The Cure for Fat, Ugly, Stupid … and Post-Pregnancy Hell?

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There I was in my underwear, all 6’4” 230 pounds of me – my ass looked like a pair of basketballs stapled together, and my stomach was hanging so far over my waistline that any recognition of manhood was, at best, a distant memory. I had completely shaved my chest – conveniently conformist for the aggressively gay neighborhood I had just moved to – though my motivation had been slightly different. First, shaving my body hair seemed liked the fastest way to get some sort of immediate control over my “weight problem”. Second, my new baby girl had gotten in the habit of grabbing handfuls of it, making me look like I spent my days working with uranium isotopes sans the protective suit. I was half-naked and holding my little Bundle of love – the one time in weeks my wife had no other choice but to leave her alone with me--and my daughter seemed to freeze her gaze with determination – sizing up the potential of my nipple staring her straight in the face. I was about to let her give it a try, having recalled an article I read about a new father who spontaneously started lactating in the extended absence of his wife, when I realized that I had lost my mind.

Only a year earlier, my wife had clearly lost hers – as a friend put it so aptly, dealing with a pregnant wife was like “the 5th circle of wifepregnantcomplainingabouteverythingsux baby hell.” Now it was apparent that we had shared more than just pregnancy weight gain. The only difference was that after nine months, she left her weight and straightjacket behind in the delivery ward, and I was still stuck wheel barrowing mine around a white padded room. “we are pregnant”— that used to sound like new age B.S. me. But staring at myself in the mirror, 30 pounds overweight, newly self-deprived of all my body hair, a bowling ball for a belly, and holding a newborn child I had the momentary pretense of nursing myself, I must admit that I was somewhat forced to re-consider my prior position. Perhaps we, indeed, had been pregnant. My prior life seemed, officially, over.

Two glasses of local Chianti over-looking the Tuscan countryside turned to two breast pumps (one stationary and one backpack) surrounded by two kinds of diapers, six kinds of creams (my favorite being Boudreaux’s Butt Paste), scented and unscented wipes, six sets of sanitized baby bottles standing at attention (medium-sized nipples, please), three kinds of formula (normal, lactose-free, and hypoallergenic), and three strollers in the entryway – one for the car seat, one for naps, and one for short errands. Late night movies curled up together on the couch turned to everything that squeaks, blinks, brrrhs, honks, crinkles, crunches, whizzes, whirls, squishes, and beeps. Every surface, nook and cranny transformed into a changing table (except, of course, for the actual changing table). I had gone from being lavished with love and attention to the guy whose most important role was making sure there was an endless supply of green cabbage to soothe my wife’s engorged breasts (old school remedy, apparently). Romantic candlelit evenings, uninterrupted embraces, tender lazy mornings in bed, and dreams of exotic travel – gone, or at least indefinitely sidelined. The baby was the most important thing, and my wife seemed to run our daughter’s schedule the way Mussolini ran the trains in Italy. No time, no space, and no room to breathe—for any of us. life was a bit of a deflated balloon, and I was depressed.

In a country that has been so successful medicalizing everything from Attention deficit disorder (a.k.a. you are stupid) to Genetic obesity disorder (a.k.a. you are fat) to Body dysmorphic disorder (a.k.a. you are ugly – or think you are), and crafting prescription drugs to “cure” them, I figured there had to be something out there that converted “post-pregnancy-life-sucks” into a treatable disease.

And there it was in black-and-white on the computer screen – after a few Google searches I found myself looking at Male Postpartum depression, or “PPd” for those in the know. According to wikipedia, “PPd is a form of clinical depression which can affect women, and less frequently men, after childbirth.” Apparently, 10% of new fathers can be severely affected.

I read through the exhaustive list of symptoms. It felt just like reading a horoscope – general enough to include just about anyone on the planet but specific enough to be convinced that this disease was hand-crafted just for me.

