This belly held a piece of the universe

“I want to take a family beach trip,” I kept telling my husband. It stood for so much more than putting my feet in a large body of water and getting a good tan. Traditions. I was desperate to start traditions. I wanted the different seasons to come with rhythms of anticipation for my son. I wanted part of our summer tradition to be piling into cars and driving to the beach with grandparents, aunts, and (someday) cousins. For my 29th birthday, my in-laws granted my wish. They were taking us to the beach. It would be our 3-month-old son’s first trip.

It rained much of the weekend, which did nothing to derail my parade. This year it wasn’t really about the beach. It was about getting away from that blessed purple glider where I spent 20 hours of the day rocking and nursing my son. I could feel the salty air exfoliating the weeks of spit-up and new parent anxiety off my heart. I could feel the lightness of the small space that I occupied in the wonder of the world. The ocean, or even a gulf, has a way of making your worries smaller as your awareness is elevated to something much bigger. In this case, that gulf of water and the life that swirled underneath and all around it turned all those wet diapers into poetry. No, really. I wrote,

Blue strip on the horizon line as the storm clears

Blue strip on Guider’s diaper washed away to white

 The glorious loofah of travel sloughing off all the dried-up, scratchy, tired ways we look at the world. It worked its magic. 

We walked across the street to the beach long enough to learn the disastrous combination of babies, salty waves, and sand, and when the rain broke through again, we retreated to the hotel room. I pulled up the copious photos that documented the 120 seconds we were on the beach. I could already imagine my son looking at these photos forty years later and smiling about how happy we all looked and how clearly we all loved and delighted in him. 

I loved these photos. It was the first time I took my baby to the sea and dipped his toes in the waves and let him kick in the sand. Our first trip as a family. Loved them. Except for one thing: my belly. It’s what people call “the c-section shelf”. Where otherwise you might have a gradual sloping from your navel down, your c-section incision at your pubic bone acts like a pair of jeans that are too tight and pushes up all your belly fat. Your belly hangs over this point of tension. It’s like a muffin top in the front. A muffin front. Like a muffin that had too much batter poured into the tin, and when it came out of the oven, it had a fluffy overhanging on one side. This is not the scientific explanation. And, yes, this is exactly what I look for when selecting a muffin but not what I desire as an analog to my body. 

Back to the photos. I did what we all do. I spread my fingers on the screen and zoomed in. I scrolled side to side.What at first glance appeared to be a beautiful portrait of mother and son became stamped as unusable and unshareable because of my belly pooch. And, oh yeah, that extra skin under my chin. 

“If only I had turned more towards the camera or the wind hadn’t blown in such a way that it made my dress sweep back, contouring my belly in that perfectly horrible way. Why didn’t I stick my head out further so the skin wouldn’t have rounded under my chin?” I made notes to myself of what I would need to do differently the next time we took photos together. 

Reality check. These are beautiful photos of a new mother sharing a new experience with her son. Not even three months have passed since she gave birth. Twelve weeks prior that belly was glorious because it was holding a child, doing some of the most beautiful work that can be done. So now that belly is ugly, something that should be hidden? How unkind can we be to ourselves?

The belly in that photo is still so fresh from birth via c-section that all the feeling hasn’t even returned to it yet. Nerves are still regenerating. That day was only a couple weeks after the last time I found spots of blood on my clothing where my incision slowly healed with a couple of raw “pinholes” and granulated, a fresh wound all over. And yet I fault my body for how it looks now, less than 12 weeks out from major surgery and after being rapidly stretched to new limits for nine months? 

Forget that. This belly held a small piece of the universe. It may never be flat again. That lovely c-section shelf may be there forever. But that belly held a SMALL PIECE OF THE UNIVERSE. Where’s the respect?

That belly so capably held tight a new life for 42 weeks. And that chin is connected to a mouth that sings and smiles and creates animal noises that make this little baby laugh–the most precious reward.

While we’re at it, let’s talk about those thighs. Those strong thighs carried two bodies for miles and miles through neighborhoods, classrooms, exercise trails, and blazing hot parking lots. Those strong upper arms rock and support and balance a 15-pound baby who is learning to balance a wobbly head. Those hands whose fingers are still thicker than their wedding bands cup the wobbly baby head when it jerks suddenly to the side. Those hips? They widened into a safe and secure nest for that baby and then tried to give him enough space to make his way out when he was ready. Never before has this body fully supported not one but TWO moving, learning, strong lives. 

So let’s give that body all the wholesome nutrients it needs to do its important work. And let’s get it in motion to keep it healthy and to make all that dancing, jumping, skipping, and swimming more fun.

Let’s skip the part where we say, “Hey, body, great job with that whole baby growing and keeping baby alive thing, but maybe you could look a little better?”

Let’s appreciate its strength and resilience and adaptability and celebrate ALL the inner and outer inches that allowed this woman to become a mother and this zygote to become a breathing, heart-beating, smiling baby.

And let’s thank God for the wind that blew on the beach that day because not only did that sea breeze feel so wonderful on my face, but it also taught this mama to give herself some grace and to finally show her body some respect.