Bathing suit shopping: Torture does not begin to describe it.

I went bathing suit shopping yesterday and today. This was out of necessity. Last year I had a maternity bathing suit, since I was pregnant. The only other bathing suit I have, I bought 2 years ago, and doesn't fit me well anymore. I actually hated it the instant I got in the water, because it's one of those swim dresses. And I found out - too late - that once it gets wet it clings to every bulge, so it's not even worth it. Besides the floating-up-of-the-skirt-in-the-pool-showing-the-thighs-you're-trying-to-cover, and the bathing-suit-skirt-balloon-in-the-hot-tub that both happen regularly.

So what did I get? Another swim dress. :-\ But it's made differently, and is attached to the body-suit part at both the top and at the drop-waist. It covers the boobs quite nicely - hard to find anyway, but especially with my 36E milk jugs.

Two years ago, I'd been with Weight Watchers for about 6 months and had lost around 20 pounds. I was about halfway to my goal, felt good, looked pretty good. And, of course, got over-confident and blew it. I didn't quite gain all the weight back, but I was probably about where I am now - very close. Then I got pregnant, and I actually lost weight during my pregnancy. I gained a healthy amount of weight with my first two, so I hoped the same would be the case the third time. But, somehow, the day before I gave birth I actually weighed something like 3 pounds more than when I'd started. (I gained baby weight and lost other weight. Go figure.) A couple weeks after birth, I was a total of 25 pounds less than when I'd gotten pregnant. I still had some work to do, but overall it wasn't too bad. Control top pantyhose was enough to hold it all in if I was wearing a dress. And the size 12 jeans I bought were actually too big, but the size 10s *just* barely fit, so I was afraid to get them in case they shrank a little when I washed them. Now, those 12s are the jeans I have to wear spanx with, and they still *just* fit after that. I'm back up to....I don't know, I haven't weighed myself in a while, but I think I'm within 5 pounds of my highest weight, which was 172 when I joined Weight Watchers 2.5 years ago. I have no one to blame but myself. I went absolutely insane, drinking Coke every day, and having mounds and mounds of cookies and ice cream on a daily basis. I took for granted that the lack of impact on my body would last forever. But, of course, after those first couple months of mega-nursing a new baby, the body rebels....And I knew this.

So, anyway, here I am. The Convention is this weekend and now people who have never seen me in a bathing suit are gonna see me in a bathing suit, at nearly my top weight. And I'm stressing over the dresses I'm wearing, because they will be slightly difficult to try to nurse in. Especially with what I call the feeding-trough style joke of a "mother's room" where we all sit in a row next to each other and try to be discreet - some of us wearing things that aren't exactly nursing friendly. We love nursing our babies but we also wish we had our bodies back as our own again. We wish we could dress up and at least *feel* pretty, but we have trouble doing so and at the same time give easy boob access to the babes. (And a weight issue just makes it 5x as bad.)

Ugh.