Twin Skin and Tiger Stripes

Photo credit: Sarah Siler Photography

Before my struggle with infertility, I had a lot of anxiety about becoming pregnant, including some concerns about what it would do to my body. I wrote about some of those worries in my Blueberry Girl post. Knowing how hard I am on myself, I was worried that changes I could not control may wreak havoc on my body, which would cause a lot of personal dissatisfaction. Silly or not, these were some real concerns and although I was called out by some commenters for being selfish or vain to worry about such things, I still was quite worried.

Looking back I was bigger than I remember!

I mentioned before that my first body awareness after having the babies was noticing my immediately deflated belly as I lay on the operating room table. I felt a little unnerved seeing my once taut belly all soft and saggy. I started to wonder about the damage of what some call "twin skin."

Again, bigger than I realized!

I was stuck in bed and unable to move well enough to do much for days after the delivery. The first time I took a bath and saw myself in the mirror I was shocked. I couldn't believe how huge my hips looked. I figured it was because the size my lower body had grown was now grossly out of proportion without the large belly to match (I did gain at least 7" on my hips when I measured part way through my pregnancy). I managed to make it through my pregnancy with no stretch marks on my belly and a few small ones on my hips. Now, I have tiger stripes all along my outer hips and love handles that I attribute to the swelling from the IV fluids given to me in the hospital, partly to combat anemia after losing significant blood during the procedure, and realize now the large "hippy" appearance was also due partly to swelling.

Induction day edema

What happened to my knees?

Home post partum a few days later!

I don't know what I weighed in the hospital (close to 200 lbs) but I lost about 20 lb. by the time I got home 5 days later. One month later I had lost 47 lb! I attribute the bulk of this to water weight as I lost most once my knees and ankles were back to normal. I currently bounce about a pound below and a few pounds above my pre-baby weight, and about 5-10 pounds above my pre-IVF weight.

Induction day

13 days after delivery

13 days after delivery -- not hard to feel skinny after as big as I was!

Halloween, about 3 weeks after delivery

I have gone up a size or so in most of my clothes. I resized my wedding ring when it wouldn't come close to fitting over my knuckle. My feet seem to have mostly gone back to normal.

I didn't expect "The Mom" look to come so fast.
Maybe with two babies at once you accelerate along the path to Mom Bod that much faster.

I feel like I went over 30 years without looking like a mom. I had hoped to avoid looking like a mom. I wanted to always look young and hip, with flat, hard abs. (Not that that was true before kids!) Instead, I feel I look tired. I look older. I don't seem to know or understand many of the current fashion trends (leggings as pants, still an utter mystery to me!) and find myself continuing to wear my maternity clothes (baggy is in, right?). And my abs? Well, while they have never been flat, I somehow managed to avoid diastasis recti (separation of the abdominal muscles) but I still have a little extra sag. And as I mentioned before, the stretch marks.

But I couldn't be happier.

Okay that's an exaggeration. I could be more pleased if I looked like Heidi Klum after all her babies. It would be nice to fit into all of my clothes again. To have beautifully taut belly skin and supple unstretched hips. But...I still don't think I would be happier. So maybe I was right...

I couldn't be happier.

Because really, the way I look at my body has completely transformed. No longer do I look at my body as an ornament to dress and adorn. No longer is it an object to perfect or to use to seek admiration. It isn't something to be sexualized or even demonized.

It is a tool. It is an instrument. And an amazing one that has done amazing things. It has survived years of infertility. It has overcome hundred of shots and ravages on its system with synthetic hormones and mad scientist happenings. It has carried and delivered two healthy babies. It has provided much of their needed nutrition. All of this automatically, miraculously, without any input or feedback from me consciously.


***This is another post from my archives of works in progress. I wish I had finished it completely as I wonder exactly where I was going with it at the time, as it ends a bit abruptly. I contemplated adding another ending today but just didn't have the words. And it felt a bit fraudulent not to just ride the moment of the feelings I had then. 

