Scale Scars

During my back-to-back pregnancies with the boys I pushed the scales to the limits with my "magical" increase of pounds each week. I remember very clearly one doctor's appt. where the perky and thin nurse gleefully told me that I had gained 6 pounds.

Me: "So, that's good right? It means the baby is healthy and growing?"

Perky and Pathetically Skinny Nurse: "Umm... yeah, but you gained 4 pounds on your last appt. also."

Me: "So..."

Perky and Anorexic Nurse: "So that means that since we saw you five days ago, you have gained 6 pounds which is 10 pounds in one week."

Me: ...

I have never looked at a scale again. I was scarred. No literally - I was scarred, or at least blemished for life. You see, while I was happily shoveling food into my face my stomach stretched and stretched to make room for my growing baby as well as my growing stomach. I stretched my stomach so far it had to kick out my belly button because there was no more room at the inn. If you're grossed out now because you are picturing my ginourmous belly, don't read any further. It gets worse.

So once I became scale scarred I had to find a new way to gage my weight. It turned out I had a built in scale. It's name is my belly button. Even though my belly button has gone back in just like it's supposed to, the skin around it has never quite looked the same. I have the belly button of a 83 year old woman who was obese for most of her life and then drastically lost the weight due to the flu. And that's on a good day. Here's how my built in scale works. Each morning I wake up and go to take a shower. I stand before the mirror in all my glory and don't look anywhere else but my belly button (I don't want to be blind as well as chubby!). It helps me determine what I am going to wear, what I am going to eat (or not eat) for breakfast and whether or not I really need to exercise today. If my belly button is shallow with lots of creases and puckers winding their way towards it, I am having a skinny day - I look like the 83 year old! It's when my belly button begins to sink down further and further and the wrinkles disappear due to the swell of my now-pregnant looking stomach that I start to worry. It reaches critical point when I have to use a q-tip to figure out whether or not it's dirty. I know, gross.

Right now the belly button is telling me (and it has been screaming this for the last month or so) that it is time to get my rear into gear and start working out. I had to use the q-tip test just this morning. Not good my friends, not good.