To be honest, I had completely unrealistic expectations of how quickly I’d get back into my pre-pregnancy clothes after having my son Thomas.

I was so convinced that I’d be trotting out in a pair of size 12 jeans within weeks of having him that I ruthlessly bagged up all my maternity clothes bar one pair of trousers and sent them up north to a pregnant friend virtually before I’d unpacked my hospital bag.

I’d spent the best part of the last four months buying unrealistically titchy, trendy clothes off eBay, having visions of meeting friends for coffee looking all straightened hair and sleek in them.

The reality, of course, is that I had a baby less than a month ago and my body is unrecognisable.

I’ve got boobs that fluctuate from being Lolo Ferrari-size to resembling empty rubber gloves, depending on where we are in the feeding cycle, a stomach that I can squeeze into a donut and stretchmarks that no amount of Bio Oil is ever going to fix.

I tried on a pair of my old jeans and managed, with a lot of brute strength, to pull them halfway up my thighs before giving up and having to seek assistance to get them off again.

The thing is, when pregnant, everyone was like, ‘Wow, you’re just bump, aren’t you?’, ‘You don’t look like you’ve put on any weight other than the baby,’ etc.

Now, I’d put on the best part of three-and-a-half stone through pregnancy, and I’m no mathematician, but I think if that was all baby, then this would be a child worthy of the Guinness Book of Records.

So, the maternity jeans had become a wardrobe staple post-birth, until I bent down too enthusiastically to pick up Daddy Pig from under the sofa and heard the rip.

I was loath to buy any new clothes that were bigger than my pre-baby size, but couldn’t go around in a pair of basically crotchless trousers.

So a depressing mercy trip to town was called for. I spent 10 minutes in a changing room with a double buggy whilst repeatedly asking the shop assistant to bring me larger and larger sizes of 90% elastic jeggings until I managed to pour myself into a pair three sizes bigger than I ‘normally’ wear.

I was feeling more than a bit mardy about it, when it suddenly dawned on me.

I want my daughter to grow up believing she can do anything. That she’s a strong, beautiful woman.

Not to be influenced by photoshopped models in glossy magazines, or aspire to look like miserable celebrities who are three quarters Botox.

Yet here am I, weeks after giving birth to her brother, whingeing on about how my body’s changed. Well, of course it has! Whose wouldn’t after growing two human beings?

I just need to keep that in mind and remember that if I’m looking a bit battle-scarred at the moment, then so be it. The jeans can wait.

Read Anna’s blog at youcantakeherhomenow.co.uk and catch up with her here next week