dear kim kardashian...

several months ago, before i was pregnant with Baby K2, a much more famous person WAS pregnant with her first.  the whole world watched her as she tacked on weight and struggled to maintain her celebrity style as a well known fashionista.  

and the media was so cruel...

i don't care WHO you are... you don't deserve what that poor girl had written about her.

i felt my inner fat girl wanting to write her a letter.  because this fat girl had also tacked on a crap ton of weight when she was pregnant with leif and has really never quite been the same since.  and it's not that i idolize kim kardashian and want to be her BFF (though her reality shows are a guilty pleasure of mine) but it was because i felt like i could relate to her so well...

back when i was pregnant with leif, i gushed my feelings on weight gain in another blog.  it was received by so many with open arms.  my friends wrote emails of similar struggles and how it was nice to hear someone talk so honestly.  other loving and protective friends worried that i was being too hard on myself because i was, after all, pregnant and supposed to be gaining weight. 

but i didn't tell you back then what i'm about to say now... that i gained a whopping 75 pounds!!! that amount of baggage on a 5'3" frame is a tad bit overwhelming and VERY uncomfortable.  even more disheartening was that i was lifting weights with a personal trainer 3 days a week and trying my best not to go overboard on my eating.  it's just what my body did.  

so when kim began to get flack, i could feel her pain.  i can't forget the thoughtless comments made by a few people in my life.  i remember one woman at work said something so insensitive i went back to my classroom and cried.  my teammates consoled me and when they found out what she said they almost went down to her classroom and beat her senseless.  

but i begged them not to because that's just how people are...

quick to speak...

even now... i'm halfway through my pregnancy with baby K2 and doing much better on the weight front (though don't be mistaken that i'm a tiny pregnant woman... i'm as rolly polly as they come).  this weekend, i ran into a woman who had seen me a month before i was due with leif... meaning, i was HUGE.  she kept commenting on how "tiny" i was "this time".  at first i'd say, "well, i'm only halfway done, you get a lot bigger at the end."  secretly i was afraid she'd see me sometime in january and retract her kind statement.  later in the evening she started in again with how "small" i was.   i tried to be gracious, but then she said across the crowded room, "just look at how thin your face is!  your face was so much fatter last time."  

ummmm... thank you?

now, i'm pretty proud that i didn't and haven't gotten hormonal about this comment.  (another big difference with me this time is that i'm much calmer and less stressed out than i was with leif).  i realize that deep down, she meant to compliment me by telling me how good she thought i looked... this time. 

but i did fume a little (and complain to kjaer and my mom... well, and you) 

because WHO SAYS THAT STUFF?!?!?

(to a woman... let alone a pregnant woman... at that!)

it made me want to sit down and write ol' kimmy even more!  

but our dear friend kim has already given birth and is probably sweating it out in the gym with a personal trainer and eating salads made by a personal chef so that she can reappear in the public eye and wow those suckers who said the mean crap about her.  

so instead, i write for myself in the future (of this pregnancy and if there are any more to come... those too) and for my friends who are like me and do not look like a little twig with a basketball shoved down their shirts.  in fact, i write to those girls, whose butts started growing upwards the minute that pregnancy test came back positive.  i remember doing squats at the gym when i was pregnant with leif and seeing my derriere reflected in the mirror behind me.  i remembered thinking, "whose butt is that?  that can't be MY butt!"  i came home and asked kjaer if it was growing up my back... which, if i remember correctly, he thought was a trick question.  we now lovingly refer to my butt when i was pregnant as my "four story butt" because it was four stories high.  in fact, it was so big, i went to sit on the couch next to kjaer one time and ended up sitting on him...

not.

on.

purpose.

i just had no concept of how big it had gotten.

so you get the idea... i've been there.  i've been horrified at the weight gaining capabilities of my body and what it does when it's pregnant.  so i know a thing or two about feeling ashamed of my body.  so this is for those sisters... the ones who are embarrassed or worried about their growing bellies and bottoms.

first and foremost, i told kjaer to remind me of this when i was pregnant again, DON'T PANIC!  the first time around, i panicked.  i think it made me shove food down my face even more.  or else maybe it made me give up and think, "oh well, i'm huge, might as well have another cookie."  i was so depressed by the end of it i thought i'd spend the rest of my life trying to get that 75 pounds off.  it was so disheartening.  especially when it had taken me a couple of years to lose 40 pounds after college.  

but it did.

i know you look in the mirror and you feel fat.  your body is stretching out in directions you didn't even know it could go.  at the store, you try on that one cute maternity top in a medium and realize you need to upgrade to a L or XL (if you're being smart and want to wear it at the end of your pregnancy too).  DON'T DESPAIR, YOU WILL LOSE IT!!!!  6 weeks after leif was born i had lost a whopping 30 pounds!  a year after he was born i had lost another 30... (thanks be to breastfeeding and weight watchers for breastfeeding moms). I only had about 15 more to get back to my wedding weight when i got pregnant again.  

that's when i told kjaer to remind me periodically with this little one that it DID come off, i survived and it will come off again.  because in the throws of people's insensitive comments and judgmental stares, it is hard to remember a time when you were able to slither into your skinny jeans and a cute top feeling all super sexy and sleek.

and just so you know, women are usually the worst at saying cruel things to you... but i find the ones who usually do, tend to be the unhappiest and most critical of ALL people.  so try your best to let it go and move on.  every time i think of a thoughtless comment and the mouth it came out of i find my memory of that person's mouth is not usually as a smile.  they usually have their own weight issues or other baggage teaming with insecurities, which makes it easier to pick on you... because it makes them feel a little better about themselves.  so as the very wise mr. jay-z says, "go on brush yo' shoulders off."

buy yourself a cute pair of expensive maternity jeans.  splurge on a couple of cute tops.  and if you have a fat day, make sure your loving partner has been armed with the "right" things to say (ahead of time) to you so he doesn't feel like a jerk when you're crying and shoving ice cream into your face.  

because this to shall pass...

if you want to be back in those skinny jeans and cute tops, and you work at it.... with enough time and dedication, you'll be there again.  maybe not as perfect before.  maybe your skinny jeans will smooth out a few more lumps than you had b.b. (before baby)... or maybe not.  

but you will have a miracle that God entrusted you to carry for 9 months and bring into this world.  and you will find that a few pounds here or there in the long run, don't mean crap.   you will find yourself staring into the eyes of a brand new creation that is part of you and part of someone else you love.  so grin and bear it.  wear those pounds like a rockstar... and when your little one is born be kind and loving to yourself because you just accomplished a freakin' miracle.  and after several weeks of loving on your baby and regaining a fragment of control over your life, start eating wisely and moving again.  

it's like field of dreams... if you build it, they will come.  

if you want it... it will happen... slowly. 

and one day you'll pull out that box (mine was labeled "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY SURE" and wriggle into a pair of your favorite before baby jeans.  they might be a little snug, but your sexy butt squeezed into them.  and you'll coast on a concoction of hope, euphoria and the long road you've traveled to be there.  

i promise.

baby k1 and baby k2