Life Lessons from a Postpartum Wardrobe Malfunction.
In November of 2002, I gave birth to my second baby. Two weeks postpartum, my dear husband came home and announced we were to attend a work event in just a couple of weeks my reaction was like, “Get out of this house and these sweats? YES, please.”
Off I went to the mall to procure something to wear. I had my 2 offspring in tow, one just over a year old, one just a couple of weeks old. This was before the days of ordering online was much of a “thing”, young people. We actually had to physically go inside STORES to purchase items. Can you imagine the inconvenience?
So I ventured into Nordstrom. Childbirthing makes one very forgetful, I have learned during my time on this planet. Especially how one’s body can morph during and just after pregnancy. I grabbed a few tiny, cute dresses in my normal pre-pregnancy size, (which sounds laughable to me now), tossed them over the double stroller and headed for the dressing room.
Once inside, I disrobed. I managed to work the first dress down over my chest, but I suddenly couldn’t breathe and glanced at myself in the mirror. I looked like Dolly Parton with a beer belly. Or a water balloon torqued with a rubber band in the middle, your choice. “OH my Gosh,” I muttered, rolling my eyes at my reflection in the mirror as the realization of the ridiculousness of my thinking set in. Clearly, this wardrobe selection was not going to work.
Guess what happened next. (If you’re a parent, you can easily predict what happened next.) As timing would have it, my 2 week old son had a diaper blowout the size of the Hawaiian Kilauea Volcano. Fecal matter shot out from his cute, soft little behind at the speed of light, bypassing the barrier walls of the diaper and sleeper instantly. Mustard-seed-like, breastfed- baby poop was everywhere; obviously all over him, up his back and into his hair; On the side of the infant seat carrier, rolling down the side of the stroller and dripping onto the carpeted floor of the dressing room. My jaw dropped open and my eyebrows flew up. “Seriously!?!?!” I exclaimed aloud. My blood pressure skyrocketed and I began to sweat, knowing that I had to immediately get myself out of this “Medieval Times” red corset-dress so as to avoid getting poop onto it while I changed my son.
Just then, a shrill scream exited the parted lips of my tiny baby. A scream that one is entitled to let out if one has soiled oneself beyond all human belief. And of course the scream was followed by a sudden, uncontrollable tidal wave of breastmilk which appeared like a flash flood on the bosom of the red dress I was wearing, and it was darkening by the second.
Mortified, I tugged at the dress. Sweat dripped down the small of my back and for a moment I felt faint as I started yanking more ferociously at the top of the dress, which absolutely was not going to budge. Now, dear reader, if you have ever tried to pull on tights or other snug-fitting clothing when trying to hurry out of the shower, (still wet), you know that successfully getting that garment on without a struggle is pretty much a “Jesus Feeds 5,000” sized-miracle.
Desperately I reached for the hemline and decided it was every man for himself. I wedged the hemline of the dress up and over my head, arms crossed, ironically in the “brace” position one is instructed to hold in the event of an airplane crash. I took a breath, gritted my teeth and pulled like I was in a Tug-of-War game with a million-dollar prize at stake.
The screaming continued from my infant, which of course triggered my one year old daughter to start crying, too. Now I had a double chorus of screamers and I remained a prisoner inside my sweaty, lactating body trying to Houdini my way out of what seemed to be Nordstrom’s latest fall edition of a red straight jacket. I felt like screaming too.
I swore like a sailor as I shimmied and wiggled around frantically like I was trying to do both “The Hustle” and “The Funky Chicken” simultaneously. Finally, like Moses parting the Red Sea, I felt a wind- a bust of cooler air…. Unfortunately accompanied by a most unwelcome, horrible sound: “Riiiiiiip”. A huge tear made its jagged way down the seam of the dress, and I was free at last, free at last…. Thank God Almighty I was free at last!
Free, yet, sadly, $250.00 poorer.
I’ve experienced seasons of my life similar to this experience where I think one thing is going to work for me. Commitments, churches, jobs, relationships, other random endeavors. Then I try it on and realize it’s just all wrong. I can’t make something fit that just clearly doesn’t…. nor should I. Maybe something that fit yesterday is not going to fit today. Circumstances change, I myself change.
So many things I do or attempt to do are like pieces of clothing. Some fit easily and effortlessly, match my personality. And some things I try on and immediately want out.
Thankfully My marriage is a garment that feels like lycra fabric to me….. it stretches with me, it grows and shrinks with me, it’s very forgiving, and it’s very close-fitting, I never get sick of it, it’s extremely comfortable, and I have zero trouble wearing it all the time. But not all fabrics are like that. Some feel like leather, or a polyester leisure suit-no stretch, no room to breathe.
Sometimes I’m in a situation where I HAVE to MAKE something fit, at least temporarily. (think bridesmaid dresses, girls!) Safety pins, adjustments and alterations must be made in order to find and keep my sanity. But if I had my choice? I’d be true to myself all the time and choose the lycra/spandex combination, and the combed cotton. Sometimes I get the gift of being able to choose, and sometimes I don’t. But I do mostly know now, at this point in my journey, which fabrics and cuts generally fit me best, and I’m really at home in those clothing items.
But I have learned something invaluable each time I’ve put something on. I’ve learned about myself, my emotions, my level of tolerance and acceptance for comfortable things… and my level of intolerance and fear of uncomfortability. Either way, none of that is really right or wrong; just information and varying degrees of usefulness for future choices.
Before I do a mic drop and go about my morning, I offer an unsolicited piece of advice: Next time you’re in a fitting room, do keep your shoes on and consider that there could be an unhygienic combination of mother-and-baby bodily fluids, or other undisclosed biohazard present. Just sayin.’