Saying to old friends is hard, even if they are denim. Even if they are pregnancy jeans and you are wearing them long past the time you thought you'd be wearing pregnancy jeans.
Humor Life

Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend: My Maternity Jeans

Saying to old friends is hard, even if they are denim. Even if they are pregnancy jeans and you are wearing them long past the time you thought you'd be wearing pregnancy jeans.

By Marta Parlatore of Baby Blues & Rock’n’Roll

Shit just got real in the Blues’ household.

A few days ago, while squatting to fish out from under the couch two rogue nuts trying to escape my TV-Drama binge session, it finally happened. The right leg of my favorite jeans ripped in that notorious spot on the thigh where I don’t have a gap. Where I have a cute meat bun who loves to rub against his twin brother on the other side and so rub rub rub, sooner than later, fabric disintegration will always set in.

Normally (and by “normally” I mean before pregnancy and 14 months of motherhood), I would just be cross, toss the darn trousers away, wear any other pair from my small but juicy collection and go out for some well-deserved shopping. This time around, though, the lesion in the jeans’ tissue proved to be much more than just a hole in a pair of old pants. It initiated a vortex of a butterfly effect with wings big as a cinereous vulture which sucked me into a spiral of discouragement and gloom.

In order for you to grasp the scale of it, I have a confession to make: those were pregnancy jeans.

I still remember the late summer day I bought them. It was the time my darling little bump had become too big to fit in any normal, loose clothing and after a week or so of preventing my pants from sliding off my butt with a rubber band tied to the button, I finally headed to the pregnancy corner of my local clothes shop.

I remember coming home flustered and gay like a maiden who spent the afternoon picking daisies in a sun-filled meadow surrounded by small yellow birds. I took a deep, relieved sigh as I pulled the soft, elastic, one-size-larger denim embrace over my pulsating thighs, loins and belly. My infatuation with them was such that the next day I ran back to the store and bought a second pair.

For all the remaining months of my pregnancy and actually ever after, I would only wear those two pairs of jeans, rotating them constantly so one would be in the laundry while the other was on duty. It was only logic to continue this practice after the bump was “gone.” First, because the bump wasn’t really gone immediately after birth and comfort was a priority. Then, because I was so sucked up by this infant who had dropped from the sky and into my lap that I didn’t even notice what I was wearing. Next, because I was staying home all the time in my sweatpants anyway, so who cared about what kind of jeans I was wearing? Who? No one at the supermarket seemed to notice. Later, because it was winter and this elastic band over my belly kept me nice and warm and prevented me from flashing my butt cheeks in everyone’s face each time I had to dig out my child from under some piece of furniture. Then then then, because denial, laze and complete lack of fucks given.

I know. It was self-indulgent and naive of me to think I could go on indefinitely in this symbiotic, outdated liaison with my pregnancy pants without eventually having to face the consequences. I should have snapped out of it sooner. I should have been strong and whatever else, I know. But I didn’t and I wasn’t. And because of that, there will be no spring for me this year. No blossoms on apple trees, no strawberries, no green peas. Just doom.

After the rip occurred, I had no choice left. On a Saturday afternoon while The Man and The Son were out at the park, I finally opened that dark, damp corner of my wardrobe where I kept my pre-pregnancy trousers. Working my way through bouts of existential panic and sweaty palms, I tried them all on. Or better, I tried to try them on, as none of them, not a single one of them, not even half of them, fit my exploded ass.

After this deeply uneven struggle, I let myself deflate on the bed, shaking my feeble fists at this unspeakable injustice, clenching the ripped jeans, soaking the fabric with sullen tears, cursing the day I ever fell in love with them. It’s over. Over and out.

* fade to black *

After drinking two glasses of plum brandy and eating half a bag of chips I realized that, given the circumstances, these are the moves I have:

* Resist. Step on the scale and gasp at the number I see. Write that number down in a secret place and visualize it losing digits and shrinking during meditation sessions. Start eating celery sticks instead of bread and dried figs instead of muffins. Don’t go to bed until an entire bucket of water has been drunk each day. Don’t buy any new jeans because if I do they will be way too big two weeks from now. Waiting for this miracle to happen, wear only maxi-sized hippy skirts (but with biker shorts underneath in order to avoid inner-thigh eczema due to unprotected rub).

* Shrug. Remind myself my worth is not in my Body Mass Index, nor in the clothes I choose to cover my limbs with. Stride proudly into the Curvylicious corner of my local clothes shop and buy something at least three sizes bigger than my current circumference would require. Feel thus skinny. Who cares I look like someone wearing some boat’s sail? I’ll call it fashion.

* Fight. Download some trainer app to my phone and dedicate at least three consecutive nap times to crafting a plan. Scout YouTube for videos of easy yoga sequences I can do at home, at dawn, everyday and create a playlist. Trek down to the sport shop and invest at least 70 bucks in new running attire, stretchy pants and breathable tops so yellow they could melt your cornea if you looked at them for too long. Keep up the celery and the dry figs. Go running once, suffer from an almost-stroke because of the effort but don’t give up. Two weeks later, go running a second time. Run 10 minutes instead of the planned 30. Never do it again. Completely forget about the yoga playlist. Wear the stretchy running pants for the rest of your days.

* Retaliate. Take them damn ripped jeans to the Golden Scissors and have the ladies working there slap a patch over that hole and keep wearing my favorite jeans — screw anyone who will stare between my legs and fashion-police my ass.

OR

* Get pregnant again. Buy new pregnancy jeans. Problem solved.

This post was originally published on Baby Blues & Rock’n’Roll.

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About Marta Parlatore

Writer by calling, Filmmaker by choice, Mama by surprise, Marta still dreams of becoming a Rock Star, one day. Till then, you can find her at nap time drinking yesterday’s coffee and blogging at Baby Blues & Rock’N’Roll about how she dreams of going back to a life of Sex & Drugs. Her work has appeared also on Elephant Journal, Bonbon Break, Role Reboot and BLUNTmoms. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter and you will make her love you forever in a dirty way.