Back to Pregnant and Hiding in Pictures
In all the post-Oscar hoopla, I'm focused on one thing: Penelope Cruz. She just had a baby about two minutes ago and there she was strolling down the red carpet, looking lovely and well rested. If I were her, I would have been hiding behind Javier Bardem to offset my post-baby body. I probably would demand the paps only photograph me from my shoulders up. Who am I kidding? I would have skipped the red carpet all together.
I was recently looking for a good picture of me and my son and was confronted with a harsh reality: There are very few and those available are painful. I'm awkwardly hiding in most of them, trying to shield the fact that I never got back to my pre-pregnancy weight. And then when I was almost there (two years after he was born)... Here I am pregnant again. It took me two years, not the two minutes it seemed to take Penelope.
The topic of celebrity moms and their post-baby figures is something I usually don't waste much time thinking about. It's all over the place... on every magazine cover, internet site, you can't escape it. For the most part, it's become white noise. But, there is something about awards show scrutiny that is a little more tasteful, which makes it more lasting and impactful. And, yeah, some of these moms deserve recognition for pulling it together, but most moms struggle to embrace themselves post-baby. Seeing these women all trim and sliding into a designer gown feels scary.
The grass isn't always greener, I know that. These celebrity moms don't have the luxury of time before they're thrown back into the spotlight. They may be feeling just as out of it as I did, but I could at least hide in my house. Soon after my first was born a dear friend warned me that I wouldn't feel like myself for two years. "Just give yourself two years," she said. I found her advice to be totally right on... And as soon as I was back to almost feeling like me, I've started all over again.
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