Disclaimer: I am NOT, under any circumstances, a fan of Kim Kardashian.

Okay, now that I have made that absolutely clear… I decided I am on Team Kim. Wait, whaaaaaaaa?

Let me explain.

I accidentally watched an episode of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” yesterday. And by accidentally I mean I was shamelessly turning on the E! network to see if Giuliana Rancic was reporting any groundless speculation on the tragic death of Cory Monteith from “Glee.” But “Kardashians” was on instead, and I had already put the remote down and started folding laundry. So “Kardashians” it was. Among the many gripping topics covered on the program was Kim’s weight gain during her pregnancy.

Now, I may not be a big fan of Kim, and I may not be one of the thousands actually keeping up with the Kardashians. But I do love me some Joel McHale, and thankfully he keeps me abreast of all I really need to know about them on “The Soup.” That means I am quite aware of the backlash Kim K. received over her pregnancy weight gain, and a quick glance at the internet revealed multitudes of articles devoted to how, when, or if she will be able to lose all that weight now that she has given birth to the most unfortunately named baby in all of recorded history.

So for the first (and possibly last) time ever, I will say these words: Thank you, Kim Kardashian. Thank you for a being a woman in the public eye who became pregnant and turned into the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man just like I did, instead of being one of those preggo starlets who simply looks like a snake that has swallowed its prey whole. Thank you for having cankles and for being worried you will never get your body back to the way it was before, instead of being one of those women who only looks pregnant from the side and brings her pre-pregnancy skinny fit jeans as her “going home from the hospital” outfit. It really is nice to see that even the bodies of “beautiful people” don’t always look so airbrushed in real life, and those of us folding laundry at home in stretchy pants can breathe a sigh of relief that we aren’t the only ones whose legs turn into stretch-marked sausages while pregnant.

And to the media: Lay off a girl, will ya? I know bloated faces and blubbery stomachs aren’t what you are used to seeing, but it’s actually the norm. That might be shocking, I realize. In all of my baby shower photos during my first pregnancy, my face doesn’t just look like a chipmunk, it looks like I’m storing a few of them in my cheeks. And most women never fully lose all of their baby weight. Even those who do aren’t likely to have bodies ready for the Victoria Secret runway. Hardly anything returns to its former glory. Mind you, I am not trying to hate on the women (most of whom conveniently ended up in Hollywood) who are able to keep the pregnancy weight gain to a minimum and who are able to bounce back either through gifted genetics, hard work, or a combination of both. I am just saying that there is no reason to blatantly point out that Kim Kardashian is NOT one of these women. Because after conditioning women for years into thinking that the pregnancies and post-pregnancies of celebrities like Demi Moore and Heidi Klum are beautiful and normal, then portraying someone like Kim Kardashian as a sort of Hollywood failure, the media does a funny little thing. It makes people like me look at Kim K. and, for a moment, believe she has done something wrong. She must be lazy. She must be giving into her pregnancy cravings a little too much. Ugh. Look at all the extra junk in her trunk. The Duchess of Cambridge is a much cuter preggo…

And just like that, I have bought into the myth: the myth that even in pregnancy, women must adhere to an ideal. And those who don’t are somehow to blame. And that means me. I’m to blame. Me and Kim Kardashian and our ballooning butts and our bloated cankles. Shame on us for gaining a lot of weight while pregnant. Shame, shame, shame. I guess we are those women Gisele Bundchen referred to when she said, “I think a lot of people get pregnant and decide they can turn into garbage disposals.” All hail the supermodel and her perfect pregnancy. I’m just going to go find a tent dress and camp out in a fully stocked pantry somewhere.

The craziest thing is, I haven’t been pregnant for five years, and I can still feel bad about my pregnancy and post-pregnancy body when I see it represented on a celebrity who is getting slack for hers. It’s silly. I shouldn’t feel bad about it. And neither should Kim Kardashian.

So the moral of the story is this. You can blame Kim Kardashian for the demise of television. You can blame her for making Kanye West the father of anyone. But don’t blame her for being like so many women across the country who pack it on during pregnancy. And for the love of Ryan Seacrest, let her lose the weight without commentary from the peanut gallery. Me and Kim K., we’re kind of like bloated belly sisters. I got her back. *Resisting the urge to make a butt joke….resisting….re…sis…ting…there. It passed. I deserve a pat on Kim’s badonkadonk. Crap. That one just slipped in.*

Now, when Kim flaunts her post-baby body in a skimpy bikini on the cover of some magazine in a few months, I request to be traded to a different team. Because I’m still not in bikini shape, and I don’t need her on my bench making me feel bad about it.

** snake photo from http://cauldronsandcupcakes.com/2013/01/18/everyone-has-their-problems/

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