I wish I could say that I have held on to this new found confidence completely since those early months post partum, but I think it is quite normal to have days where I begrudge my stretch marks! I haven't lost any more weight (although I am back in my old clothes), I continue to battle hormonal imbalances while nursing that cause skin issues, and I have more than my fair share of bad hair days but I find almost a year later I still place less scrutiny on the appearance of my body than before where every flaw and imperfection was something to improve, fuss over, or loathe. My main goal these days is to try to get healthy and back in shape. After exercise restrictions during my fertility treatments, a difficult pregnancy, and an overwhelmingly busy schedule with infant twins, exercise hasn't been much of a reality for over two years. As an athlete growing up, it is crazy to think I could ever go that long but I suppose life happens. 

Every day is a new day! I feel so lucky to have this wonderful body to live it with. ***

On wedding planning

My future SIL sent us a link to an interesting article about the stress of getting married. Reading the article brought back some of the memories from my own engagement. I felt some relief realizing that was all behind me and some tinges of sentimental feelings as well.

http://www.today.com/id/12355053/ns/today-today_books/t/got-ring-your-finger-freaking-out/#.Uf729hbfbzI

I've been thinking a lot about my own wedding as I have been watching two weddings come together this year in Abe's family. It's interesting to reminisce in the perfect window of hindsight and the poor memory of the past. I remember the engagement period being pretty stressful but overall a fun (but busy time). Since blogging is often about giving away unsolicited advice, here are some of the details of my engagement and some things I learned along the way.

Shortly before our wedding 2007

Abe and I were engaged on Valentine's Day in 2007. We had a relatively short engagement with our wedding set for the infamous 07-07-07. I wasn't the type of girl who had been planning my wedding since childhood. In some ways this made it harder as I had to start completely from scratch with only a few months to plan. So, I started by cutting out a lot of the fluff. I didn't tan, have a make-up artist, fancy jewelry, or shoes. I didn't even have my dress fitted (it was slightly big if anything) and I certainly didn't have time for any sort of exercise regimen. I said no to Bridesmaids. Groomsmen. Flower girl. Ring bearer. In an LDS wedding these people aren't even involved in the ceremony. I didn't feel I needed people in matching dresses just because of tradition or to decide who was important enough to play those roles. Too much stress! And I certainly didn't need a party bus to take them all around with me. This made life a lot easier on me, and I think the potential bridespeople.

I am also under the opinion that just like the commercialization of Christmas, much of the wedding planning hooplah is designed for money! Do you really need to try every kind of cake to choose vanilla or chocolate? Do you have to see every florist shop to decide you want pink roses? If you have the money and sanity to do those things (and most importantly, that is FUN for you), great, but I found I was behind on every engagement checklist before I was even engaged.

Engagement photo

I focused on a few details I really cared about and delegated the rest. This was mostly a necessity as I was in Iowa and the wedding would be in Utah (and luckily so was my mom). For some reason the invitations were really important to me to be completely custom. That was a lot of work to get them designed and put together but I was very happy with the result thanks to my friend Heidi who was amazing and designed it perfectly! Funny enough, I mentioned to my mother-in-law the other day that the only stamps available at the time of our mailing were the liberty bell and an ugly ram head. There were no pretty flower or wedding or love stamps. Just liberty bells and a ram with horns. This was a detail I wasn't pleased about but I think even though my mom and I were disappointed about this choice, not even my MIL remembered that detail.

I also got super lucky by finding an amazing cake lady who let me design my cake exactly how I wanted. I don't know what made me latch on to these two things but these were important and I was able to approve each detail. Knowing I had these details worked out made me more flexible on other details like the flowers (which were beautiful even though I couldn't get the exact Hawaiian flower I wanted) and the menu.




As for the rest, I told my mom and my mother-in-law my color scheme (orange and lime green), theme (luau), and that I wanted to have food (many LDS weddings are more open house type events with mint cups and dessert instead of dinner). And the wedding seemed to plan itself (Right Mom? Kristin?).



Some of the major stressors were:


-Timing. I was excited and anxious to get planning but my sister had gotten engaged just a few months prior and her wedding was in March, mine was in July. I had to delay some of my planning until my mom was done with that wedding. What a trooper!

-Guest list. This was the hardest thing to coordinate. Deciding on who should and shouldn't be invited when there are financial and physical constraints on numbers can be fundamentally different between families. In my family we haven't stayed in touch much with distant relatives so it was a little hard to understand why third cousin Sally needed to be invited to our cozy ceremony.  Luckily we were able to sort this through after understanding the goals for both the ceremony and the reception.

