Life in Momma’s Belly

June 20, 2012 by Jonalyn

In one of the long afternoons this week I kicked the beach ball around the yard with my son remembering how he once kicked my belly from the inside. The repetition of play meant I had time to ask God a few questions. I wanted God to help me figure out a good metaphor for women’s bodies after pregnancy.

When I was pregnant I would lovingly hold my swelling belly, like there was a treasure inside. I was proud of its size. And it got fairly large. See…

Even in this picture of a very lop-sided me, can you see how proud I am?

I had Finn on 3-2-10 and wrote about it over ten posts because I was proud of the way I delivered all 9.12 lbs of him.

Now, with a two year old, I’ve written off and on about my body, particularly my stomach, since then (How Tina Fey Helped me Love My Body, Thighs and Curly Girls, Flat).

All Mommas know our stomachs will never be quite the same. Even if you get really strong there’s skin that just won’t snap back.

It’s harder to tenderly rub and admire that post-pregnancy belly.

There’s isn’t a new life inside, instead my tummy bears the signs that it’s the sloughed-off skin that once held life. But doesn’t anymore.

This is why I got talking to God. And I got an idea…. okay I’ll credit it to him (with some inspiration from Kathleen Norris)

Ever notice the taught beauty of an orange slice? The way the skin bursts with juice ready to run down our throats? Sometimes seeds will be lodged in the crown of the slices. I’ll often pop them out before eating.

The orange is now ready to eat, but the sleeve is no longer tight. The skin sags where it once held a seed; a memory of the life and potential for more oranges.

You could plant that seed.

You could see the sagging skin as proof that the orange gave up some tightness to start another tree with hundreds more oranges for others to enjoy,

But if you forget that the orange held a seed, and is even designed to hold seeds for more life, you’d start to think that flappy skin is pretty… ugly.

Why do we want our pre-pregnancy bodies “back”?

Why do we want to whip up the sagging pouch of tummy to erase the life/s we used to hold.

Why can’t we treasure the worn tummies that were once a home?

I practice touching my tummy every time I notice it bulging more loosely around my belt.

I touch it with a loving acceptance, willing my fingers to practice what I’m working my mind to accept.

I keep a photograph of a young girl

reading cross-legged

under cottonwoods,

her belly still flat, not yet a fruit

split open, the child shining

in its membrane

like a pomegranate seed.

from “Housecleaning” by Kathleen Norris in The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work”

To read more about the magnificent challenge to accept our bodies, see RubySlippers’ most popular post Flat: Pre and Post Pregnancy Body.

S.B.

Why do we want to whip up the sagging pouch of tummy to erase the life/s we used to hold.

Why can’t we treasure the worn tummies that were once a home?

I think it’s very simple, generally men find toned, flat, tight skin more attractive than loose/flabby hanging skin.

That’s just the way it currently works. Most men will think this way.

It’s not that you cannot treasure it it’s just one is generally considered more attractive than the other. Just like a grandmother with all her wrinkles, she may not be attractive anymore but she has stories to tell and wisdom to share.

A father that has possibly saved his child from a burning fire and as a result has scars. The scars are not nice to look at or attractive but the child will know the meaning behind them.

In the world’s view younger in shape bodies are more attractive. But no one can stay young forever we will all age and become ugly.

If you are young and ugly that is not your fault if you are old and ugly that IS your fault.
- Jonalyn
  
  S.B.
  
  I think you are missing the point. This post is attempting to change culture, our thinking (even if simply changing mother’s own beliefs about the desirability of their post pardum bodies) our value of the physical signs of baby carrying for 9 months.
  
  To compare a woman’s post pardum stomach to an elderly woman or a burn victim seems inappropriate. According to Scripture, women’s bodies are designed to carry life, but we were never designed to die or be burned.
  
  I believe we have more responsibility to value and even find the beauty of a woman’s body before and after birth because The whole process makes life possible. Isn’t that worth some culture changing work?
  
  I can no longer accept the world’s boring parameters for beauty and sex appeal. Sexy is bigger than that if we can simply pay attention.
Danielle

MMMM, very good. I saw a maternity tank top today at Mother and Child store that read, ” I Grow People.” I guess I need one that reads, “this belly grew three people”;)
- Jonalyn
  
  Great line, Danielle.
  You can buy this T-shirt here: http://www.cafepress.com/mf/19844438/maternity-tshirt-i-grow-people_maternity
  I Grow People
  What’s Your super power?
http://thebebebirds.blogspot.com Brooke

This is a really neat metaphor…the orange bit. I’m not a mother (yet) but I already worry about the post baby belly (because let’s face it, my ore baby belly’s not much to write home about!) but to remind yourself that it was a hone and not just a body part is so encouraging. That’s a bookmark in my head now

Brooke

thebebebirds.blogspot.com
- Jonalyn
  
  Thankful to be bookmarked. Glad you shared!
http://www.jennyraearmstrong.com/2012/06/12/rape-drugs-roadside-stands-and-human-trafficking-there-are-no-innocent-bystanders/ Tim

“When I was pregnant I would lovingly hold my swelling belly, like there was a treasure inside.” There was, wasn’t there? And the way you describe playing with the beach ball, kicking it around the yard, reminds me of playing with my own kids when they were that age, and that’s something to treasure too.

