About five years ago, my partner and I were sitting in church next to a church elder who is a divinely-inspired intuitive. She looked over at us and gave my partner a bit of wisdom and then turned to me. She said, “your dream to become pregnant will come true. It will be easy to get pregnant, but once you’re pregnant you will have a really hard time dealing with weight gain. You’ll feel uncomfortable in your skin and you should take time now to figure out how you will deal with that.”
While I thought her advice to my partner was spot on, I knew her advice to me was hogwash. She was saying the things people often say to thin people: “Wait til you get pregnant/hit 40/get stressed. Then you’ll need to watch what you eat!” You see, I’ve always been thin and have always eaten more than anyone I know to maintain what for most of my life was an unhealthy underweight state. I couldn’t gain weight at all until I hit my late 20s/early 30s and finally got to a healthy state and rejoiced at not being sick all the time, not catching cold after cold, and not being constantly tired. I acknowledged that I would gain some weight, but I thought I’d be like my similarly-shaped tall, thin cousin and gain a basketball-sized baby belly and that was it. Plus, I was a feminist, damn it! Women at every size are beautiful! I loved the body I had at that moment and I knew no matter how much I gained, I would love my pregnant body, just as I encouraged all around me to love their bodies for the amazing works of wonder that they are, whatever size, color, shape, or arrangement.
And then I got pregnant. And she was right. It was easy getting pregnant…and I did have an incredibly hard time dealing with the weight gain. Very early in my pregnancy – like week 3! – my body changed overnight and in ways that were totally unexpected to me. My thighs, arms, face, and butt doubled or tripled in size. I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror anymore. And I didn’t like it…and I didn’t like myself for not liking it. “What happened to loving everything about myself?” I asked. “Where is that woman-powered spirit that encourages others to love the skin and body they are in? Why can’t I find that for my body in the shape it’s in right now?” I cried!
I couldn’t find peace within this new body. And no one understood that my sadness was 95% about the hypocrisy of being disappointed in my own reaction to my new body. I felt like a hypocrite of the highest order. And I really needed to figure out a way beyond it.
That period of time in my life really forced me to question my beliefs and be truly honest with myself. In the absence of an experience, it’s easy to say that we should be proud of our bodies or culture or skin color or level of ability. But then when something changes that tests those convictions, we are all called upon to live our beliefs to the best of our abilities. I stumbled mightily in those early months of my pregnancy. It took a lot of soul searching to figure out what I needed to do to get back around to loving and accepting myself. It took some “acting as if” to face “helpful” comments from loved ones, like “you know you’re going to have to lose all that weight eventually, right? You might want to watch how much you gain!” I had to respond to those “loving” comments with “I love my new body and think it’s beautiful at any size!” even if I wasn’t believing it myself, until I could believe it myself. And I got there. And it didn’t happen when I had the baby and lost the weight – it happened while I was still pregnant and at my heaviest – I gained 90 pounds during my pregnancy. And I loved that body! I loved it for the amazing work of wonder that it was at that exact moment. And I actually loved it more that I had ever before.
Now that I’ve had my little girl, my body is still not the one I had before. It’s different and strange in so many ways, but I love it. And I love the ability I’ve found to be honest and acknowledge to myself that sometimes, with honest intentions, I’m just talking the talk, but when it comes down to it, I’ll be able to follow it up with a walk that I can respect and be proud of.