-Dress shopping. Finding a LDS temple appropriate dress can be challenging, especially outside of Utah! I tried so hard to find one that wasn't too ornate, was whitest white, and modest -- only to be told in the temple I would have to wear one of theirs during the ceremony anyway. I almost cried, told myself it didn't matter, and enjoyed wearing my dress the rest of the day. I got so lucky to have found mine on sale for only $100. I did feel some disappointment that my mom was not able to be present with me to find my dress but I felt lucky that I was close enough with Abe's mom to enjoy the experience with her.










-Venue selection. I know some brides want their fiances to be super involved in the wedding planning. I found when mine got too involved it just made my life harder. My mom found a great outdoor park for our reception in the canyon which was beautiful but originally my fiance had a hard time visualizing it and was worried we were having our reception by the jungle gym. Luckily I think he was pleased with the end result and this was one example of the "It's your day" thing working out for the best.





If I have any advice looking back, I'd say take a deep breathe, enjoy this time together, and remember that the important part is that you are marrying the person you love. That matters more than the flowers, the guest list, or even the food!

Then you'll be prepared when something goes wrong. Because at least ONE thing will!

(Mis)matched

I remember in college when many of my friends were getting married, we would receive wedding invitations with engagement photos. My roommates and I would eagerly open the envelope to see (and perhaps make our critique) of the happy couple. There were multiple occasions I found myself disappointed. You know, I hate to admit it, but the times when your should-have-been-a-super-model friend fell for the chubby bald guy, or the guy you’d had a crush on all year married the girl who was definitely less pretty than you. Yes, there is often one person in the couple who is more attractive but if you deviate away more than a few points (on the hot scale) it becomes quite noticeable. It is silly, really, because part of me finds great satisfaction and a feeling of triumph in couples who clearly choose their partner based off less superficial qualities than their attractiveness. But there is something about the aesthetic value of couples that at that point at least, had a large impact on my feelings of if they were a “well matched” couple.

I know other people didn’t feel this way and had no worries about the matchability of their future spouse. But I, being again, (somewhat?) superficial, had some worries. I wanted to marry someone who people would think was attractive, but mostly, I didn’t want to be the girl who people said, “Wow, how did she end up with him! He could have done so much better!”

This is the engagement photo we sent out with our invitations. I guess I can only say what I think with accuracy, but no one has told me yet (and please don’t start) that we weren’t an acceptable (physical) match, except for maybe our almost 12 inch height discrepancy.

Recently, I have been thinking in different terms of how well matched we are. I still wonder about our physical appearances. He is so thin, it is hard to keep up! And people are always telling him he looks like _____ movie star, or that he should be a movie star, or he looks like he should like in Hollywood (you get the idea). His medical school friends used to call him the “Mormon George Clooney.” I don’t think I’ve had any stranger approach me and tell me I am so gorgeous I should be a model. The only movie star I get compared to is “Princess Leia.” My friends never told me I was like the “brunette Heidi Klum.” I’m not sure if this means we are mismatched but sometimes I wonder.

I started thinking about all of this with Match Day for Medical school. He is graduating with his MD/PhD in less than one month! I know he will be a great physician and he was certainly in high demand by multiple programs. I think he let me be “doctor” first, so I could feel important for a little while until he laps me with his dual degrees.

(These are his medical school photos for his first and last year, 8 years apart. Still looking good!)

He works very hard for our church. He has been serving as our Elder’s Quorum President (meaning he was in charge of the meetings, activities, and welfare of most of the men in our congregation). This week he was just ordained to be a High Priest so he could be in our Bishopric. He serves with a smile, even when he has to wake up early and attend multiple meetings.

When other women talk about “MEN!” or how their husbands are horrible about helping out at home, I have to hold my tongue. Abe has been the hugest blessing in my life, especially in relation to my residency. He lets me vent or unload all of the thoughts about my day (and there are usually a lot!), often makes dinner, helps with dishes, does the majority of laundry, makes our lunches, drives me to work on early mornings, etc etc. I hope to give him even a small measure of the support he has given me during his upcoming intern year. I didn’t even mention his awesome baking skills.