You know, Jonalynn, I look at my wife now that our kids are grown and can’t imagine wanting her to look like she did when we first got married. She’s a real cutie-patootie to this day! (Yes, I use words like “cutie-patootie”.)

Tim

P.S. Aimee Byrd just posted a guest piece I did about singing praises off key: http://www.housewifetheologian.com/singers-arent-only-ones-who-can-sing/
Hope you and other RS folks can go check out her blog, because it’s another excellent place for godly thinking!
kat d

With my previous pregnancies, I would hide my post partum body from hubby thinking he’d be grossed out and find it unattractive. With my last pregnancy, just days after giving birth, I changed into my pjs in front of hubby, stripping naked before dressing again. I proudly let him see my post partum body, belly still quite large, yet now jiggly from a womb not yet shrunk and guts still displaced. He may not have found it lust-worthy and sexy, but he found me irresistibly beautiful, womanly and desireable.
- Jonalyn
  
  I absolutely love this. Thank you for sharing!
Mandy

Good one! I am totally encouraged. We can teach a future generation of men that a woman with a no longer taut belly is bearing a badge of honor that itself is beautiful. We can take back what determines beauty from men (and some women) who haven’t walked through the experience of pregnancy, post partum blues, and who establish unfair expectations and rules on women and our bodies out of selfishness. Women aren’t things to be used and then discarded when we’re not the way we were when we were brand new. Each new phase of life is part of a metamorphosis – stages to be treasured. There is a beautiful organic and soulful quality about stages of life, and the knowledge and wisdom that comes from each one. I saw a woman walking on the sidewalk the other day in a sari, with dark wrinkled skin, wisdom in her eyes that matched the life showing in her face. I saw a book recently with photographs of all different ethnic women at all ages showing the richness of all stages of life.
I think often that God didn’t give men the ability to bear children along with the physical strength because their arrogance would convince them that they didn’t need us women, but the more I learn about the power of true femininity, I think God created balance in giving men the greater strength, so they can be blessed by it the same way we are blessed by our ability to bear children (medical science of hormones and gynecology aside).
http://www.retrodish.blogspot.com Alicia

Jonalyn! I don’t know when you originally wrote this post but I have been having such similar thoughts in the last few weeks!! I was at the pool recently and looking around I noticed that all the other moms looked just like me! It was in that moment that I started thinking–maybe instead of hating ourselves we should be proud that our bodies bare a permanent reminder of the life we carried inside of us. The thought felt good and I have been continuing to process the fact that I LIKE that my body will never be the same since carrying Eben inside of me. I like that the fact that I will never be the same again touches me even to the point of changing my physical self. How could I loathe something that gave me the ability to carry and birth my son?!? (Medication free and out of a hospital I might add!) Thanks for these thoughts. Good to know there are other women out there trying to honor their post-pregnancy bodies.

Not to be redundant but…This is the post I left on a friend’s wall a little over a week ago (after she posted about bathing suit shopping a few weeks after having her first child):

It is true. Your body will never be the same. I have recently been processing the fact that the existence of my son has changed my life in every way–and maybe I am even thankful for the fact that my body is marked by my ability to have carried him in my womb and it now bares the physical marks of that fact. It’s something that is empowering to me, on a good day. The other days it is just hard. I think it’s something women should be talking about more with each other. It’s sad to me that instead of encouraging one another we judge (a sad reality of living in a world overwhelmed by models and airbrushing). Trying to embrace and love my post-pregnancy body is something that is newer to me. It actually occurred to me the other day at the pool when I saw quite a few women who were there with their kiddos and realized we all had “trouble areas” in the same places–maybe our bodies weren’t meant to ever fully “recover” from pregnancy. I’ve just been trying to think about the beauty of that.
- Katie
  
  Alicia, from what you’ve written above I thought you might enjoy this article: http://www.shaunaniequist.com/blog/2012/7/2/swimsuit-ready-or-not.html.
  
  I’m a smallish person, but I still feel self-conscious when I’m in a bathing suit and my cellulite and, shall we say, “lack-of-tone” can be so clearly seen. Just loved her calling it out for what it is: feeling ashamed because of all the ridiculous societal pressure. “I’m going to live in the body that God made me, not because it’s perfect but because it’s mine…I’m not going to hide. I’m not going to bow out of things I love to do because I’m afraid people won’t love me…”. Love that.
  - Jonalyn
    
    Wouldn’t it be a cool exercise to write publicly about the things we love about our bodies?! To be bold about how our lips and hips, breasts and thighs all bring glory to God–now, after pregnancy or now, before pregnancy… whichever place we live in.
    - Katie
      
      YES. That reminds me of so many conversations I had at Wheaton about modesty and sexuality. Attempting to remember (and remind others of) elementary notions like:
      
      1) my *body* is not the problem
      2) it’s okay if someone can tell I have breasts
      
      The theatre ensemble was a life-giving community for me that helped redeem my perspective. Both in celebrating the body as not merely sexual, as well as celebrating its sexuality as a good thing (within appropriate parameters) instead of fearing it.
      
