From baggy belly to baggy eyelids

AINE O’CONNOR

Having a baby is a sort of secret handshake. Women you knew only superficially, socially, politely, now offer you the rubber ring they sat on after their first child and tips for dealing with mastitis. But still there are things that people forget to tell you.

I had no idea, for instance, that you still had a pregnant-looking belly for days after the baby was born. With that and the afterpains I was convinced they had missed a twin. But my belly — no one had prepared me for that particular travesty. Indeed when I was in labour, some poor young one charged with something involving the underside of my belly commented that I had no stretch marks. Not having seen it for a few months I was delighted to get that report from the dark side of the moon.

Fake news! Not only were there loads of purple lines, but after the child emerged, the skin was all baggy and puckered. The more weight I lost the worse it looked, like a stripey flesh apron. When I went to the gym for advice it elicited an “Ew, you need surgery for that”. And so, at 28, a tummy tuck became my fantasy plastic surgery. I salivated over before and after pictures and I even went for a consultation after child two but I never managed to get the thousands together. I was also a little afraid because I hadn’t had a general anaesthetic before and reckoned that if I was going to die from one I didn’t want it to be for vanity. Drama queen, moi? Twenty years later the stripes on the apron have turned silver, it’s no less unappealing for that, but I care less. My concerns have moved upwards and my fantasy surgery is now a brow lift to sort the crabby lines and the baggy eye lids. I have survived one general anaesthesia, fewer odds of carking it for vanity, so all I’m missing are the thousands.