I figure if people use their blogs to brag about their kids, surely I should be able to brag about my husband. I guess what I have learned is that even though I feel our engagement photo didn’t evoke any strong negative gut reactions about our compatability, I have come to learn since we’ve been married that we are terribly, horribly mismatched. He is clearly the superior one in our relationship.  I hope he doesn’t figure this out too soon. But I’ve also changed how I feel about this. Now I know that I come out the winner (if I can just keep him around)! Before I was just looking for a good match. Now I know the key is to get the best you can get. Clearly some of the couples in the engagement photos figured that out already.

Poor Abe is stuck with me.

Surgical Makeovers

Heidi got me thinking about plastic surgery. I was so intrigued and shocked that someone only 23 years old, who is normally developed without any kind of health issues, genetic syndromes, traumatic injuries or burns, not to mention someone who was already attractive, would have 10 plastic surgeries at one time. Wow! What a huge risk.  I think I would have been afraid to do that kind of full body make-over, like my nose would fall off or something.  Not to mention people can die on the table (think of Kanye’s mom and that brazillian model a few months ago) while in the search of a more perfect bod.

She has taken a lot of criticism, much of what was along the lines of, “She was already pretty. Why did she have to be more pretty?” This made me feel a little guilty about feeling bad about some of my flaws. It also made me grateful that I understand that who I am on the inside is more important than superficial characteristics.

But it did get me wondering…would you ever go under the knife? I have been wondering this myself. There isn’t a whole lot I dislike about myself enough to endure the risks of surgery. But say, it was completely free and available to you. Would you do it? What would you do?

Part of me thinks, “Sure, why not improve upon yourself, and if it is free?” However, I have a few misgivings.

1. One, would I be able to tell my daughters how important a person is on the inside knowing I had fake boobs, for example? Would it be different for something smaller and less noticeable?
2. What if something bad happened? Maybe you ended up with Tara Reid boobs or a double butt—or worse, you didn’t wake up. Would that be God punishing me for not being grateful for what I had? Could I rationalize my desire for a wrinkle free face if I left a family motherless and wifeless?
3. Is it vain when you are already attractive to want just a little bit more?
4. Is it okay when you are older to not really change, but maintain?

I think this is a fascinating topic. Maybe it is because I am in a surgical field. I completely believe in reconstructive surgery or surgery that can improve the quality of someone’s life, esp in instances of growth issues or malformation, etc. My biggest question is, when is enough enough?  Is Heidi’s life really any better with her DDD cup, a thinner nose, and sewed back ears?

So back to my question, would you ever do it (esp if it were free)?

-- I’m not sure.

Crazy 8

In a bit of a blog lag...

8 shows I watch:
1. Prison Break
2. The Office
3. Lost
4. Reruns of the West Wing
5. CNN political coverage
6. …we don’t have cable, I watch everything online or DVD…

8 Things I did yesterday:
1. Cleaned teeth on two patients
2. Made radiographs (x rays)
3. Removed sutures
4. Did a post-operative exam and surgery screening
5. Removed a second molar
6. Assisted in the extraction of two teeth
7. Ate dinner that Abe made me
8. Went to Cedar Rapids to Sam’s Club to check prices for our Ward Christmas Party menu

8 Places I love to eat:
1. Texas Roadhouse
2. Three Samurai
3. Cheesecake Factory
4. Which which sandwiches
5. Wig and Pen
6. Giordanno’s Pizza
7. Greek Islands
8. Red Lobster

8 Things I look forward to:
1. Finishing my denture patients before Christmas (I hope!)
2. The release of the new Blackberry Storm
3. Getting back in shape
4. Becoming good at basketball
5. Warm weather and biking again in shorts
6. Going home for Christmas
7. OS Match Day January 26, 2009!
8. Summer 2009 knowing I am now a dentist--passing clinical boards, licensure, and knowing my plans for the future

8 Things on my wish list:
1. Blackberry Storm
2. Home for Thanksgiving
3. Tropical vacation with SCUBA diving
4. OS residency at U. of Iowa
5. An “A” in my last class, Family Dentistry
6. More storage space at my apartment
7. Manageable winter
8. Time to backpack across the world

8 people I tag:
1. Diana
2. Brenna
3. Colton
4. Caitlyn
5. Abby
6. Nicole
7. Heidi
8. Shawn