      Additionally, I had some wonderful professors who helped shaped that conversation by asking good questions. Are you familiar with any of Lisa McMinn’s writing? I’ll bet you would really enjoy her.
      - Jonalyn
        
        Katie,
        
        Amen, sister.
        
        This is the huge issue when modesty gets shrunken into concealment. Modesty is much more.
        
        And our bodies, our breasts, our legs and eyes and necks etc are not the problem… they are gifts, they communicate beauty and grace and hope that God loves bodies and made them, and lived in one.
        
        I’d love to hear a book recommendation of McMinn.. I”ve read a little of her.
        
        Btw, you MUST get Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions by Dan Brennan, all about the possibility and goodness of male/female friendships! Life changing book for me!
        
        Katie
        
        Somehow I totally missed this reply from you! Must have forgotten to check the box. Your blog tease today reminded me of this exchange, so I came back…
        
        McMinn’s Sexuality and Holy Longing is quite good (though I must confess I’ve read portions, but not the whole thing). I loved Growing Strong Daughters as well (although it’s been about a decade now since I read it). She was one of my main professors in the Sociology department. I took Gender, Advanced Gender, Human Sexuality, and a couple other courses from her. I loved her thoughtful and engaging questions, and the way she could both challenge people and put them at ease.
        
        I’ve noticed your gusto for Dan Brennan’s book, and I must admit you have me curious! It’s a subject I’m rather intrigued by, particularly in the church. Did you know of his work before, or were you introduced through his April Her.meneutics article?
        
        Jonalyn
        
        I’ll be reviewing Brennan’s book on here this summer. I knew of him through Jim Henderson who wrote Resignation of Eve. He introduced me to Brennan’s work.
        
        Your class titles make me jealous. I would love to have taken those classes. Is this an area you’ve thought/written/read much after your classes?
        
        Thanks for the book rec, too!
- Jonalyn
  
  Alicia,
  
  I originally wrote that just a few weeks ago! I’m glad you shared your thoughts here.
  
  That all (most?) moms look like us is great material to accept. I have a theory that the way we look, from body shape to clothes and shoes are codes for the world. We code people to know how to classify us before we even open our mouths.
  
  For instance:
  
  Tall heels – available
  clogs – no nonsense
  flip-flops – laid back
  any flats – probably mom
  
  So when I see the midriffs on women with children relaxed enough to not be taut I can say something like “I get her body. I have that too.”
  Identifying, understanding, relating… this is what acceptance is about: acceptance of our post-life body and acceptance of our friends and acquaintances who have a womb showing the life it’s held.
  
  I think I’d like to think and write more about what “recovering” from pregnancy really means. What and how far do we want our recovering to go? And is that a word that fits the process? or does “recovering” suggest that pregnancy was a disease?
  
  By the way, congrats on your medical free birth. I went the same route, but in the hospital. Have you read my story here?
Erin

Jonalyn, I read this blog entry a few months back when it was first written – months before my own body would be carrying a treasure inside. As I write this, I’m slightly over 8 weeks pregnant, and although this is something my husband and I have both dreamed of and worked towards for approximately half of our 4-year-long marriage, I was so unprepared for the anxiety I would be feeling about how my body would change.

I’ve been talking through the anxiety and nerves with my husband and also with a close friend of mine who had her first child around 15 months ago, and their perspectives and support have been huge. There’s such a discouraging amount of importance that celebrity culture places on the ‘post baby bod reveal’. There’s such a harsh scrutiny that applies and is somehow okay – whether a mommy is gaining too much weight with her pregnancy or if she’s losing it fast enough. (Fast enough for who?! She was carrying a HUMAN BABY inside of her body for 9 months! Why do we think it should take less time to ‘bounce back’, and why do we want our bodies to look like it never happened?). I think of Jessica Simpson and how she was lambasted for getting so ‘fat’ or ‘huge’ during her pregnancy, and now – just a short four months later – there’s a tremendous amount of pressure on her to shrink back down. One critical headline I saw a few weeks back at the grocery store was how she ‘cheated’ on her post baby bod reveal by wearing two pairs of Spanx and cleverly applied makeup. It grieves me that pregnant women in our culture fall victim to the same public scrutiny.

All that to say, baby body anxiety is something I’m praying through and talking about with my (wonderful, loving, admiring, supportive) husband, and revisiting this article as I gear up for some pretty big changes was such a blessing. Thank you for loving your body and writing about it!
- Jonalyn
  
  Erin,
  
  I’m so excited for you and this growing life in you.
  
  Tomorrow I’ll be posting an updated, longer story of my journey to accept my body after my baby, to stop comparing myself to previous versions of myself, to notice what my body does 3-D. I hope you’ll read it and add it to your arsenal to fire away on these toxic ideas that celebs (and therefore all of us) ought to pretend the baby thing never happened.
  
  I’m glad you shared so vulnerably here. My favorite line “She was carrying a HUMAN BABY” exactly right, not a baby bird or a baby ant, a baby with poundage, muscle and life.
  
  Thanks for writing in!

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