This past year I’ve been trying to lose the extra weight brought on by three pregnancies, and I’m very happy to say that I’m only two pounds away from my target weight now. If I lose them by the end of April, I’ll have lost 30 pounds this year. I know, that’s cool, right?

I’m feeling good about the weight loss and the fact that I’m wearing clothes that haven’t seen the light of day in about ten years. I’ve come to terms with the other pregnancy side effects that I can’t fix, too, like the smaller chest and the lingering varicose veins and the weirdly coarser hair. I’m generally happy with the physical side of Lynn these days.

There’s one thing I’m still not over, though, and that’s the loss of my lovely, thin, smooth, shapely belly button. I admit it, I had belly button vanity in my youth. My tummy was never Britney-iffic, if you know what I mean, but it was at least free of stretch marks and relatively flat and there, in the centre of it all, was a lovely oval belly button, the ideal size and shape to be richly coveted by the Japanese.

I knew my belly button was taking a lot of damage during the pregnancies, but I thought that once I lost all the weight and got back to my usual size, it’d return to a relative facsimile of its former self.

Turns out, not so much. Even though I’m the same size that I was before, I’m nowhere near the same shape.

I’m thinner and I’m fitter and my pants fit again, but still…my tummy looks kind of like an empty grocery bag. With streaks on it. And a hideous, giant, stretched-out belly button as its new centrepiece.

I remember those golden, innocent days of youth when my friends and I all swore that we’d never have plastic surgery, that the very idea was repulsive, that we were all going to age gracefully and beautifully and embrace our bodies the way they were. SO easy to say when you’re 17 and unknowingly goddess-like.

I’m still not interested in nose jobs or boob jobs or liposuction, but damn if that tummy tuck isn’t starting to look good. Not that I will ever, ever get one — there is no way my mind could ever justify spending that kind of money on myself. Hell, I can’t even buy myself a pair of shoes unless they are at least 50% off.

(I am so very ready to be a senior citizen.)

Still, I saw Kate from Jon and Kate Plus Eight get one last season, and boy oh boy, the results were so amazing. They transformed her belly area from sack-of-raw-pizza-dough to babies?-what-babies?. Needless to say, her newly flat and smooth belly features a gorgeous, perfect belly button.

And also needless to say, I’m so jealous.

Guess I’ll just have to suck it up and go give all my bikinis to Goodwill.