Me and my great white bumpy belly

I wore my last bikini a few years before I became a wife and long before I became a mother. I remember nearly every detail of that day. I was in my mid 20s. I was at a backyard pool party. I went down the pool slide and, moments before I splashed into the water, I heard someone yell, “Alisa! What’s wrong with your stomach?”

Then, I was underwater. I swam to the surface. My friends were standing at the pool’s edge, peering down at me with concerned looks on their faces. Someone said, “Your stomach! What is that?”

I climbed out of the pool and looked down. I’d expected to see leaches or ticks or something else equally disgusting all over my abdomen. Instead, I saw my abdomen. It was the same one I’d seen that morning. It was the same abdomen I’d seen every morning.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“That!” someone said, pointing toward a bump on my belly.

“Oh, that,” I said. “It’s been there since childhood. It’s a benign hernia.”

“It’s really big,” she said.

My face became hot and red. I put on a T-shirt. I didn’t again go in the pool that day. I kept my stomach under wraps, as I have ever since. I never again wore a bikini. Instead, I wore tankinis, one-pieces, anything that would cover up my bump.

In my early 30s I considered getting the bump removed. I consulted a few doctors. One told me that it was not a hernia, but something else. It has a complicated medical name I can no longer remember. He said he could surgically remove it, but that I’d be wasting my money. My bump was not threatening my health.

Removing it would be considered cosmetic surgery and not covered by insurance. Worse, this doctor told me, I’d soon have other bumps. They would multiply on my body like freckles.

He was right. Soon I had twins, a big bump and a smaller one right next to it. I hated them both, especially during sex and especially during swimsuit season.

Now, my husband swears he doesn’t notice the bumps and, on some level, I believe him. After all, he really only cares about my butt. If the bumps were on my butt, we’d have problems. On my abdomen? He could care less. Still, the bumps make me feel less than sexy, so I usually wear waist cinchers to cover them up.

Now here’s the really annoying part. For a 38-year-old woman, I still have a really nice body. I’m in shape. I have very little jiggle. My tummy is quite flat. My boobs are still mostly where they belong. My nethers are nicely waxed.

If a 38-year-old mom with a C-section scar can pull off a bikini, that mom would be me.

So when I realized that my ratty old swim suit—the one I’d purchased the year my daughter was born—had a busted strap, I decided enough was enough. It was time for me to get past this bump bashfulness once and for all.

A few weeks before our Caribbean vacation, I found myself in a department store. It was mid summer. The entire bathing suit section had been relegated to a small corner of the women’s department, to make room for all of the winter coats that everyone must plan ahead and purchase in July. I had few options, but I did manage to find one bikini in my size.

I tried it on, and I was amazed.

“I don’t look half bad,” I thought.

I bought it.

Flash forward a few weeks. We’re in the Caribbean. It’s time to go to the beach for the first time. We put on our suits. I wear a T-shirt and shorts over mine. My husband wears only his suit and shoes. We walk to the beach. He immediately wades into the water and starts to swim. I sit on a chair. I watch him. He wades out.

He says, “Oh, it’s so nice. You really ought to go for a swim.”

I say, “Um, not so much in the mood right now. Maybe tomorrow.” I didn’t have the courage to remove my shirt.

Later, back in the room, I take off my shirt and look in the mirror. I can see the bumps, but they don’t look all that bad. What REALLY looks bad is my uneven tan. I have a belly as white as a baby’s bottom and arms and legs as tan as Tahiti. “I better even this out,” I say to myself.

So, the next morning, I go to the beach. I take off my shirt and shorts. I sit on a beach chair and I read a book. Every couple of pages or so, I stop reading and I stare at my stomach. Again, my bumps don’t look all that bad. What I’m REALLY noticing is the random black hair that’s half way between my navel and nethers.

“Why I didn’t ask Carmen to wax that sucker off before I came here I’ll never know,” I think to myself.

Later that day, I am again in front of the mirror. This time I’m trying to decide if someone standing 10 or so feet away from me can see the random hair. “Not unless that someone has bionic vision,” I tell myself.

And so it went. Each day I became a little braver and a little less self-conscious. Each day I thought less and less about my bumps, my white belly, and my stray hair. By the end of the vacation, I was walking out of the room with just my bikini, sun glasses and flip flops. I never did even out my tan, but I did tweeze that random hair. And I did become one with my great white bumpy belly.

Tagged as: bikinis, body image