I'm tired of looking like an escapee from the mental health unit or some women's shelter or something. Seeing the snaps, I don't know, it was just "Oh no, I still look like I need to be in the hospital and it's been 14 weeks."

Well, you know, I was reading someone's blog saying "The hardest thing to remember is that you're still postpartum, because without that baby, you feel like you should be up and moving and doing regular work." This is just the tail end of that same thing, I think, Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I had the same "Oh **** I look hideous" reaction about this long after my son was born, when I started trying to put regular clothes back on instead of the maternity/nursing combos I'd been wearing up to that point.

The scar will eventually fade to a little white line, I hope, because the first one did. All the scars will fade somewhat, but yeah, the giant purply-red line that just jumps out in the mirror, you try and ignore it but it's very much there. "Shape of a mother" helped me with that after my son, but I haven't been able to go look at that site since even though I know some of the women that posted pictures there are in the same boat, with just a scar instead of a baby.

It is kind of like "I wouldn't have minded destroying my body for this wonderful child, but why, if I'm not allowed to have the beautiful baby (because they all are beautiful to me, cliched though that may be), do I have to look like a shell-shocked bag lady?"

I guess part of it too is realizing that I have to do more than just survive now, I can't just keep on in survival mode, just keeping afloat, and that's been everywhere, even so far as we've had late payment on a bill because I just wasn't paying attention to what was going on, or the day that the boy didn't wear anything more than his underwear all day (a cardinal sin in my neighborhood even when it's 95 degrees out), or my hair staying in the night braid all day and me shuffling around in my hobo outfits. I need to start truly taking care of things again. And that's going to be rough, but when I'm making myself crazy, that's a good sign that I'm actually on the way to get my balance back, I really am one of those type A people by training if not by temperament, so when I'm not on top of things and don't care you can be sure that something's really wrong.

For me, the scar is comforting. It serves in rememberance of my son, even after all other evidence of him is gone.

The weight, is another matter entirely.

Well, my mum is going to come with me next Friday and we're both going to get our hair cut for Locks of Love. So it might be crazy short but at least it won't just go in the garbage.

I've been going to the gym since my new OB/Gyn and my PCP approved it, it's just one of those things where I keep looking at the amount of weight thats got to come off (10 stone) and just saying "It will never happen." Besides all the extra crap they do to me now with having to wear the heart monitors and all that - nothing worse than sweating, just trying to get through that mile, and the stupid treadmill shuts down because you hit over the heart rate. I go to a hospital gym, I understand they're being careful, but it's annoying.

Maybe the scar will start to be a reminder of my daughter someday, but right now it just feels like a reminder of a horrible doctor.

I did go get my hair chopped off, sent 26 inches to Locks of Love. Still hate my hair, but at least it's down to what's healthy now. Maybe there's some kind of cultural artifact left in my brain, I couldn't help but feel a little better after that first cut, like by getting rid of my hair I was making an announcement of my grief.


You want to hear something insane about sex? I've always been a rabid book reader, and can remember plot details and the like when I couldn't tell you the title of a book to save my life. Something triggered a vague memory the other day when I was poring over my son's bookshelf, and I found my old "Little House on the Prairie" books. "The First Four Years." Laura & Almanzo's baby boy died of "spasms" and she went wandering around in a daze for a while "mercifully dulled" by the amount of work needed and caring for Rose, and Laura accidentally burnt the house down. They never had another baby, Rose was their. It makes me wonder, because it's not as though there was a lot of birth control available then. I have to wonder if the conclusion some of us babylost mamas and daddies come to is that sex seems kind of pointless without the procreative aspect, or if that's just a temporary phase that people go through and maybe get out of eventually.

After having three pregnancies and two living babies, I've been able to watch the "deterioration" of my body. This last pregnancy ended in Beckett being stillborn, but my body doesn't care. Hell, no! Boobs? Let 'em sag like I nursed a litter. Tummy? Never the same. It's like the last cruel, cruel joke that our fucked up situation can play on us. It's not the worst of it, but it certainly doesn't help.

Katherine,

In Ojibway culture, the men do cut their hair after the death in the family to indicate to everyone they are in mourning for one year.

I often wish we could bring back some of the mourning traditions so we could wear our grief and let the rest of the world know we are sad and not over our losses in the 2 months they seem to think it takes to "move on".

Hate my body too, flabby belly, big nipples and no baby. It sucks.