Now then: for some reason today, a moment from one of my baby showers popped into my head.
A brief aside about baby showers. They are awesome and intimidating. People offer advice, if they have kids, or had lots of siblings or nieces and nephews (which I loved getting--keep it coming, people), or look vaguely as if they are wearing particularly itchy wool skivvies, if they don't. As the pregnant person, I was on both sides of this equation at once: a former dreader of baby showers and all that talk about hoo-has and nipples, and yet the person desparate for advice and craving people's MOST horrifying birth and baby stories. If you needed 800 stitches in your nether bits, I was the person who wanted to hear ALL about it. In detail. All the sentimental parts of the baby shower--well, that still made me a little nauseated (except for opening presents. I don't care what anyone says. Presents are always good, so sit your ass down and watch me open 300 different onesies, bitches). For me, all the sentiment happened after she was born.
Anyway, so there I am, being all ambivalent and trying to think of nice ways to cajole people into telling me awful stories about their kids, when someone asked me what was the best part about being pregnant. I was literally unable to say anything for a ridiculously long time. And not because I hated being pregnant or anything (although really, enough with the peeing).
So I had to corral my frenzied brain to answer this serious question. I thought really hard. Was it the blissful glow of pregnancy? No. Decidedly not. In fact, I realized I had not thought about this at all, although I had bitched about virtually every aspect of the experience, from not being able to sleep on my back (NOT cool, baby), to giving up wine (mostly), to wearing maternity pants (which are clearly made by the devil). So what was it that I liked?
And then it came to me. I had been watching some ridiculous Entertainment Tonight-like show, and the ubiquitous go-feel-bad-about-the-size-of-your-ass-because-this-celebrity-works-out-8-times-per-week-and-eats-one-almond-per-day segment came on. I usually flip channels at this point, and I did the same that day. But the feeling I had at that moment was one of liberation instead of fleeting shame. I realized that I was removed--temporarily, to be sure--from this obsession with weight and appearance. I was exempt. I was exempt because I couldn't possibly worry about getting thinner or why I wasn't doing anything to get thinner, or critiquing myself for worrying about getting thinner. It was like I could shut out of my brain a whole part of the world. And it felt delicious.
During my pregnancy, I went to the gym probably 3-5 days per week, and walked the dogs almost every day too. I ate pretty well, largely because inside-Nola was not terribly interested in food, beyond demanding that I eat a doughnut after most workouts, and telling me stoutly to fuck off if I even considered eating rice. In essence, I was probably healthier during my pregnancy, and I had nothing to really feel bad about--but that wasn't even the point. The point was that when I went to the gym, it wasn't about how my pants fit, it was about what I wanted my body to be able to do: at first, I wanted to make sure I wouldn't be completely disabled by my pregnancy at 39 weeks, and later, I wanted to make sure my body would be able to kick labor's ass.
What drove me to the gym was not what I wished to look like, but my desire to be strong for delivery.
It's not that I don't like the gym--I really do. But there's so much icky crap invested in our perceptions of "health." And I could just blow all that off when I was pregnant.
After this conversation at my baby shower, I became acutely aware of this sensation, and reveled in my new dismissal of body-shame culture, as I silently did a count-down to when I would have to start worrying about how long it would take me to "get my body back."
Gross. This is a phrase I hate. I love what my body was able to do when I was pregnant. It was always mine. I just shared it for a little while with this stunning little person.
So last week at the gym, an older gentleman stopped me to tell me how great I look. It wasn't creepy or anything--he actually witnessed a contraction shoot down my belly when I was pregnant and doing reverse curls, and was one of the only men at the gym who ever acknowledged that I had something going on down below my neck when I was pregnant (most of the older men at our very ritzy gym generally looked horrified and felt certain I would give birth on a weight bench, I think, and handled this by averting their eyes whenever I walked by). His compliment made me feel good--and I was grateful to hear it.
But now it reminds of the sense of my body that I lost when I achieved my fitness goal, ran my marathon, swam my English channel--whatever metaphor best suits 21 hours of contractions followed by shooting a human being out a tiny tiny hole. I want that pregnant sense of self back. I want to love my belly, instead of feeling like I should loudly make declarations about how I still have a little baby (and therefore cannot be judged) whenever I put on spandex.
But to conclude on a happier note. One of the best moments of my life--aside from seeing that amazing little person for the first time--was that first night after she was born. I got to sleep on my back again. And it felt glorious.
This is me doing squats on my due date:
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