The Dreaded FUPA And Other Post-Baby Body Weirdness

I knew that pregnancy would put my body through a lot of changes (read: some really weird shit). Growing a human takes a lot of work – it makes sense that pregnant people are a mess.

What I wasn’t prepared for were all the strange things that happened to my body after the baby. Here is just some of the weirdness your post-baby body experiences:

The dreaded FUPA. “FUPA” is an acronym for Fat Upper Pubic Area. It’s the last of our pregnant belly that, like the last guest at a party, just doesn’t realize it’s time to go. You may have also heard it referred to as a pooch or muffin top. Call it what you will, this flesh fanny pack is the reason that Spanx became a billion-dollar empire.

An ass that won’t quit … until one day, it does. I was never a person that gained weight in my ass, until after I had kids. It got bigger and bigger and bigger, until one morning I woke up and found it had mysteriously vanished during the night. Ever since The Great Deflation, it’s had another skin flap that hangs at the bottom – my ass now has an ass of its own.

The acne of a 13-year-old boy. What in the actual fuck? Who would have thought I’d be complaining about wrinkles and acne? It came back with pregnancy and just never went away.

Random hair growth. As if it’s not enough to have to shave my legs and tweeze my eyebrows, I now have to try to remember every random black hair that has sprouted somewhere on my body. I don’t get much sleep these days, so I have to use a trick to remember where they are: Geography. To the North, there are two wilderness hairs up in Montana (a.k.a. my chin), looking down on the other hairs below. There’s one weird one hanging out in Maine (a.k.a. my shoulder). A hair in Colorado and one in Nebraska (a.k.a. my nips). And let’s agree never to talk about what’s going on down in Mexico.

Apocalyptic periods. Every month I’m 98% sure the world is coming to an end.

A metabolism that works in reverse. Remember when you could manage your weight by eating not-too-badly and exercising regularly? After two kids, I have to work out just to gain less weight. And if I even so much as think about eating a chocolate muffin, I get back fat.

A bladder that’s never satisfied. There are a lot of things I took for granted before I had kids: shopping alone, doing anything alone, and a bladder that functioned normally. I used to be able to sit through an entire movie without having to leave once. Now I have to go at least twice. And God forbid I laugh, or sneeze, or cough at any point in between.

Boobs that hate each other. I used to think my “girls” were twins. But now I know they’re sisters – sisters that hate each other with the fire of a thousand suns. As far as I can tell, they got into some kind of argument when I was breastfeeding because they haven’t wanted anything to do with each other since. One wants to be a hermit and sulk under my arm, while the other is headed south to chat with its new BFF: my belly button.

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So to all the pregnant ladies out there lamenting about your body changes, I understand. It sucks. But once you’ve had the baby, things only get weirder. And I’d rather have a full preggo belly than the sad, saggy FUPA.