Baby belly frustrations

I know you've all (OK, those of you without any dangly things in your crotch) looked at your post-partum stomach and sighed.  Perhaps you sighed and immediately began working out.  Perhaps you sighed for quite a while after you quit working out from exhaustion or because the new nursing boobs were giving you black eyes.  Perhaps you're still sighing.  I'm in that crowd.

I'm gearing up for job interviews, and decided to get myself one very nice outfit so I can feel extra-pretty and confident and show them I'm a worthy, professional person.  What I have right now is nice, but not business-appropriate.  All that was given away when I left the teaching job.  I trotted over to LB and went right to their "Ready for Work" section, as the saleswoman told me it's called.  I had to familiarize myself with the new color-coded "right fit" sizes, and finally said "ahh, screw it.  I'm your only customer in here right now, can you just point me at some pants you think will look good on me?".  The very friendly (and patient) saleswoman loaded me up with pants, and I also grabbed some nice shirts, a suit jacket (which I later put right back when I saw the price tag), and a few non-nursing bras.

Here's the point where I interrupt and describe my post-baby belly.  I had a C-section with both girls.  After Big O was born, I developed a major skin infection in three spots, which had to be treated as open wounds until they healed.  Sorry to squick you out, but that meant stuffing saline-soaked gauze strips into each of the pockets left by the incision's seperation, twice a day, for almost 8 weeks while it healed from the inside out.  Hubby couldn't bring himself to look at it, so I did this myself, with a mirror, and as such was unable to be gentle about it.  I had pains in my abdomen for more than 3 years, and was left with a softball sized lump of scar tissue binding my incision to my bowels or other insides, I don't know.  When Ebay was born, it was such a rush job (general anesthesia, 30 seconds from cut to baby, then digging around to yank her out of breeched engagement) that I have a completely separate jagged scar on my skin and who knows what on my uterus and insides.  I was meticulous about the skin's health afterwards, and although I didn't get an internal infection, there was one spot that wouldn't scar for weeks and finally had to be cauterized with silver nitrate 6 weeks after birth.  Yeah, I heal funny.  On the inside, the hatchet job added more to my softball.

In addition, the band of tissue that connects the right abdominal muscle to the left slowly unzipped as Ebay grew inside me.  Sometimes a woman will unzip from the top down or the bottom up, but a complete separation is not common.  I got so big so quickly because my belly literally could not hold my insides in.  I needed firm pants with a full coverage belly band to comfortably walk, and remember I only finished 6 1/2 months of pregnancy.  My doctor said it might regrow on its own, but so far that's not happened.  There's a surgery that can sew a mesh in place of the tissue band, but only if I'm SURE there will be no future pregnancies.

So I currently look about 5-6 months pregnant.  I find myself wearing borderline maternity shirts, but I have to be careful because I see people looking at me wondering inside if it's OK to ask me, but they're not sure, so they don't, but they still look...

Anyway, back to the pants today.  Nothing I tried on fit.  Didn't matter what size it was or what "right fit" it was.  I either couldn't zip the pants, or I could but the legs had small carnies scrambling to set up the ring tosses inside.  I sat down on the bench and cried.  This is not what I wanted from my new clothes.  I wanted to feel pretty and confident and show my future boss that I'm the efficient, smart, hard-working and energetic right person for the job, but instead I'm thinking about whether or not a baby-doll shirt is appropriate for an interview, if only to hide the gut. 

I'm not usually a person who frets much about her appearance.  I like my hair, I don't wear makeup daily but I own it for special occassions, I have a nice shoe collection, and I look great in bold blue and brown colors, and I have a very nice smile and pretty eyes.  When I need to I can look very very nice.  But my kids have ruined my belly and I'm afraid that's all people see in me now.

I could have surgery to fix the separation and remove the lump, but doing so requires ongoing health insurance.  Getting that requires getting an on-going job.  Getting that requires a confident woman who is wowing her interviewer.

Anyone for home self-surgery?*

*end of rant