Dealing with getting fat when you are pregnant

I am 6ft 2 and over my adult life, I have yo-yoed between a size 8 and a size 18 (UK size). Some of this has been due to healthy eating and exercise spurts, some has been due to unhealthy obsessions with getting slim, or traumatic experiences that have resulted in drastic weight loss over a short period of time. Either way, for over 22 years, I, like most other women have been obsessed with my weight.

From a young age we are subtly programmed to believe that a certain physique and hip-to-waist ratio is the ideal. Barbie and Disney princesses with their impossibly tiny waists and buxom breasts are the norm and cartoon characters with their willowy frames start our obsession with unrealistic body ideals. As we get older we are bombarded with images of photoshopped, airbrushed, and surgically enhanced women who portray body shapes as realistic as a Bratz doll. Bigger asses, smaller asses, 18 inch waists, impossibly perky yet enormous bosoms, visible rib cages, thigh gaps, hip bones, and collar bones like coat hangers- we are somehow expected to be a combination of all of these things, if of course we want to be anywhere near what is considered “perfect”.

Personally, due to my height, I was a target for bullies- I was called a giant, told I was manly and laughed at when I wanted to do “girl” activities such as ballet or gymnastics. I was told by my own parents that a girl of my stature wasn’t suited to such things and that I should focus on my studies instead. As I got older and became chubby as many pre-pubescents do, the comments on my figure increased. Constantly teased due to my larger frame, even when I shrunk to a minuscule size at the age of 16, I was still the butt of jokes- this time “lanky” instead of “heifer”.

No matter what I did to my body- starve or binge- someone always had a negative comment to make. Then when I was 20, I was scouted by a modelling agency and swept off to London to take part in a catwalk show. As a size 8-10 at the time, I was the exact size of the samples and they fitted me perfectly. The other models backstage were so tiny that they were pinned into the clothes in order to fit. I did my thing and the adrenaline coursed through my veins, only to be diminished by a man approaching me in the VIP area afterwards- clutching a flute of champagne and a Vogue cigarette, telling me “how refreshing it is to see a ‘large’ girl on the catwalk” through a bitchy smirk. His words hit me like a tonne of bricks and I wanted to cry, instead I smirked back, downed my glass of bubbly and left, never to pursue anything of the kind again.

As I hit my mid to late 20s I became less obsessive with my weight- gone were the days of calorie counting and starving myself for a day if I had overindulged the day before- now I was more relaxed and at peace with my body. I learned to dress for my shape and I accepted the fact that I suited being a size 14- lumps and bumps and all. Don’t get me wrong, there were still days that I would cry my eyes out in despair over the belief that I looked like an overdressed warthog in a dress, or times when my entire day would be ruined because my arm looked fat in a photograph- but these were fewer and further between.

Then as I reached my 30s, I started caring even less. People stopped using my weight as a way to upset me and receiving no complaints from my partner I enjoyed my food and balanced it with as much excercise as I could. All was well until I got pregnant.

Now I have lost control of my body completely. My belly and hips are expanding in all directions and my non-existent ass has grown but not in a nice way. My legs which were once my pride and joy are wobbly and disgusting like an overstuffed, raw sausage and my face is rounder than a full supermoon. Everytime I look in the mirror I want to cry.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I could dress myself well for my condition, but living in a country where the average woman in 5ft5 and size 8, it is literally impossible for me to get jeans, leggings, tights, pants, bras, or anything else for that matter, in a size that is compatible with a pregnant me. As a result, I am left dressing in shapeless sacks and pairing them with tights that fall down every 2 minutes and settle around my knees meaning I have to pull them up like a twat in public when I walk down the street. I cannot find anything that fits and ordering online is impossible due to expensive delivery charges, import taxes, and the fact that someone of my current size really needs to see and try things on before they buy them.

People keep telling me “oh but it’s such a beautiful time, you should enjoy it” but the reality is whilst I am happy for the blessing that has been bestowed upon me, coming to terms with losing control of the way I look is hard. No one wants to feel they look fat, ugly, or unattractive by any standards, especially their own, and having absolutely no way of preventing it is totally soul destroying.

I cannot walk too much, I cannot run, and I cannot swim for now due to complications so it is not like I can keep myself trim. The fact that I have spent 3 weeks out of the last 5 confined to bed rest doesn’t help either. But when I stand there in the shop changing room, trying to squeeze into a pair of leggings that barely reach my shins, and spilling out of the largest size of bra I could find (38D btw) there really isn’t a worse feeling.

Yes I am sure the weight will drop off when the baby is born, and yes I am sure I look “glowing” and “healthy” to you, but the reality is I feel hideous. Nothing fits, nothing looks good, and I am trapped in this expanding body I have no control over with 5 months still to go and the worst of my increasing size yet to come.

This is a tough part of being pregnant and no one really warns you about it because we are expected to embrace it because we are “growing another human” but the reality is that this fattening up sucks. We are told from a young age that we need to look a certain way to be happy and accepted, and then when we get fat and pregnant, we are told we need to be happy about that as well. No one stops to think about how it affects us or what impact it might have on our self-esteem- we are pregnant so things like that don’t matter or affect us.

But now I have resigned myself to the fact I will become fat and hideous over the coming months. I have decided on minimal photos and no body shots, covering up under layers as much as possible and trying to source items that will fit me without flying into a level 10 tantrum in the middle of a shopping centre. But I will say one thing, the next person who tells me to just “embrace it” will get a punch because losing control of how you look after decades of obsessing over it is no easy feat. So if you don’t mind, I am off to wallow in my pit of fat, wobbly, cellulite pockmarked, hairy legged ( I can’t reach), and stretch mark infused misery, dreaming of the days when I was a size 14 and thought that was the end of the world.

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