Tuesday, June 18, 2013
This Pregnant Body
This is me. I'm six months pregnant. Can't you tell? Look at that belly! Where did it come from? It's honestly like it wasn't there and then it just was. This is my body now. This is what it looks like.
This is what it looked like when I first got pregnant, before I had a bump:
Those are size 1 bluejeans. I was quite thin. I've spent the vast majority of my life quite thin. My body hasn't changed much from puberty to adulthood. I'm 29 years old and (until recently) I frankly looked about the same as I did when I was 16. I weighed about the same too.
I never had any serious body image issues. I guess that makes me fortunate. I wanted bigger boobs, but other than that I figured my body was what it was and that was all there was to it. I had a healthy attitude about my body, about bodies in general really.
Before I got pregnant I didn't think I could get pregnant. Neither did my doctors. But I always assumed if I did then my healthy attitude about my body would carry over into the pregnancy. I just knew I'd be one of those Mother Goddess type women who gloried in their pregnant bodies, who rocked those baby bumps with pride and knew they were still sexy.
Confession: it didn't carry over and I am apparently not much of a Mother Goddess type. I really wanted the bump. I wanted the big, obvious, look-at-me pregnant belly. I wanted it. I yearned for it, especially during the first four or five months when I was horridly sick with extreme morning sickness and I was losing weight instead of gaining it. In fact, I lost 10 whole pounds. It scared the bejeezus outta me.
Now I am at six months and I have gained exactly 10 pounds--the total number lost. I have this glorious baby bump. I have those big boobs I always wanted too (shocker!). And sometimes I look in the mirror and I am in awe of this pregnant body. Sometimes I look at this bump and I think my god, this is an amazing and beautiful thing!
Sometimes, though, I look at this pregnant body and I think ohmygawd, what happened to MY body?! Where did it go? I look at this stomach that is suddenly not completely flat like it has been my entire life and I stare at it like it's some foreign thing that doesn't belong to me--like it's not my stomach at all.
On days like today I look in the mirror and I find myself thinking oh wow, I look like one of those starving children you see on charity commercials on television. Yes, I know that's absolutely horrible of me. I know those children are suffering from malnutrition and hunger. I feel bad for them. I have donated money to them (when I had it to donate). But that's the analogy that pops into my mind.
On days like this I feel disconnected somehow from my own body--like it's not my body at all. This is not the body I am used to living in. Things hurt that never hurt before. There is constant discomfort and indigestion I never had before. There are headaches and backaches and breast aches that won't go away. My breasts are not the same. My stomach is not the same. I haven't gained much weight anywhere else, but sometimes I get puffy and my feet swell. Even my skin is not the same. It is taut, stretched tight like an unpainted canvas across this marvelous life growing inside me. It is dry and itchy where it was not before. I have acne when I haven't had a single pimple since I was 14 years old, and I have dry skin when I've never had dry skin in my entire 29 years of life! What kind of bipolar body is this?!
For some reason it's not PC to say that. I'm supposed to be some kind of constantly happy pregnant glowing lady who thinks she's freaking supermodel beautiful all day long. I'm supposed to hide these feelings with a smile and swear to the masses I love this body ALL THE TIME.
Well to hell with that. I don't love this body all the time. This body has heartburn. I never even knew what heartburn was until I got this pregnant body. This body has nausea and dizziness and faintness and swelling and itchy skin and sometimes my freaking gums bleed when I brush my teeth, and all my doctors say all of this is "normal" like that's supposed to make it all okay.
So I'm writing about this for all the other pregnant women who look in the mirror and some days find themselves thinking, "What the hell happened to my body?" I am writing this for all the pregnant women who occasionally feel like giant whales and like the least desirable thing on the planet. I am writing this because by god someone else should have written it long before me.
And now that I've written that I would like to say this:
There are other days. There are days when you feel your baby move and you cradle this giant baby bump like it is the most precious, amazing thing on earth....because it is. There are days when you marvel that your heavy, aching breasts are in the process of creating food for the baby you are carrying and you think that is awe inspiring....because it is. There are days when you look in the mirror at your growing, rounded belly and even though your back is aching you think you look like a fertility goddess and it makes you feel powerful and connected to the earth and to life in a way you never have before....because you are. There are days when your baby moves and you know that you are not alone in this body, and somehow you feel more connected to your body than you've ever felt in your entire life....because by god you really are!
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