Decreased sex drive – check. Any man who has watched a baby come out of his wife’s you-know-what cannot look you straight in the face and claim he doesn’t have nightmares about being chased around the room in horror by an angry vulva every time confronted thereafter by a vagina—presumably his wife’s. Every time I founded myself trying to whisper sweet-nothings in my wife’s ear, in the hopes of finally having a sultry moment alone ”wwwaaaaAAAAAhhh!” and my wife would go running into the other room, leaving me staring into the distance wondering where it all went wrong. once, in the heat of passion, I felt someone looking at me only to turn around to see my infant staring quizzically with her bright blue eyes at my heaving back-side. reminded me of the time I ate a bad peanut on the airplane and got food poisoning – put me off peanuts for months.

Once I had that one down, everything flowed easily from there—sad, hopeless, empty, easily frustrated, spells of anger, and increased anxiety – sextuple check. At first glance, obviously I felt this way. I mean, the last time I had this little sex was during the period of my life that spanned from birth to just before I lost my virginity. however, the real explanation was that our entire life together had been turned upside down, and there seemed to be not even a glimmer of hope in sight.

Others were equally easy—I was neither exhausted nor had sleeping disturbances nor had low energy. My wife mercifully excused me from night duty with the baby. But I made up for it by feeling guilty about the whole arrangement (guilt is another symptom), so check. Social withdrawal – you with children know that you have no time for anyone or anything once the little one arrives. But if I had any doubts, I realized that once all of my friends read about how I considered nursing my daughter, I wasn’t going out to socialize for a while. Check. Inadequate taking care of the baby—this one didn’t seem so concerning to me. Clearly accurate, and a point of great concern to my wife, but I didn’t see that as a problem. So check, yet again.

I was clearly seriously ill. I could check almost all of these boxes – maybe I needed a doctor. did I have a temperature? Maybe there was something to that fortune cookie I ate about a year ago. “You will have a big change in your life.” No shit.

Now onto potential cures. If they had figured out a diagnosis and cure for being fat, ugly, and stupid, surely they had found a way to deal with my particular “ailment”. And there it was in wikipedia: psychotherapy, group psychotherapy (so glad they made the distinction), medication, healthy diet, and consistent sleep. I was already sleeping quite well, thank you (albeit the guilt was overwhelming), and my wife was feeding me over-generously. As for psychotherapy – the last time I saw a shrink, I spent one hour talking non-stop, he didn’t say a word, and I left him a check for $150. Group therapy—I wasn’t about to spend my hard-earned money to listen to someone else bitch about their problems. So the only thing left seemed to be drugs – anti-depressants. After some research, I decided that I would rather be depressed—apparently anti-depressants can lead to weight gain and sexual dysfunction, and I was already over-allocated in those departments.

For the past eight months, each of our daughter’s farts, burps, bowel movements, cries, laughs, smiles, grimaces and babbling has been a source of great joy or consternation for my wife – her happiness hangs in the balance every time she opens our daughter’s diaper. literally. And each time I do my best to match her enthusiasm or anxiety, depending on what the occasion calls for. “Sweetheart, her pooh is a perfect mustard yellow!” Mustard yellow, I think, to myself – that is good, right? “wonderful, sweetheart. That makes me very happy.” Now what was I watching on television? Male post-partum depression is another one of these made-up diseases that moonlights for reality. we men are not meant to do a standing ovation for a bowel movement, unless it happens to be one of our own.

My wife has moved on to a happy new reality – she is in love with being a mother (and luckily, because it is not that way for all mothers). her relationship with our daughter seems to be sufficient to make up for any voids that she might otherwise feel professionally or, in the case of our relationship, personally. I, on the other hand, seem somewhat less satisfied in my exclusive and newfound role as the husky and celibate guardian of the basement storage containing the rations of formula and diapers.

In retrospect, it might have been better to be fat, ugly, and stupid – at least they seem to have a cure for that. Maybe there will be a light at the end of the tunnel at some point, and until then I will just keep hanging on by the fingernails of hope.