I am stan­ding in front of a mir­ror and trying to obey the wo­men’s ma­ga­zi­ne that tel­ls me to be con­tent with my­self.

If I face the mir­ror and screw up my ey­es a lit­t­le, I do not look so bad, but stan­ding si­de­wa­ys I feel frust­ra­ted. Where is the nice, slim waist­li­ne that I wan­ted to get back soon af­ter the birth of my yo­un­gest baby? I can see no sign of it in the mir­ror. My ima­ge ac­tu­al­ly looks as if I were still half­way through preg­nan­cy.

I shud­der to think that I should do so­met­hing about it. Yet I know it would be good for my he­alth and self-es­teem, on­ce again, to get rid of the ext­ra twen­ty ki­los that I put on du­ring preg­nan­cy. They came so ea­si­ly and com­for­tab­ly, but not even wil­l­po­wer or ac­ti­ve brain­work will make them go away. The simp­le rule to burn more ca­lo­ries than to take in is not ea­sy to fol­low, at le­ast for me.

I find it hard to ac­cept my weight gain du­ring preg­nan­cy, but there seems to be no way to pre­vent it. My body is like a huge suc­ti­on ap­pa­ra­tus that pul­ls in weight all the more ef­fec­ti­ve­ly as the due date ap­p­ro­ac­hes. For my last six child­ren, I have re­fu­sed to step on the sca­les in the ma­ter­ni­ty cli­nic. Weig­hing would have on­ly inc­re­a­sed my an­xie­ty, even if I had cho­sen to wear light clot­hing or go to the bath­room one more time. The nur­ses have tried to per­su­a­de me to be weig­hed, but I have told them that I very much ap­p­re­ci­a­te Fin­nish ma­ter­ni­ty care, thank you, but will just skip the sca­les. I think it is not right to for­ce an adult in a sen­si­ti­ve frame of mind to be weig­hed if she feels ter­rib­le about it. And sin­ce the nur­ses, and even the doc­tors, would have been unab­le to lift me on the sca­les, they have abi­ded by my de­ci­si­on.

One doc­tor on­ce said to me that my preg­nan­cy see­med to going well and that I had not even gai­ned too much weight. I told him I had ac­tu­al­ly gai­ned more than 20 ki­los. He was as­to­nis­hed and doub­ted if that was even pos­sib­le. When my pa­tient fi­les pro­ved me right, he sta­red at me for a while, cle­ar­ly int­ri­gu­ed by this me­di­cal pro­di­gy. He said such a weight gain should not be pos­sib­le in such a short time and was not even sho­wing in my ap­pe­a­ran­ce. He then went on to say that I pro­bab­ly be­long to the rare group of pe­op­le who suf­fer from swel­ling of the in­ter­nal or­gans in ad­di­ti­on to swol­len ank­les.

Oh, how I felt like laug­hing. In­ter­nal or­gans! This was the first time my thighs were cal­led in­ter­nal or­gans. Any­way, it is good to have a me­di­cal di­ag­no­sis to show that I pos­sess a lar­ge he­art du­ring my preg­nan­cies. The doc­tor al­so exp­lai­ned that such weight gain is part­ly hor­mo­nal and due to al­te­red me­ta­bo­lism, which see­med a per­fect­ly ac­cep­tab­le exp­la­na­ti­on to me. It soun­ded good and plau­sib­le. My dear hus­band poin­ted out, ho­we­ver, that he had ne­ver he­ard cho­co­la­te to be cal­led a hor­mo­ne. But then, he is not a me­di­cal spe­ci­a­list. Just a buil­der.

In Oc­to­ber we had a lo­ve­ly baby boy, and I gu­ess I am now in for my twelfth slim­ming pro­ject. It is not fun, but I made a se­ri­ous New Ye­ar’s re­so­lu­ti­on about He­alt­hy Life. I still che­rish our four-ye­ar-old’s com­ment to his cou­sin at a fa­mi­ly get-to­get­her, “All the ot­hers in our fa­mi­ly are skin­nies ex­cept mom.” I did not feel of­fen­ded. Not in the le­ast. It just strengt­he­ned my de­ter­mi­na­ti­on. I am not even ai­ming at skin­ni­ness, but I would love to fit in­to my clot­hes. Sure enough, I have a set of dif­fe­rent si­zes in my ward­ro­be for the dif­fe­rent sta­ges of the wo­man’s life. I hope some of you have, too.

When I first put on my snow pants and went for a walk, the pants were so tight that I could on­ly take very short steps, which did not exact­ly make me feel eup­ho­ric about my phy­si­cal ac­hie­ve­ment. But I could on­ly blame my­self, my pants were comp­le­te­ly in­no­cent. I just hope I will be brave enough to try them on again soon.

I have of­ten re­mem­be­red the old slo­gan that we used to have on milk car­tons: ”There is a small cow in­si­de each of us.” I have re­a­li­zed that in­si­de me there is still the same yo­ung girl who was as­ha­med of her pro­mi­nent hip bo­nes in high school. Oh, how hap­py I would be now just to feel my hip bo­nes with my fin­gers!

This yo­ung girl in­si­de me has prob­lems re­cog­ni­zing her­self in the mir­ror. I would love to get clo­ser to my ori­gi­nal self again, and I have as­ked ot­hers to help and sup­port me in my slim­ming pro­ject. I al­so as­ked my hus­band to en­cou­ra­ge and sup­port me, be­cau­se I am well awa­re of my we­ak­ness and the temp­ta­ti­ons I will en­coun­ter on the way. I as­ked him to sup­port me if I was ever going to give in and go on an ea­ting bin­ge. He pro­mi­sed to do that. Of cour­se. Isn’t he won­der­ful!

At some point I be­gan to feel like gi­ving up, and when my hus­band was going gro­ce­ry shop­ping, I as­ked him to bring me so­met­hing good. Wai­ting for him to re­turn, I was dre­a­ming of the tas­te of cho­co­la­te on my ton­gue. You can ima­gi­ne my di­sap­point­ment when he brought me a ru­ta­ba­ga. I did not feel like laug­hing then, but I can laugh about it now.

”Ru­ta­ba­ga is good”, my dear hus­band said. It sure is. And he­alt­hy.

Text: Satu Luok­ka­nen

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal Fin­nish blog post here.