As I have stated in a previous post, there are moments in motherhood that I was not ready for. From mental strain, to sleep schedules, life as a new mom is tough. There are ways you are going to learn every day, and ways that you are going to fail at too. It all comes with the learning curve. And each journey is different for every individual mother. But one of the things I wasn’t ready for, was the the fight with the mirror that I would have.
I have struggled with body image issues for a good chunk of my life. It always seemed that I was caught in the cross fire of beauty and people were never afraid to share their opinion about it. From a young age I was told about my proportions. “You’re breasts and butt are great, but your waist is too big”, “If you lose weight, you are going to lose your only assets”, “You’re thighs touch, you should work on that”. Every comment and dig at the way that I looked felt like a dart biting into my skin. It ultimately made me uncomfortable in my own flesh and made me hate buying clothes or passing a mirror. Many go through it. When I met my partner, he did what he could to help me understand and assess my body image issues, to make me feel confidant and care about myself more. Taught me to be kinder to myself and I honestly commend him for it. And for a while it worked. Until it didn’t.
Right before I had gotten pregnant with my daughter, I had finally felt something positive about my body. I had been getting more exercise, losing weight in a way that made me comfortable, and I was truly happy with where I was. When I found out I was pregnant, I was ecstatic, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more. But as the months went on, and I got rounder, I wasn’t as excited as an expectant mother should have been. Where everyone else saw a round belly and growing baby, I saw a woman that was getting excessively heavy. I was happy to carry my daughter and knew that the weight I gained was her growing, and needed for the betterment of her. But it still hurt seeing the weight that I had wrestled with for years coming back. By my second trimester I was nice and round, as most mothers tend to be. But one day I looked in the mirror and I didn’t see a glowing woman that was growing life. I saw an ugly woman staring back at me that I didn’t recognize.
From that point on I was extremely uncomfortable looking at myself in the mirror. I did what I could to not do that, which is difficult when you have to brush your teeth, brush your hair or wash your face. To get in and out of the shower without looking was the hardest part for me seeing as the mirror in our bathroom had to be passed to get there. My partner, family and friends constantly told me how beautiful I was. How round and healthy I looked. But I didn’t feel it. I thought they were lying, consistently giving weak smiles and whispered words of appreciation. I still ate when I needed to, because I knew I was doing it to keep my daughter healthy, not for my benefit at that point. As my due date crept closer I was beginning to breathe a sigh of relief. Because one, I would be able to hold my daughter in my arms and I wanted so badly to do so. But also because in my eyes, I would get relief from the person that I saw in the mirror. How wrong I was.
After giving birth, my daughter became my world, wholly and truly. She is my sunshine on a cloudy day and her smile can chase away any doubts. But the mirror still ended up being the enemy. Giving birth, I did lose a good amount of the weight that I had gained, but not everything. On top of that, there is now skin that was overly stretched that had to right itself, stretch marks that marred a good amount of my lower abdomen despite the amount of moisturizing I did during pregnancy. Plus my body felt all out of whack, organs having to go back to their right positions, learning how to do everything all over again because things were finally going back to their rightful place. It all felt like one big mess. At first, I didn’t notice it, but after the first month of my daughters’ life, I had gone to grab a shower, and stupidly looked in the mirror. Breasts full and sagging from milk, fresh stretch marks plastered across my skin in tones of pink and purple, traveling much farther than I had originally realized, and belly fat that shifted in ways that I had never noticed before. I felt like a hot mess. And I cried.
I didn’t want to get undressed around my partner out of worry that he might not find me attractive anymore. It seemed a false notion, but it was still the way my mind worked, and I hated it so much. Many people would come to see us and the baby and would comment about how great I looked, how well I had sprung back, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe them. It all started weighing very heavily on my mind, and then my partner had found a picture with a saying that helped to change my way of thinking, even if just a little bit. It was a picture of water with light reflecting off it, so the light refracted in little lines and curves, sparking dots and dashes that danced across the surface. And the writing compared stretch marks to the way light refracted off moving water. The lines weren’t perfect or pristine, and they reflected in every direction imaginable, but they were still perceived as beautiful. That night was another shower night, and when I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see straggly stretch marks as much anymore. I started to see light refracting off my skin, evidence of the time I carried my daughter for. And how those marks made it, so I could hold my little baby in my arms. Without those marks I wouldn’t have her. And even if just a little, I started to actually like the marks.
As simple as it was, and as small of a gesture, that picture was enough to help change my view on a part of my body. And though it’s still a struggle to see myself fully in the mirror, I am happy that there is a little something that I can see and smile. Nothing is prefect and my view of myself is still all around rough, and I feel like it will be for a while. Hormones are still trying to right themselves and so is my body, it’s still healing. And in time I feel that my view of myself will be healed as well. But, like with many things, it’s a journey. One that will be difficult, and have its ups and downs. But with the right mindset, and a different perspective, I also feel like it will get easier with time. And I will be able to see and love myself again, the way that everyone around me does.
A Day in the Life 