By: Leslie Goldman

Oct 23, 2009

Dear Moms Everywhere,

What’s up? Trista Sutter’s Post-Baby Belly here. Good to meet you. Hey –you! Yo! I’m down here. By the navel. That’s better. How’s it hangin’? (Heh, heh, heh.)

As I said, I’m Trista’s abdominal section. You may know me better as her “tiny bump” or her “belly on two sticks” when her son, Max, was inside me. Sure, I got kinda big but I was eating for two and, you know, incubating a human being. After Max split, Trista worked her butt off and got right back into a bikini. We looked pretty damn smoking, I must admit.    

Then daughter Blakesley happened. Of course, I blew up again and then, once she arrived in April, I just sort of deflated. Can you blame me? I’m mostly just skin and organs and stretched-out muscle, not a damn Slinky. No longer a cute little “bump,” I became the ugly “post baby belly” stepsister. She practically wanted to get rid of me. But after a buttload of hard work - including pushing the two kids in a double-stroller uphill for 45-minutes at a pop (in high-altitude Vail, Colo., no less), doing dead-lifts with paint cans, lunges with ski poles head high above our head, and tracking our calories online - we were recently featured in People Magazine in a blue two-piece, after she trimmed 43 pounds of baby weight, to get back to a trim 107. Lookin’ hot, right?

But here’s the thing: I’m tired.

I’ve spent the last three decades looking sexy. I was washboard-flat when we shot The Bachelor.  There were men’s magazine photo shoots to prep for. National ad campaigns which required a super-tiny waistline.  Most recently, I was laid-up after a C-section, which is serious surgery. And always, no matter what was asked of me, I’ve bounced back.

But even a hollow, muscular organ of the gastrointestinal tract like myself needs a break. And it’s not just me: My friends Gwen Stefani’s Stomach, Heidi Klum’s Stomach and Elisabeth Hasselbeck's Stomach feel the same way, too. My ex-roommate’s hairdresser’s sister’s abs, Kendra Wilkinson’s Stomach, did not want to be all naked and exposed on the cover of In Touch like that. And Kate Gosselin’s Stomach? Oy vey - she got put through the ringer with a rough operation, which resulted in a pretty significant hip-to-hip scar.

Anyhow, what I’m trying to say here (and not very eloquently, but what do you expect? Unless we're unexpectedly harboring a dermoid cyst, we stomachs do not possess teeth, lips or tongues) is this: Please, ladies, cut us some slack. We just helped you grow, house and expel a lifeform. You don’t need to start circuit training four days later. Give yourselves – and us! – a chance to sit back, relax and heal. Stop trying to suck us in. No one’s looking at us, anyways: We’re like the bridesmaids at a wedding, where all eyes are glued to the bride or, in this case, the baby. Take a few weeks to enjoy the new bugaboo and trust that we’ll eventually shrink back down naturally. We might not ever be the taut, tan belly we were in high school, but with exercise and good food, we WILL get smaller, together. Besides, what else are high-waisted Spanx for?

With Love,

Trista Sutter’s Post-Baby Belly

photo courtesy of People.com